Film 301 Final Paper

Androids and Anxiety

Film 301

5-18-09

Joe Brady

 

 

            Science fiction films are too often looked at as being merely entertaining fantasy, when in truth they are more than anything a reflection of our own society and an examination of its shortcomings.  In the same sense, science fiction films often employ an android/robot/replicant character to raise questions pertaining to the value and nature of human life.  In this essay I will analyze and compare the films A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006, USA) and THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971, USA) in an attempt to show how both films deal with the issue of human reproduction in the face of the android/replicant threat.   The sterile android/replicant is devoid of emotion and cannot understand the complexity of human thought or relationships.  Thus, the android/replicant as authority figure raises questions about the hegemonic role of a government detached from those it governs, and also raises questions of gender hierarchy and male anxiety in a patriarchal society. It is only when mankind breaks free from the systematic oppression that we can be truly liberated.

            A Scanner Darkly is a film set in a not-too-distant future in which addiction to a powerful illegal drug has become an epidemic.  The film follows undercover police officer Bob Arctor as he infiltrates a small time drug ring in an attempt to find information about the origin and production of this deadly drug.  However, as Arctor gets deeper undercover he develops an addiction to the drug himself and suffers severe brain damage as a result.  As Arctor’s mental state rapidly deteriorates he becomes less and less conscious of his decisions and is increasingly unable to discern real life events from his imagination. Throughout the film Arctor experiences flashbacks in which he is interacting with a woman and children, presumably his former wife and their children that he has lost as a result of his addiction.   We see that Arctor has been removed from his role as patriarch and is shifting from the strong male lead role to a mindless replicant as a result of this chemical castration. As Arctor’s mind slips away his personal relationships begin to dwindle further, most notably his romantic association with his drug-dealing companion, Donna.  As Arctor becomes more replicant than human he is unable to connect with Donna, for whom he’d had romantic feelings.  Donna’s refusal of Arctor signifies the disconnect that lies between the human and replicant.  The replicant character is unable to possess emotion, and for that reason has no interest in the opposite sex.   

The romantic interest in science fiction film can be read as the saving grace of humanity.  Romantic feelings between male and female characters allude to physical aspects of the relationship implying that through sexual intercourse and reproduction humanity will continue.

A Scanner Darkly shows us how a man is dehumanized by his abuse of drugs and ultimately that the widespread use of this drug poses a threat to humanity and its continuation. The result of this addiction epidemic is a population of emotionless, sexless, subservient replicants.  Likewise, the film THX 1138 introduces us to a world where humans have been stripped of emotional attachments through government prescribed medications that quell sexual urges and the need to reproduce. 

Sedated, uniformed humans devoid of personality or desire inhabit the world of THX 1138.  In the film, humans are policed by faceless android officers that are controlled by an all-seeing government.  The film’s main character, THX, is an assembly line worker whose job is to build the police androids that keep him oppressed.   This cycle of oppression serves to emasculate THX and in turn maintains his position as the sexless replicant.  Donna Haraway writes:

“The main Trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism.  But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins.  Their fathers, after all, are inessential.” (1)

 His female roommate, a woman named LUH, consciously stops taking her medication and likewise substitutes placebos for THX’s medication.  As a result of LUH’s actions the pair begin to experience genuine human emotions.  This newfound emotional attachment to one another generates a desire to flee from the controlling city-state in which they live.  However, they are arrested before they have a chance to escape.

The pair is arrested for not taking their medication, and subsequently having sexual intercourse.  The government had witnessed these transgressions because they constantly monitor all human activity.   The couple is separated by the state, driving a wedge between THX and LUH in the wake of their newly formed emotional union. THX is taken to a prisoner limbo where there are no real entrances or exits.  He stays here until he and another prisoner attempt to escape.  They are aided in their escape when they meet another man who had previously been a hologram dancer.  As the men make their escape through the framework of the city THX attempts to find LUH, only to find that her name and number had been reassigned to a fetus in a laboratory, signifying that the LUH he knew had been killed.

THX’s eventual escape from the confining superstructure of his home is culminated by the shot of him as he stands in the shadow of the sun for the very first time.  This image offers hope at the end of a long, trying journey, and can be related to A Scanner Darkly’s similarly positive ending.  In the case of both films the main character ends positioned to save humanity, as we know it.  However, neither film offers a typical Hollywood ending in the romantic sense. 

