'eXistenZ'--David Cronenberg's 1999 cyberpunk classic anal--lized!

ExistenZ is a 1999 action adventure science fiction thriller by director David Cronenberg whose films include The Naked Lunch, The Dead Zone, Dead Ringers, Crash (the ’96 version), Videodrome, The Fly (1986), A History of Violence, and Eastern Promises. 

In eXistenZ, a game designer named Allegra Geller has created the ultimate gaming system made not of plastic but of live flesh complete with umbilical cords that plug directly into the player’s central nervous system. The game’s test launch takes place in a church on a remote countryside where Allegra, though shy and insecure around real people, prepares to upload herself into eXistenZ with a test group. In her game, players can transcend their limitations in real life and this becomes an existential threat to a radical group called the Anti-eXistenZialists. A 5 million dollar fatwa is placed on Allegra’s life and a rebel infiltrates the test group and shoots her but she survives and escapes with a security guard named Ted Pikul who becomes her protector. 

Ted Pikul is in a management training program with Antenna Research, the company Allegra works for. Pikul’s dream is to one day end up in marketing and public relations with the company. But Allegra threatens to sabotage his dream unless he plays her game, to know how it feels for himself. Pikul reluctantly agrees to play Allegra’s game. His initiation begins with him having a bioport socket installed into his spinal cord. Once inside the game, Pikul kills a waiter at a Chinese restaurant; Pikul finds killing difficult at the outset, but, through repetitive conditioning, leaving his emotions out of killing becomes easier. The deeper Allegra takes Pikul into the world of eXistenZ, the more real the game becomes, and the closer they become until, inevitably, they give in to their game-urges and the game’s plotline for them to make love. Pikul comes out of the game raised to a higher level of awareness; where, initially, he could tell the game from real life now he can’t. This awareness has also given Pikul a new game-urge...to kill Allegra Geller!

The film’s cinematography is by Peter Suschitzky and its music is by Howard Shore. The film stars Jude Law as Ted Pikul, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Allegra Geller, Willem Dafoe as Gas, and Ian Holm as Kiri Vinokur. In this presentation, I will cover some of the film’s themes from various perspectives and I will offer my personal feelings about the film at the end.

Themes

Our environment affects our behavior. Sigmund Freud believed that our natural impulses and instincts are in conflict with societal restraints. In eXistenZ, a fanatical group believes that eXistenZ will destroy reality and sends 2 agents--Ted Pikul and Allegra Geller--into the game to kill the game’s creator. Once they are in the game, Allegra and Pikul lose all memory of who they are in the real world including the fact that they are married. Allegra believes that she is the game’s designer but in fact, the game’s real designer is Yevgeny Nourish. Like Nourish, Allegra is aware of the game’s psychotic effect on the brain; Pikul, on the other hand, is a game-virgin and has a hard time coping with game-urges that he can’t control. For instance, when he kills the waiter at the Chinese restaurant, Allegra helps him, rationalize the killing by depersonalizing the waiter as simply a game-character; there is also a scene in which Pikul is unable to resist a game-urge to make love to Allegra; there are also scenes throughout the film in which Pikul’s game-urge forces him to recite scripted lines to certain characters in order to advance the plot

In 1973, psychologist Phillip George Zimbardo conducted an experiment at Stanford University where he organized 2 groups of students in a mock prison setting. One group acted as guards and the other group acted as prisoners in what he described as a social structure or a society based on predictable relationships. Once the guards and prisoners accepted the “definition of their situation”--or the type of behavior expected out of their respective roles--the prisoners and guards acted accordingly, that is, their relationship became depersonalized--the guards became aggressive; the prisoners became passive, resentful and depressed. In the Chinese restaurant scene in the film Pikul redefines the situation by asking the waiter an unscripted question that does not correspond to his role--or character--in the game. As a result, the waiter locks up and goes into what Geller describes as a game-loop. But when Pikul asks the waiter the question the proper way corresponding to the role he is expected to play in the game, the waiter comes out of his game-loop, answers Pikul’s question, and goes back to behaving normally. This brings us to another element of eXistenZ: status.

