A Cinephile’s Critiques

Directed by Richard Fleischer, 1973 (Color, 7:3, Mono, 100′)
Starring Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Chuck Connors

What would a corporation think the perfect world would be like?

Probably, it would be a place where consumers will take whatever they can get and they’ll want even that so badly that they’ll accept rationing when a company just can’t churn out enough of it. Corporations might also like to see governments so weak, corrupt, and busy quelling riots of unemployed people that they can’t bother with irksome tasks like regulating commerce. And if corporations decide that it would be profitable to turn the air green with smog and chew up all the natural resources, then that’ll probably be for the best anyhow. At least that way consumers won’t be able to live off the land and will crowd into the cities, which would make product distribution very efficient. And, if corporations should happen to run out of the usual raw materials for their products, then, considering the circumstances, no one would probably notice, or care, if they decided to use the term “human resources” in a new, and innovative, way.

Soylent Green shows us that world. The funny thing is, you might not think it looks as perfect as the MBAs think it will look. Come to think of it, all those “developing” countries who’ve decided to welcome transnational corporations into their economies don’t seem too sure it’s quite as perfect as they were told either. And Soylent Green looks a lot like those places.

Ah, well. We have other things to worry about. Detective Thorn, for instance, has to investigate a poorly-disguised murder. It’s kind of an odd murder. For one thing, the victim sat on the board of directors for the most perfect corporation in the world, Soylent. And, no one, not even the victim, judging from the crime scene, seems too bothered about his demise. What a strange place this perfect world is.

Strange place or not, Charlton Heston seems perfectly comfortable in it. His police investigator really appears to have grown up around there. And Edward G. Robinson plays the wizened old bibliophile, who can still remember when all this stuff seemed like a good idea, very well. Leigh Taylor-Young and Chuck Connors give their characters just enough warmth that you might be able to sympathize with them. And playing those roles that way makes sense, in this context. After all, in the perfect corporate world, we might have worse things to worry about than hookers and thugs.

Directed by Andrew Niccol, 1997 (Color, 7:3, Surround, 105′)
Starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, and Gore Vidal

Gattaca wants you to think it’s about the social consequences of genetically engineering people. It starts out with a couple of quotes about the wisdom of mucking around with Mother Nature, and it, originally, ended with a list of genetically “defective” people, like JFK and Einstein, who would never have been born in the world Gattaca depicts.

But, I’m not sure genetic engineering is really what this movie is about. For one thing, I think the consequences of genetically engineering people would be a lot more hellish than the ones presented. Let’s face it, we can’t even engineer crops without creating unintended, and usually destructive, consequences. Why would anyone think we could engineer people with better results?

For another thing, Gattaca shows us that it’s not really about the future. The world it presents doesn’t even try to look like it. It looks like the ’60s, seen through a nice golden filter. And, just as clearly, the problems its hero, Vincent, has, seem a lot like the problems most of us have. They’re just a little more dramatic.

In Gattaca, society has profiling down pat. Résumés, educational records, credit ratings, consumer profiles, psychological measurements, demographics, and statistical analysis haven’t got anything on the latest rage in categorizing people. Gattaca has genetic profiling, and it’s all of those things wrapped up into one. Have problems getting a loan, some insurance, or a job? Well, Vincent does too.

Vincent, you see, was conceived without the aid of genetic technicians. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. Everyone already knows who he is and what he can, and can’t, do. It’s in his genetic profile. You don’t question things like that, unless you’re Vincent. It’s just how things are. And that’s never wrong.

But, in this case, it certainly seems wrong. Like most of the trivial distinctions we make between people, the ones we make in Gattaca hurt more of us than just the folks who end up with the unflattering distinction. Vincent’s roommate, for instance, is genetically perfect, but he’s been, literally, crippled by his profile. Not even someone as flawless as him, it seems, can live up to the expectations of his category. And Vincent, as you might expect, can’t live his down.

Vincent and his roommate are separated by a set of spiral stairs in their home. The stairs might remind you of the helical structure of a DNA strand, except, if you look closely, you might notice that the spiral is backwards. Not only does it spin in the wrong direction, but Vincent lives at the top of the stairs and Jerome, the one with a great profile and a miserable life, lives at the bottom.

It turns out that the real difference between Vincent and Jerome isn’t their profiles. The real difference is that Vincent decided, one day, that he wasn’t going to pay attention to his profile anymore. But, Jerome, like most of the people in Gattaca, can’t. No one notices that the photograph that shows up whenever Vincent’s blood is tested isn’t Vincent’s, because they don’t look at Vincent. It’s his profile that matters. And Vincent’s girlfriend gets so confused when she discovers that Vincent’s profile doesn’t belong to him, that she thinks she doesn’t know him anymore. Vincent was still Vincent, of course, only his category had changed.