Arctor’s failed relationship with Donna in A Scanner Darkly seems to have been sacrificed for the greater good when it is revealed that Donna was an undercover police officer and that Arctor’s addiction was set up as part of a larger investigation into the Substance D phenomenon. Yet Arctor, though a pawn, is still poised to be the savior.  In THX 1138 the THX character emerges as the sole mind liberated from a world oppressed by their own technology.  He alone represents new life and the promise of a future.

In both instances the medicated human is sedated and controlled by a power designed to keep them that way.  These entities maintain a power structure in which the human is stripped of emotion and desire in an attempt to end the forward progress of civilization, a civilization that is entirely based on the reproductive act of sexual intercourse.  It is strange then that these films themselves maintain a similar power structure by making their heroes lone men.

 

A female presence is missing from the solution that either film offers.  The male leads each represent a Christ-like savior to carry the world forward.  Each of the men is alone in their discovery and liberation, which means we must ask how the world is to continue without the possibility of reproduction.  The main character in both films ends a sexless messiah, yet the real possibility of a future does not exist without a woman to assist in the re-population. 

There are certainly religious implications in the theory of one single man as humanity’s savior. Most major religions ascribe to the idea that sex is something less than holy, an animalistic ritual.  It is treated the same way in these films, in a sense. The women are marginalized at best, and presented as unnecessary to salvation.  Considering the context in which both films were created it is easier to understand this influence.  Both the film THX 1138 and the novel from which A Scanner Darkly was adapted were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  This was a time when women were still generally not given the same opportunities that men were.  Though the women’s liberation movement was making large advances at the time the influence is not seen on these works authored by men.  If anything these films could be read as an apprehensive response to the movement.

Judith Newton writes:

“this attenuated fantasy content evokes anxieties, and especially white, middle class male anxieties,”(1)

These narratives were both produced by white males at a time when America was still very much a patriarchal society.  Therefore it can be inferred that these anxieties stem from the need to maintain gender roles and the power structure in place at the time.  Insuring that there will be a place for future representations to be presented in a similar fashion.  These anxieties are manifested in both films with the chemical castration of the male hero.  In THX 1138, LUH, the main female character is the catalyst for what becomes THX’s liberation and eventual freedom.  However, her actions, though beneficial to THX, ultimately lead to her death.  Her commission of this “original sin” prompts her execution, yet for his role THX is only imprisoned.  This reflects the gender hierarchy that has been in place since the beginning of recorded history.  Women are presented as the downfall of man, cast negatively to reinforce the notion of the male as the savior of the species.  This notion is largely associated with Judeo-Christian ideologies, as opposed to other belief systems that praise women as the givers of life.

Similarly, A Scanner Darkly provides a less than favorable view of women.  At the end of the film it is revealed that Donna, a presumed drug dealer, is the police’ chief investigator into the Substance D distribution ring.  In addition to this, we find out that she is responsible for Arctor’s placement in his undercover work and was not only aware of his escalating addiction but using him as a pawn to infiltrate a rehabilitation program.  In A Scanner Darkly the female is again the motivation behind the downfall of the male hero.  Though in this film the female also takes on the role of authority figure, questioning the gender hierarchy, but still portrayed as manipulative and untrustworthy. 

The presentations of gender roles in these films raise significant questions about the way in which social mores penetrate narratives and effectively change the way we read them.  Science Fiction film has been a genre that has explored the collective anxiety and paranoia of audiences since its inception.  From genre defining classics like THX 1138 to modern mind-benders like A Scanner Darkly, the genre has consistently been informed by the ever-changing political climate of the world.  For a genre whose social and political relevance is often overlooked, Science Fiction film tends to deliver some of the toughest, most thought-provoking material on the screen, and should force us all to look a little more closely at the power structures at play in our day-to-day lives. 