Status

Remember, Geller explains to PIkul that the game architecture of eXistenZ is powered and populated by the player’s mind. In other words, what you are in the game corresponds with what you think of yourself in the real world. For instance, within the game, Allegra Geller’s character--or status--is the game’s creator; however, in reality she is just another member of the test group. Her status within the game corresponds with her ambition outside of the game to be like Yevgeny Nourish, the game’s actual creator. Proverbs 23:7, 

“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” 

Unlike Allegra, the gas station operator named Gas has no ambition and his character--or status--in the game is unchanged from what he thinks of himself in reality. He complains about this at the end of the game, suggesting to the designers that they use a little more fantasy. Case in point is Pikul whose character--or status in the game--as Allegra’s protector and lover corresponds to the fact that he is her husband in reality.

Bleed through

"eXistenZ has direct access to our central nervous systems. Its game architecture will be based on our memories, our anxieties, our preoccupations...”--Allegra Geller

Everything that happens in the real world happens in the game-world and everything that happens in the game-world happens in the real world. For example, there is a game within the game called Viral Ecstasy in which a virus invades a person’s body which is actually Pikul and Allegra infiltrating eXistenZ to assassinate Yevgeny Nourish. And in keeping with the idea of infiltration, Geller’s biopod creates a game designed to let Allegra know that it has been infected.

“Game urge”

Matthew 26:41, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

We all fight with ourselves on a daily basis. We resist the urge to eat too much if we are trying to lose weight; we try to be faithful if we are in a monogamous relationship; we try not to oversleep if we have a job or go to school; we try not to retaliate when people are rude to us. Can you imagine what life would be like if we couldn’t control our urges? This is the case within eXistenZ. For instance, there is a scene in a Chinese restaurant in which Pikul’s game-urge forces him to eat a disgusting and slimy meal against his will. Subsequently, he instinctively assembles a gun out of animal bones after which he gets another game-urge that forces him to shoot and kill a waiter (or the messenger). A game-urge also forces Pikul to recite scripted lines to other characters; and he gets a game-urge to make love with Alllegra, an instinct that he is her husband in real life.

Nature

In Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, a prince selects his princess on the basis of her sensitivity to a pea that he buries underneath 20 mattresses. Have you ever forgotten something that you couldn’t remember no matter how hard you tried? Then, the answer just--all of a sudden--pops up in your head?

Likewise, though PIkul loses his memory that he is Allegra’s husband; his memory that they are rebels; and his knowledge of how to use a gun, clues as to his true nature come out in the game. For instance, in the game Pikul becomes a security guard, Allegra’s protector, and eventually her lover; and the gun that Pikul smuggles into the test group is the gristle-gun that he assembles at the Chinese restaurant. In both of these examples, Pikul’s game-life gives him clues about his mission and who he is in real life. Geller explains the game to him as being organic to each player’s basic level of existence. This is why Allegra tells Pikul to follow his game-urges and to not think. The game can deceive the eyes but it can’t deceive the heart nor destroy the essence of the player. 

Robots

To live by our urges and instincts; to lack the free will to make decisions; to be constrained to scripted behavior and speech patterns is to take away what makes us human. For instance, there is a scene in the Chinese restaurant where PIkul cannot fight his urge to eat  or a subsequent urge to shoot the waiter. In addition to turning human beings into robots, eXistenZ also frees players from feeling any remorse for their actions: “You won’t be able to stop it so you might as well enjoy it.”--Allegra Geller

Free will

In the book of Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of good and evil. But if God wanted man to blindly obey him why did he put the tree in the garden; or, why couldn’t God simply program man not to eat off the tree? It seems obvious that God wants us to have free will. In eXistenZ, Nourish plays the role of God but unlike God, his company wants to turn human beings into robots by taking away the power of choice.