Late in the movie, Vincent’s girlfriend takes him to a piano concert. The performer plays very well, and his girlfriend tells him that this is because the pianist has twelve fingers. The composition, she says, can only be played by someone like that. But the piece he played sounded a lot like a piece composed, and originally performed, by Franz Schubert. Just like most of us, Schubert only had ten fingers. Just like most of us, he didn’t have any musical credentials. And just like all of us, in Gattaca, or in our world, he couldn’t find work as a composer because musical training wasn’t in his résumé. Everyone knew, at the time, that one of the best composers of the 19th century couldn’t be a musician. It just wasn’t in his profile.

Directed by George Lucas, 1971 (Color, 7:3, Surround, 90′)
Starring Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Maggie McOmie, and Don Pedro Colley

Imagine a place organized like NASA’s Mission Control Center, except, instead of controlling spacecraft, it controls us. Commerce, government, and religion are the same thing and all of it is regulated by computers.

“Be efficient. Be happy.”

Happiness is, not surprisingly, the stated goal of this place. We are administered drugs that keep us from feeling much of anything. This must, we reason, be happiness, because nothing upsets us.

“We only want to help.”

Computers, holograms, and machines want to keep things running smoothly. They seem like such wonderful additions to our society, partly because they seem so much like us. Or, is it us that seem so much like them?

“Buy and be happy.”

After a long day monitoring people and building the machines that help regulate us, we like to go to the shopping mall and buy colorful polyhedrons. These things don’t actually do anything, and if you’re a responsible consumer, like we all are, you just put them in the garbage disposal so you can buy some more the next day. You’re not sure why you like them so much. It must be the colors. They are, after all, the only color you see around this place. You live in a world of white-washed concrete, white plastic, and white aluminum.

“Are you okay?”

It’s not that bad. The booth that you pray in tells you so. And so do those public service announcements. They remind you that you and your roommate are doing just fine. Actually, we like to refer to our roommates as ‘mates. It’s nothing sexual, of course. Sex is a crime. And nobody can really tell whether their roommate is male or female anyhow. Not that it matters; you don’t really want to have sex.

Maybe it’s the drugs.

And maybe it’s George Lucas’ first film, THX 1138. If you’re worried that I might have given away too much of the story, don’t be. There’s not much story to this film, really. And all of the above is covered in the first few minutes of the movie. THX 1138 is mostly about (very bright) light and (slightly distorted) sound and someone who (for reasons that are not his own) starts to notice that he’s not as happy as he’s been told.

Some people say that movies like these are too far-out to be relevant. But, I don’t know. I see government officials that seem a lot more concerned with how well big business is doing than with how well we are doing. I see politicians running campaigns based on their religious faith. I see people who go to the shopping mall to make themselves feel better. I see people who think they need to buy a new computer every year. I see public school programs that tell students how important it is to practice sexual abstinence. I see several million students being prescribed psychotropic drugs for fidgeting around in class. I see a lot of THX 1138 in us.

But, at least we haven’t painted everything white yet.

Directed by Bruce Pittman, 1995 (Color, 4:3, Stereo, 100′)
Starring Sean Astin, Andrea Martin, and Christopher Plummer

Some movies are a little shy about their themes. They drop a few hints here and there. They skirt around the topic. They might, eventually, get around to saying what’s on their minds.

But Harrison Bergeron isn’t like that. You’ll know exactly what it’s all about in the first few minutes of the film. You’ll also know how it’s going to deal with its topic: every last bit at earnestly and cheerfully as it can manage, just like the characters in the film. And this makes the situation the characters are in seem every last bit as morbidly absurd as it is in our world, only more interesting.

You see, Harrison, our hero, has a problem. He’s just too smart for his own good. It’s not a particularly unusual problem. There are a lot of people who are too smart, too athletic, too talented, too ethical, too attractive, too nice, or, most importantly, too different for their own good. Sometimes this makes us average folks jealous. And, every once in a while, we act on our jealousy. That’s when things get ugly. Of course, we know it’s wrong. Fortunately, we also know what to do about it. We make sure things aren’t too easy for those folks who are different, don’t we? When you see exactly how we do this, in Harrison Bergeron, you probably won’t know whether to guffaw or gasp.

Luckily for us, no one seemed to make very many problems for the film makers who put this movie together. They may not have had much of a budget, but they were smart enough to use what they had wisely. The world looks real enough. And if it sometimes seems a little flat and shallow, then that’s what you would expect from a world that values mediocrity, isn’t it? The writers explore the subject entertainingly and the actors are well-cast and play their roles convincingly.

Sean Astin, for instance, wears Harrison’s earnestness comfortably enough for you to suspect he’s a little like that off camera too. And Christopher Plummer handles the villain so well that you can’t help but be a little impressed. In fact, he makes it really hard to hate his character, despite what he does.

And you’re not supposed to hate him. The guy believes so completely that treating everyone as if they were exactly the same just isn’t crippling enough that he can’t recognize the tragedy his policy creates. So, naturally, and quite believably, Harrison has to demonstrate exactly how tragic it really is.