 

 

 

Works Cited

1. Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.  (Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 1991) pg. 149-181

2.  Judith Newton, “Feminism and Anxiety in Alien”, Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema (Verso, 2000) pg. 87

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

1.                     Newton, Judith. “Feminism and Anxiety in Alien”, Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema (Verso, 2000) pg. 87

2.                     Johnson, David T.  “Directors On Adaptation: A Conversation with Richard Linklater.”  Literature/Film Quarterly. V.35 no.1 (2007) pg. 338-341

3.                     Telotte, J.P.  “The Problem of the Real and THX 1138.”  Film Criticism.  V.24 no.3 (2000) pg.45-60

4.                     Cornea, Christine. Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality.  

5.                     Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.  (Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 1991) pg. 149-181

Inking Life: Rotoshop and A Scanner Darkly

Inking Life: Rotoshop and A Scanner Darkly

Visual Essay II, 4-22-09

Film 301

Joe Brady

 

            Animation has been used in film for decades and has produced some of the most beautiful, breathtaking, and successful films of all time.  A great advancement in animation technique came in 1915, when Max Fleischer invented Rotoscoping.  This technique involved projecting a pre-recorded live action film image onto a glass panel that would then be traced over by an animator.  In recent years this technique has been adapted by animators at Flat Black Films into a computer animation program called Rotoshop.  The program interpolates between brushstrokes, saving time and smoothing out the motion of the animation.  Here, I will look at how the use of this technology in A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, USA, 2006) affects the narrative, and helps the viewer interpret the film’s stance on technology.

            The novel A Scanner Darkly, written in the 1970s, takes place in an imagined 1994.  So, at the time of its initial publication readers could use their imagination to picture what such a future would look like.  A Scanner Darkly, the film, made in 2006 takes place sometime in the near future, how far it does not say.  The film’s use of Rotoshop provides the viewer with an image of a familiar world, yet a world not bound by the limitations of current technology.  Christine Cornea writes:

“Since the inception of the science fiction film, the genre has been built upon a thematic interest in the social and philosophical delights and dangers associated with industrial, communications and biological technologies.”(1)

            Since we know that this narrative takes place in the future, the Rotoshop technology allows animators to conceive gadgets beyond the scope of current technology.  The perfect example of this is the “scramble suit”.  The scramble suit is a full body covering worn by police officers in the film that allows officers to officially interact with each other while maintaining their undercover identities.  The suit projects millions of fragments of bodily features over the entirety of the suit, constantly changing the wearer’s image to protect his/her identity.  Obviously, such a suit is unheard of today, as no such technology currently exists.

            Another way that the film’s use of Rotoshop delineates the world of the narrative from the “real” world is through character hallucinations.  Throughout much of the film many characters are under the influence of the psychotropic drug Substance D.  Their drug use frequently causes hallucinations.  Rotoshop allows the animators to seamlessly integrate the hallucinatory image into frame without having been actually filmed.  This function of Rotoshop helps further demonstrate a character’s perspective of his/her own world.  Though the character sees a familiar room, he is also hallucinating that his friend is a giant insect.

            J.P. Telotte writes:

            “More so than any other film genre, science fiction relies heavily on what we might most broadly term special effects, and this reliance requires that we consider how the form’s paradigmatic/syntagmatic elements are linked to its very creation, that is, how the genre’s concern with the technological engages us in a complex system of reflections on its own technological underpinnings, and thus on its own level of reality.”(2)

Basically, science fiction films often serve as a reflection of how they are made.  The scramble suit masks and covers every aspect of the undercover police officer just as Rotoshop uses animation over the live action footage to give the film it’s distinct visual style. The overarching surveillance technology employed by the film’s police and government agencies can be seen as a reflection of the all-encompassing animation that covers every inch of the film.  Though the characters of A Scanner Darkly are largely unaware of the surveillance they are under, the film itself is definitely aware of its portrayal of technology.  The live-action footage may be masked by animation, but the film’s reflection of society and technology shines through in every scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Endnotes

 

1.                     Christine Cornea,  “Conclusion: The Technology of Science Fiction Cinema” Science Fiction: Between Fantasy and Reality.  (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007) pg. 248

2.                     J.P. Telotte, “Introduction: The World of the Science Fiction Film”,  Science Fiction Film (Genres in American Cinema)  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) pg. 24

 

Androids and Anxieties

 

Androids and Anxiety

Film 301

3-25-09

Joe Brady

 

 

            Science fiction films are too often looked at as being merely entertaining fantasy, when in truth they are more than anything a reflection of our own society and an examination of its downfalls.  In the same sense, science fiction films often employ an android/robot/replicant character to raise questions pertaining to the value and nature of human life.  In this essay I will analyze and compare two films in an attempt to show how both films deal with the issue of human reproduction in the face of the android/replicant threat. 