The true purpose of eXistenZ is to deceive humans into accepting a counterfeit version of reality. Existenz caters to players’ deep-seated fantasies, allowing players to be what they are not in the real world. For example, a player named Gas believes that reality--where he works pumping gas--is the most pathetic level of his existence (on a side note, notice that Gas is named after what he does for a living and not as a unique individual with a unique name). Allegra Geller is just another player at Antenna Research’s product seminar but in the game she is the game’s designer. Existenz also frees players from their emotional constraints by conditioning players to kill game characters that are indistinguishable from real people; and also by conditioning players to depersonalize each other such as how Allegra refers to other players as characters.

The forbidden fruit 

In eXistenZ, PIkul becomes a game character, allows himself to have a bioport installed in his spinal cord, and makes love to Allegra Geller; he does all of this in order to relate to her before he kills her:

Hebrews 4:15, ‘For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.”

Disconnection

EXistenZ has a numbing effect on those who play it. For example, Allegra sees eXistenZ as a game and therefore, killing other characters in the game is easy; she is unconcerned about danger and threats on her life, and she prefers playing alone. But to Pikul, eXistenZ is real, so real that making love to Allegra feels real to him as does killing off other characters in the game.

Like someone who uses drugs heavily, Allegra’s tolerance to eXistenZ has desensitized her physically and emotionally. Allegra’s dysfunction is what sociologists Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton call the narcotizing effect of too much stimulation.

Overstimulation

EXistenZ is highly addictive and risky. For instance, after playing the game the real world seems so dull and predictable to Allegra and Pikul that they choose to go back into the game despite the risks and dangers they face in it. And like the infection risks associated with heroin addicts sharing needles, Pikul transmits an infection in his bioport to Geller’s biopod. 

Conclusion

Virtual reality; augmented reality; 3D holographic images; realer than real TV sets; followers on Facebook; virtual dating; online shopping; online friends; online doctors; online ministries; online sex, virtual gaming; Siri, Alexa, artificial intelligence, drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling, idolatry, love--like Allegra Geller’s diseased biopod in the film, could all of these avenues of escaping reality be like Pikul’s game-urges in the movie trying to tell us that we need to fix the real world?

Wrap

EXistenZ is not for everybody and it will probably turn off those whose tastes lean towards normal science fiction; eXistenZ is anything but normal, sometimes hardcore science fiction, at other times jerking, spastic and giddy, and at other times just downright gross--but somehow it all works! For example, there’s a scene where Pikul receives his 1st bioport, a scene that Allegra Geller places in a lewd context by wetting her fingertip to give the sphincter-like socket in Pikul’s lower back “some action.” There’s another scene where Allegra is shot with a tooth that has a cavity. Then there’s the biopods which look like bruised tits covered with buttons that look like nipples.

But with this said, eXistenZ is relevant considering that it came out in ’99. The film accurately foretold the existential relationship we have with our smartphones and other devices through Pikul who calls his pink-fone his “lifeline to civilization.” It also accurately foretold the impersonal relationships that have evolved out of social networks like Facebook through Allegra Geller who avoids intimacy and who prefers interacting with others in the game rather than face-to-face. The film also accurately describes the narcissism of online social media culture and its obsession with approval-seeking.

EXistenZ reminds me of The Matrix, Birdman, Battle Angel Alita, and The Bourne Identity. But the film that eXistenZ reminds me of the most is Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 film Total Recall. In that film, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a construction worker named Douglas Quaid who goes on a virtual vacation to Mars only to find out that everything in his life--including himself and his marriage--has been implanted into his brain. Like, Pikul in eXistenZ, Quaid receives subconscious impulses from his true identity.

EXistenZ was nominated for the Saturn Award in 1999 but lost out to The Matrix which came out the same year. The Matrix went on to become a cult classic and did very well at the box office; eXistenZ flew under the radar and made only 2.9 million at the box office. But don’t let this fool you as to the film’s overall quality and effectiveness.

