Rich Erlich, ENG/FST 350
{March 2003}
Annotated Citation and Credits for
The Matrix [I] (1999)
From Clockworks 2: The
Supplement to Richard D. Erlich et al., Clockworks: A Multimedia
Bibliography (= List) of Works Useful
for the Study of the Human/Machine Interface in SF (Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1993).
Matrix,
The. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, dir., script, exec.
prod. USA: Village Roadshow
Productions, Silver Pictures (prod.) / Warner (dist.), 1999. Mass.Illusions, LLC, SpFx. Yuen Wo Ping, fight dir. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne,
Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Hugo Weaving, Marcus Chong, Belinda Mcclory
[sic: on IMDb], featured players.
Cyberpunk
film, described by one of the directors as an attempt at "an intellectual
action movie," with much of the action of the Hong Kong Kung Fu variety,
the tone noirish, and the imagery
industrial (Persons 20 and passim).
What appears to be an authoritarian America in 1999 is actuallyÑthough
what is actual gets tricky in this worldÑa totally totalitarian VR world. We learn more or less reliably that the
VR is the creation of the machines, who won a war against humans and preserve
the remaining humans in womb-like vats (Fischer: "cocoon" [16]),
where they are thoroughly interfaced with the machines and tapped for powerÑand
fed a VR in which they are fairly happy (a eutopian VR was tried, but
apparently humans don't like eutopia).
Matrix is a neatly-done
compendium of SF motifs of interest, including: questions on what is real, as
pursued in the work of P. K. Dick (see under Fiction) and such films as the
Dick-derived Total Recall; imagery
of containment and body-violation within high-tech computer-interface wombs
(unknowingly) and voluntary submission to the superimposition of the electronic
and cybernetic upon the human in computer-interface chairs (cf. and contrast
the chairs in L. Mason's Arachne [under Fiction]; containment within a
high-tech. vessel said to be a hover-craft but visually a submarine (cf. the
tradition started by the Nautilus
in J. Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea [cited under
Fiction]); computer take-over and war against the machines (see, e.g., Terminator, this section); an enclosed,
artificial world (see under Fiction R. A. Heinlein's "Universe");
people more or less inside computers (see under Fiction, J. T. Sladek's The
MŸller-Fokker Effect, S. Lem's "The Experiment
. . . " and "Seventh Sally," and C. M. Kornbluth
and F. Pohl's Wolfbane; under Drama, see Thirteenth
Floor and Tron); dreamers
in a VR world (see VR in Keyword Index, and see esp. entries under Fiction for
W. Gibson, W. Hjortsberg, and L. Manning and F. Pratt, and under A. C. Clarke, The
Lion of Comarre; see under Drama, Nowhere
Man, "Kill Switch" episode on The X-Files, Zardoz, and Dark City). For
the imagery of going through a mirror-portal into a strange world, see Lewis
Carroll's Alice's Adventure in Wonderland (1865) and, more explicitly, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), both alluded to in the film. Note very well in this film what Erlich
and Thomas P. Dunn have called "The Ovion/Cylon Alliance": i.e.,
threatening, insectoid machines, here cyberpunk centipedes. The general release date for the film
in the USA was during Passover and Holy Week: which was appropriate given the
themes of (1) freeing humans, enslaved to the machines, and (2) Keanu Reeve's
"Neo" character as the "One": a Messiah opposing the VR
world and devilish machines, with the goal of returning humans to their flesh
and the material world (opposing him somewhat to the more Platonic-puritanical
visions of the Christ opposing the World and the Flesh, as well as the
Devil). Tech. matters covered in
detail by Mitch Persons, Dennis Fischer, and Frederick C. Szebin, Cinefantastique 31.5 (May 1999): 16-27. For Matrix as
"The End of Humanism" and a form of "techno-Brahmanism,"
and the Matrix as "cyber-Maya," see Stuart Klawan's rev. in The
Nation 268.15 (26 April 1999):
34-35. (For maya and Brahman,
see The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita,
part of the Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata but available separately.)