            A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006, USA) is a film set in a not-to-distant future in which addiction to a powerful illegal drug has become an epidemic.  The film follows undercover police officer Bob Arctor as he infiltrates a small time drug ring in an attempt to find information about the origin and production of this deadly drug.  However, as Arctor gets deeper undercover he develops an addiction to the drug himself and suffers severe brain damage as a result.  As Arctor’s mental state rapidly deteriorates he becomes less and less conscious of his decisions and is increasingly unable to discern real life events from his imagination.  The film finds the character of Arctor shifting from the strong male lead role to a mindless replicant as a result of his drug use.  As Arctor’s mind slips away from him his personal relationships begin to dwindle as well, most notably his romantic association with a drug-dealing companion of his named Donna.  As Arctor becomes more replicant than human he is unable to connect with Donna, whom he’d had romantic feelings for.  Donna’s refusal of Arctor signifies the disconnect that lies between the human and replicant.  The replicant character is unable to possess emotion, and for that reason has no interest in the opposite sex.

 

The romantic interest in science fiction film can be read as the saving grace of humanity.  Romantic feelings between male and female characters allude to physical aspects of the relationship implying that through sexual intercourse and reproduction humanity will continue.

A Scanner Darkly  shows us how a man is dehumanized by his abuse of drugs and ultimately that the widespread use of this drug poses a threat to humanity and its continuation.  Likewise the film THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971, USA) introduces us to a world where human’s have been stripped of emotional attachments through government prescribed medications specifically to quell sexual urges and the need to reproduce. 

Sedated, uniformed, humans devoid of personality or desire inhabit the world of THX 1138.  These people are also policed by faceless android officers who are controlled by an all-seeing government.  The film’s main character, THX, is an assembly line worker whose job is to build the police androids that keep him oppressed.  His female roommate is woman named LUH, who consciously stops taking her medication and likewise substitutes placebos for THX’s medication.  As a result of LUH’s actions the pair begin to experience genuine human emotions.  This newfound emotional attachment to one another generates a desire to flee from the controlling city-state in which they live.  However, they are arrested before they have a chance to escape.

The pair gets arrested because they had sexual intercourse, which is illegal in their world, and also for not taking their medications.  The government had witnessed these transgressions because they constantly monitor all human activity.  THX is taken to a prisoner limbo where there are no real entrances or exits.  He stays here until he and another prisoner attempt to escape.  They are aided in their escape when they meet another man who had previously been a hologram dancer.  As the men make their escape through the framework of the city THX attempts to find LUH, only to find that her name and number had been reassigned to a fetus in a laboratory, signifying that the LUH he knew had been killed.

THX’s eventual escape from the confining superstructure of his home is culminated by the shot of him as he stands in the shadow of the sun for the very first time.  This image offers hope at the end of a long, trying journey, and can be related to A Scanner Darkly’s similarly positive ending.  In the case of both films the main character ends posited to save humanity, as we know it.  However, neither film offers a typical Hollywood in the romantic sense. 

Arctor’s failed relationship with Donna in A Scanner Darkly seems to have been sacrificed for the greater good when it is revealed that Donna was an undercover police officer and that Arctor’s addiction was set up as part of a larger investigation into the Substance D phenomenon. Yet, Arctor, though a pawn, is still poised to be the savior.  In THX 1138 the THX character emerges as the sole mind liberated from a world oppressed by their own technology.  He alone represents new life and the promise of a future.

A female presence is missing from the solution that either film offers.  The male leads each represent a Christ-like savior to carry the world forward.  Each of the men is alone in their discovery and liberation.  Which means we must ask how the world is to continue without the possibility of reproduction.  The main character in both films ends a sexless messiah, yet the real possibility of a future does not exist without a woman to assist in the re-population. 

In both instances the medicated human is sedated and controlled by a power designed to keep them that way.  These entities maintain a power structure in which the human is stripped of emotion and desire in an attempt end the forward progress of civilization, a civilization entirely based on the reproductive act of sexual intercourse.  It is strange then that these films themselves maintain a similar power structure by making the their heroes lone men.

There are certainly religious implications in the theory of one single man as humanity’s savior. Most major religions ascribe to the idea that sex is something less than holy, an animalistic ritual.  It is treated the same way in these films, in a sense.  Also the women are marginalized at best, and presented as unnecessary to salvation.  Considering the context in which both films were created it is easier to understand this influence.  Both the film THX 1138 and the novel from which A Scanner Darkly was adapted were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  This was a time when women were still generally not given the same opportunities that men were.  Though the women’s liberation movement was making large advances at the time the influence is not seen on these works authored by men.