Cronenberg got the inspiration for eXistenZ from an interview he did with Salmon Rushdie whose anti-Islamic novel, The Satanic Verses, caused Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to put a fatwa on the author’s life hence the fatwa on Allegra’s life in the film.

At 97 minutes, eXistenZ is extremely dense and gets better on subsequent viewings. If you like Paul Verhoeven’s style in films like Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers you’ll love eXistenZ. Great film by David Cronenberg. 

Scene analysis of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis'

This is a scene by scene analysis of Fritz Lang's film 'Metropolis'

Hi, and thanks for stopping by my movie blog. I've put together a plot summary and scene analysis for one of my all-time favorite science fiction movies, Fritz Lang's 1929 silent classic Metropolis. If you have a DVD, pop it in and follow along. And please leave a comment or your own interpretation of this terrific film called by many the greatest science fiction film ever, predating 2001 and Blade Runner by decades.

Metropolis

Title 1 (00:00-6:47) (6:47)

In this opening title of the film we are given a summary of this particular edition of Metropolis and that it includes 25 minutes of footage retrieved from an original version discovered in Buenos Aires Argentina.  The book by the same name was written by Lang’s wife Thea Von Harbou and 1st published in a magazine (Illustrertes Blatt) and finally published by August Scherk Verlag. As we see the clips, you will be able to tell the new footage because it will look grainier and rougher than the rest of the film, which was restored in 2001. As the credits begin to roll, we hear the rising score by Gottfried Hupperitz. We see those involved in other areas of the film’s production, the actors in the film. We see the film’s epigram: “The Mediator Between the Brain and Hand Must Be the Heart,” and finally, we see a mosaic of skyscrapers clenched together in the shape of a triangle or a pyramid, which is a symbol for stratification. As we watch the clips be mindful of the pyramid motif in the sets and other elements of the film’s production. 

The opening scene appears to be in what looks like a subway with 2 wide lanes full of men, one side filling an elevator and the other side emptying an elevator. They are changing shifts. They all have on the same drab gray uniform and all walk lock-step, the side entering the elevator walking faster than the side exiting the elevator. The men entering the elevator are taken down to the lowest level where they begin their long shifts, performing monotonous tasks at the machines which run the city. 

My viewpoint

Life in Metropolis is a life of monotony and control as characterized by the way the workers are all dressed in the same drab uniforms and by the manner in which they walk lock-step and how they maintain neat rows and columns. The workers entering the elevator to go to work walk 3 steps faster than those returning from work suggesting fatigue. The workers look like zombies or robots, not interacting with each other. The elevator has bars instead of a door implying that in the social order of Metropolis, they exist within a caste society that they cannot escape from. As the elevator descends, we see the workers on it from behind and the world through the elevator’s iron bars. Instead of open sky, we see a ceiling of concrete. The inter title “Deep Below The Earth’s Surface Lay The Worker’s City” is in the form of an upside-down triangle reinforcing the fact that the workers who run the city’s machines are at the very bottom of the social structure. Also, the workers’ heads are down. 

Title 2 (6:46—12:00) (5:14)

The wealthy live high above the workers in a complex called “Club of the Sons” and enjoy a standard of living that puts them at the top of the social class. They have sports, libraries, beautiful gardens and beautiful women. They live life carelessly and completely unaware of those who work beneath the surface of the earth. A beautiful woman from below brings the sons and daughters of those who live below up to meet the “Club of the Sons.” A young man named Freder who’s the son of the master of Metropolis sees the woman from below and he falls in love instantly. The woman and children are herded back into the elevator by guards.