From
Internet Movie Database
Tagline: Believe the Unbelievable
Plot Outline: A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels
about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against the controllers
of it.
Major Cast
Keanu Reeves Thomas
A. Anderson / Neo
Laurence Fishburne Morpheus
Carrie-Anne Moss Trinity
Hugo Weaving Agent
Smith
Gloria Foster Oracle
Joe Pantoliano Cypher
/ Mr. Reagan
Marcus Chong Tank
Julian Arahanga Apoc
Matt Doran Mouse
Belinda McClory Switch
Ray Anthony Parker (as Anthony Ray
Parker) Dozer
Paul Goddard (I) Agent
Brown
Robert Taylor (VII) Agent
Jones
ðððððððððððððððððððððððððððððððððððððð
Central
Link: http://www.intothematrix.net/choose.html
"M.R.S." and The Matrix
{From
an e-mail to Eng/FST 350 by Rich Erlich.)
We can slightly expand
the mnemonic inferable from Vivian Sobchack's Screening Space discussion of the basics of SF film, to
yield:
M: Magic (+ Mystery + Mysticism)
R: Religion
S: Science
Matrix is
solidly cyberpunk, from taking "the Matrix" right out of William
Gibson's NEUROMANCER to the mirrorshades, the cyberpunk "totem"
according to Bruce Sterling, the editor of the Mirrorshades collection of cyberpunk stories.
Cyberpunk:
cyber + punk, a 1980s term. A
cyberpunk might be a "console cowboy," going through cyberspace trying
to rob the straight by hacking into electronic accounts. Or a cyberpunk could be a "razor
girl" street-samurai: a bodyguard/assassin, who body has been augmented
for the job, started with retractable razor-talons/claws. Cyberpunks has been called "the
apotheosis of the postmodern."
It's interesting
to compare and contrast the mystic leaps in Matrix
and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Movement:
Outward in Space Odyssey (until
the Return to Earth), Inward and Outward in Matrix,
but the real action is in cyberspace, not outer space: within, in the matrix
(which also means "womb").
Mystic
leap: Dave Bowman, with ET help, becomes a god. Anderson--i.e., son of "Ander" = Man--becomes Neo
(= New [Adam = Man]), who is The Great Black-Clad Hope and who will become ... a savior? The original release was in April: on
student said 1 April ("April Fool's Day"), and I'm sure it was during
Passover and just before Easter.
Anyway, for the original release the Moses/Jesus parallels were unmistakable:
Neo will free the slaves and bring salvation.
Medieval
Catholic "exegesis" stressed parallels between the Hebrew and
Christian scriptures; the Children of Israel pass through the Red Sea from
slavery in Egypt into freedom and toward happiness in the Promised Land--yea,
even so, individual Christians pass through baptism from slavery unto Satan
into freedom in Christ. Cypher
wanting to return to the Matrix is like the (relatively few) Israelites who
longed for Egypt, plus, of course, Judas I.
Science:
Anthropology + Rocket Science (technology actually) in Space Odyssey; computer science (?) in Matrix.
Philosophy/Religion:
F. Nietzsche is big in Space Odyssey;
Matrix seems to stress Lord
Krishna and Hindu/Buddhist idea of maya: the everyday world as illusion.
Note also the
different philosophical questions raised.
The universe is ultimately a mystery in Space
odyssey, but it's bloody-well there. Matrix's dialog
insists that the real world there is also there, and real-but the images are
more ambiguous, I think. It's all
made up of colored lights and sound ....
I'd be interested in your comments on MOD/POSTMOD in Matrix (and Gattaca and Space
Odyssey). Offhand, I'd say
the Matrix is modern, covering a
very po-mo, wasteland reality. The
machine-folk are thoroughly modern; the fully human are po-mo in their tastes.