Judith Newton writes:

“this attenuated fantasy content evokes anxieties, and especially white, middle class male anxieties,”(1)

These narratives were both produced by white males at a time when America was still very much a patriarchal society.  Therefore it can be inferred that these anxieties stem from the need to maintain gender roles and the power structure in place at the time.  Insuring that there will be a place for future representations to be presented in a similar fashion.

 

 

 

Endnotes

 

1.  Judith Newton, “Feminism and Anxiety in Alien”, Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema (Verso, 2000) pg. 87

Psychoactive Science Fiction

 

 

Psychoactive Science Fiction

 

 

            To understand A Scanner Darkly  (Richard Linklater, 2006, USA) and it’s historical significance one must first realize the film’s origin.  The film is based on a novel of the same name written by prominent science fiction author Philip K. Dick.  Dick’s original story was published in 1977, seemingly as an afterthought and reflection on the prevalence of heavy drug use among young people that blossomed in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Understanding the time in which the story was written, and the years it proceeded, is key in understanding it’s characters substance use, abuse, and downfall into paranoia and madness.

            The film A Scanner Darkly reveals itself as a science fiction film when we first realize that the story is taking place somewhere in the near future.  We know it is taking place in our world, as it presents familiar locales such as its southern California backdrop.  We are given our first glimpse into the technological advancement of the time when we meet Fred, an undercover police officer.  To protect his identity Fred wears a high tech “scramble suit” designed to alter every aspect of his physical appearance while simultaneously masking his voice.  This suit is also our first insight into the high tech and far reaching surveillance employed by the police in the film, which we learn will play a huge role in its outcome.

            The film’s director, Richard Linklater, is not usually associated with the science fiction genre, and of all of his films this is really the only one that fits into that category.  Most people would recognize Linklater’s work on such films as the 1970s high school party epic Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993, USA) or the family friendly The School of Rock (Richard Linklater, 2003, USA) starring comedian Jack Black.  However, it is easy to draw comparisons between Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly and his earlier film Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001, USA).  In comparing these two films the most obvious shared characteristic is the use of rotoscope, in which animation is placed over the live action images to create a surreal animated effect.  This technique is extremely useful in A Scanner Darkly when portraying the hallucinogenic effects of “substance D”, for example the multi-eyed alien seen by the character Freck.  This technique also lends itself to the notion of the “hyperreal” where “doubles abound, draining away all sense of identity”(1).

            The film adaptation of A Scanner Darkly sets itself a few years into our own future, where the book, written in the seventies, takes place in a fictional 1994.  The book’s portrayal of paranoid drug addicts is obviously a reference to the drug culture boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time at which Dick was writing and an active member in this culture.  Though there are many differences between the book and the film, neither glorifies the use of drugs, though they are prevalent in the story.  Rather, this substance abuse is seen as an epidemic among Americans, one that is under extremely close watch by the government. 

            Another film released in 2006 that examines an epidemic under the watchful eye of the government in an uncertain future is Children of Men (Alfonzo Cuaron, 2006, USA).  Though Children of Men and A Scanner Darkly offer two decidedly different depictions of a chaotic future, both seem to represent a fear of the years to come, as if the future was not a new era of hope and prosperity, yet one of doubt and questionable authority figures.  These representations seem feasible when considering the many setbacks to civil rights and privacy brought on by the Bush administration and a time post-Patriot Act.

            While A Scanner Darkly doesn’t play on many of the conventions popularized by much of the science fiction genre, I think it helps the genre progress by taking a closer look at the inner workings of the mind, and exploring the willful “dehumanization” as experienced by addiction.  Christine Cornea writes:

“What I hope has become apparent in this brief history is the variety of traditions and influences that can be witnessed in what has come to be known as science fiction film.”(2)

 

 

Endnotes

 

(1) J.P. Telotte, “Science Fiction’s Double Focus: Alluring Worlds and Forbidden Planets”, Replications: A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film, 1^st Edition, (University of Illinois Press, 1995), pg.111

(2) Christine Cornea, Science Fiction Cinema Between Fantasy and Reality 1^st ed., (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick New Jersey, 2007) pg.22