My viewpoint

Title 3 (14:05- 16:50) (2:45)

Freder goes underground in search of Maria and he witnesses the machines and the workers. The machine looks like a pyramid full of valves, switches, blinking lights, and buttons and workers are at various levels of the machine moving in sync. The machine overheats and explodes and Freder sees a vision of the machine as a god named Moloch and he sees the workers being fed to it.

moloch

My viewpoint 

Freder, like Moses in the Bible, goes down among the poor and sees firsthand what makes Metropolis run. It's the blood and sweat of the workers that feeds the god called Moloch that runs the city. In this instance, Freder becomes the classic paradigm of a champion standing up for the oppressed. This follows in the tradition of Tarzan, the story of Moses in the Bible, the story of Jesus, and even the film Avatar. But since this film uses Biblical metaphor, Freder is now Moses sympathizing with those of the lower class. 

Title 4 (22:09-27:20) (5:11)

Freder returns to the Babel, the tallest tower in Metropolis, to tell his father what he saw beneath the city. That he saw the faces of his brothers and sisters, those who built Metropolis. His father’s attitude is cold. The people who built the city are where they belong, his father says. Grot, the foreman of the city’s Heart Machine brings Frederson a map of an underground labyrinth where the workers are planning an uprising. 

My viewpoint

Freder continues in his role of Moses returning to his father, the master of Metropolis, on behalf of those at the bottom, the workers who run the city. In the Book of Exodus, Pharaoh also expressed concern over the possibility that the slaves, as the workers in Metropolis, would rise up against the system oppressing them. Gottfried Huppertz score reflects the grandeur of Metropolis in this scene. Also, the use of camera perspective in this scene where Grot appears shows Frederson’s social position by making him appear larger than Grot, a worker from below, and Josaphat, who’s what blacks would consider a “House Nigger” because of the enjoys a higher status than those who work beneath the city. 

Title 5 (33:39-38:13) (4:34)

Freder returns to the machines under the city and takes the place of a worker known as 11811. They trade clothes and Freder instructs the worker to wait for him at his place. The worker discovers a pile of money in one of Freder’s pockets and takes a detour to the red-light district known as Yoshiwara. 

My viewpoint

Freder now alternates between Moses and Jesus. Like Moses, he returns to the machines underground and disguises himself as a worker to know what the oppressed are going through; as Jesus, Freder instructs the worker to wait on his return but the worker is tempted from the path and deviates into sin represented by the red-light district called Yoshiwara. The scene showing 11811 in the cab was added from film that was recently found in Buenos Aires. The added footage is distinguished by it’s grainier look from the rest of the film.

Title 6 (52:31-1:00:10) (7:39)

Freder and the workers take a secret passage to a temple beneath the workers’ city where Maria teaches them the old Biblical story of Babel. Afterwards, Freder declares his love for her. Fredersen and Maria  are unaware that they are being watched by Joh Frederson and the inventor Rottwang are spying on them. Frederson orders Rottwang to build a mechanical version  of Maria to deceive the people and turn them—and Freder— against the real Maria.

My viewpoint

Maria is John the Baptist, a prophet announcing the coming of the Messiah to liberate the workers. Now, Freder goes from playing Moses to Jesus and this is confirmed when a worker asks Maria “Where is the mediator?” and suddenly Freder’s head  is backlit to look like a halo around his head.

Production note: Wikipedia

Sculptor Walter Schulze-Mittendorff created the robot costume by molding it around a full-body cast worn by actress Brigitte Helm. The costume was so rigid that she suffered cuts and bruises wearing and moving in it. 

Title 7 (123:17-126:09) (2:51)

Rottwang the inventor kidnaps Maria and gives her image to the Machine Man who will deceive the workers of Metropolis.

