I have never really been a big fan of horror films. I had a bad experience with The Exorcist when I was a child and I have generally veered away from everything that might ever slightly be in the same genre ever since. However, as I have found myself to be more and more a filmmaker, part of me realized that it was time I go back and figure out exactly what it was that scared me so damn much in the 1973 classic. After watching the film again for the first time in years, I wasn't as scared, but I was endlessly impressed. A film, a collection of photographs matched to a soundtrack, had managed to hit me on some painfully deep psychological level. If a film can move me so powerfully, be it in a positive or negative way, that is special.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers hit me on a similar level as the Exorcist. It didn't frighten me in a physical way, but it did horrify me. As someone who is almost always caught up in his own mind, I have always had an underlying fear of losing myself. I realized that this was why the Exorcist had damaged me so completely. I don't fear death, but the idea of losing control of myself while I am still alive is more frightening than anything else I can imagine. In Invasion, it was the description of how the Pod People were not the people they were trying to be. They lacked some inner light, some ethereal existence, some soul. I used to have dreams about waking up and everyone in my life would no longer be the people as I knew them. This film was a perfect representation of this ancient fear.
I was raised a Christian. I loved the idea of going to heaven and being reunited with everything and anything that I had once known. One day, it dawned on me that I didn't actually believe it. I don't even know if I ever did. I made myself THINK that I believed it because I was so afraid of the alternative, but the real faith was completely lacking. Since embracing my agnosticism, I have found life to be utterly precious. I still HOPE that it isn't true, but I feel it deep within me that this life is all there is. And should this be true, then I have to make the absolute best of the time I have. My thoughts, my body, my mind, my soul are all a single experience, and single moment in time, a one time chance at happiness. Because of this, I have grown fearful of losing any of this precious time. The idea of someone/something else taking over my body or mind and preventing me from, well, being me... that pains me to even imagine.
Another scene that bothered me was the description of what happens when you are taken over. "Every molecule, every atom" is reproduced. Very thoughts and memories are transmitted into the new body. They say it is painless and you wake up happy. This is bullshit. Similar things have been described in various other films and novels, and each time I get very angry at the idea. What is happening here is a NEW person, not at ALL the same person who was copied. To the outside would it may be the equivalent of living forever, but for the individual, it is the same as death. Immortality for the sake of others is a silly concept. Even if I could have a perfect reproduction of myself who really was alive and thought, felt, emoted, cared, believed as I do, it is not ME. My consciousness is not transfered. To my friends and family, there would be no difference at all. We could be switched and no one would ever know. Hell, the new me might not even know it happened as he would likely think that he was the original and had truly experienced everything that I had. But I would be dead. That isn't immortality. If I do not get to live forever, then fuck that.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Bigger. Faster. Stronger.
Robocop. To be completely honest, I never thought I would come across this film in an academic setting. I mean, seriously, it's ROBOCOP. The first time I saw this movie was when I was about seven years old. Even then I remember thinking that it was a bit corny. Now, thirteen years later... well, yeah, it's still a really corny movie.
That being said, it actually seems a lot more poignant in this day and age. Technology is actually starting to get to the point where we can effectively replace lost limbs. Mobility is a bit limited, of course, but more and more breakthroughs are being made in the science of the brain. Hell, just the other day I cam across an article about how they have made an artificial hand that can actually detect the difference between hot and cold. It gives me hope that in my lifetime losing a limb will be only a minor setback.
What interested me most in the film though was the whole idea of bringing someone back to life. In this area the film seemed to stay the most vague. After all, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering they never even mentioned anything about reprogramming his brain or anything. It makes me wonder how they transformed his corpse into a super cop. Because if, and this is a big assumption, they used him as a cop because he once was a cop, then it stands to reason that they (being his makers) should have expected more of his past life to show up at some point.
This leads to the whole theme of humanity. The two opposing business ideas in the film consisted of one total robot and one cyborg. The idea seemed to be that ROBOCOP was superior because he was based on human anatomy whereas ED-209 was weak because he was too bulky and poorly programmed. What confused me, however, was that everyone seemed so shocked and upset that ROBOCOP began to show human emotions and traits. I thought that the whole point of making this robot out of a human was precisely so that he would have necessary human traits. Apparently they hadn't taken consciousness into account.
Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" was a fun read. Perhaps I was supposed to take it seriously, but in my head I pictured it as being written by a robot who was angry at human society. The idea that we are all cyborgs now due to our increasing dependency on technology seems to have a certain amount of truth behind it, but the way it was written made me laugh because of just how seriously it was taken. Nevertheless, it calls to mind so many of the dystopian futures that sci-fi films like to present. Being a child of the Internet-age, the Matrix is the first film to come to mind. Unlike so many, I am not frightened at all at the thought that we are slowly integrating technology into our very consciousness. After all, who wouldn't want to have a direct uplink to the Internet at all times? I absolutely love the theory of mystic Collective Consciousness, and the Internet is truly bringing that to life in a tangible way.
That being said, it actually seems a lot more poignant in this day and age. Technology is actually starting to get to the point where we can effectively replace lost limbs. Mobility is a bit limited, of course, but more and more breakthroughs are being made in the science of the brain. Hell, just the other day I cam across an article about how they have made an artificial hand that can actually detect the difference between hot and cold. It gives me hope that in my lifetime losing a limb will be only a minor setback.
What interested me most in the film though was the whole idea of bringing someone back to life. In this area the film seemed to stay the most vague. After all, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering they never even mentioned anything about reprogramming his brain or anything. It makes me wonder how they transformed his corpse into a super cop. Because if, and this is a big assumption, they used him as a cop because he once was a cop, then it stands to reason that they (being his makers) should have expected more of his past life to show up at some point.
This leads to the whole theme of humanity. The two opposing business ideas in the film consisted of one total robot and one cyborg. The idea seemed to be that ROBOCOP was superior because he was based on human anatomy whereas ED-209 was weak because he was too bulky and poorly programmed. What confused me, however, was that everyone seemed so shocked and upset that ROBOCOP began to show human emotions and traits. I thought that the whole point of making this robot out of a human was precisely so that he would have necessary human traits. Apparently they hadn't taken consciousness into account.
Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" was a fun read. Perhaps I was supposed to take it seriously, but in my head I pictured it as being written by a robot who was angry at human society. The idea that we are all cyborgs now due to our increasing dependency on technology seems to have a certain amount of truth behind it, but the way it was written made me laugh because of just how seriously it was taken. Nevertheless, it calls to mind so many of the dystopian futures that sci-fi films like to present. Being a child of the Internet-age, the Matrix is the first film to come to mind. Unlike so many, I am not frightened at all at the thought that we are slowly integrating technology into our very consciousness. After all, who wouldn't want to have a direct uplink to the Internet at all times? I absolutely love the theory of mystic Collective Consciousness, and the Internet is truly bringing that to life in a tangible way.
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