My viewpoint

Great scene with all of the Sci Fi cliches of the time—electrical arcs, smoking chemicals, and alchemy. Biblically, the Machine Man is the AntiChrist, an analogy that is supported by the inverted pentagram in the background. An inverted pentagram is a symbol used in Satanic rituals. So, this means that Maria herself represents both prophet and Messiah at the same time. Note the music and the theme (music) that Gottfried Support  uses to describe the Machine Man version of Maria. A livelier variation of this theme is played in the Yoshiwara scene later. As Gottfried Huppertz synced the leitmotif he used for the Machine Man with the various switches and levers in Rottwang’s lab. Each instrument in Machine Man’s theme woke up with every turned dial or thrown switch until we have the entire leitmotif. It’s like he’s conducting an orchestra.

Title 8 (129:17-1:34:54) (5:11)

Freder finds Rottwang. Maria is with Joh Frederson, Rottwang tells Freder. Freder returns to Babel and finds Maria in his father’s arms. He is unaware that this is the fake Maria.  Freder is stricken with a high fever and in a dream he is transported to the Yoshiwara night club in the red-light district. There, he sees Maria as the Whore of Babylon on a stage dancing before the upper 10,000, making them lust after her and fight and kill each other. 

My viewpoint

When Rottwang created Machine Man he created her to deceive the workers as Frederson instructed. But Rottwang never forgave Frederson stealing his woman whose name was Hel. Hel died giving birth to Freder so Rottwang also programmed the Machine Man to destroy Metropolis by making it’s men destroy one another. Again, note the music and how the faster tempo of the Machine Man’s theme here. Bridget Helm is great as the Mechanical Man in this scene. Also, staying consistent with the movie’s theme of social stratification, take note of the pyramid motifs in the set designs,  particularly Freder’s bed, the headboard and footboard. Also, you see the Machine Man as Maria in Yoshiwara driving the Club of the Sons mad, making them fight each other, kill each other, even committing suicide. He sees her riding the 7 headed beast spoken of in the book of Revelation.

Title 9 (1:39:33-1:40:30) (00:57)

Rottwang, the inventor, is holding the real Maria captive. He tells her that Fredersen wants the false Maria to resort to violence so that he can be justified in using force against them. Unlike Maria, who preached for peace, the false Maria preaches violence. 

My viewpoint

As she did with the elite in Yoshiwara, Maria, or the Antichrist, deceives the workers of Metropolis to destroy Machine City, just what Fredersen wanted. But Freder, his son, spots the fake right away, warns the people, but they overtake him and head off to destroy Machine City.

Title 10 (1:46:30-1:59:45) (13:15)

Rottwang  tells Maria that Frederson wants the workers to become violent to justify slaughtering them. But as Rottwang is telling this to Maria, Joh Fredersen is nearby eavesdropping and he breaks into the attic and overtakes the inventor. Maria escapes while they are struggling. Meanwhile, the fake Maria leads the workers to destroy the machines. The workers are so caught up that they abandon their children. The fake Marie pulls a switch that causes the city to flood.

My viewpoint

As she did with the men in Yoshiwara, the fake Maria, or in this case the AntiChrist, brings chaos to the workers beneath the city. This scene draws an analogy with the flood that is described in the Bible. 

(Wikipedia) The director got 500 children from the poorest districts of Berlin to film the flood in this sequence. He ordered the extras to throw themselves at powerful jets of water in this flooding sequence.

Title 11 (2:01:34-2:06:54) (5:20)

Freder and Maria reunite and rescue the children as the Worker’s city is flooded. Freder takes the orphaned children to the Club of the Sons. 

My viewpoint

Title 12 (2:08:28-2:10:21) (1:53)

Grot, the foreman of the Heart Machine brings the workers, elated over the destruction of Moloch, back to their senses. In all the excitement over destroying Metropolis’s machines, they’d abandoned their children. They realize that the fake Maria has tricked them into destroying their own city. Their anger is redirected to killing Maria. Meanwhile, Maria celebrates with the Club of the Sons over destroying Fredersen’s city. 

My viewpoint

Title 13 (2:14:58-2:19:39) (4:41)

The workers capture the fake Maria and burn her at the stake. The fire burns away the Maria disguise and reveals that she is really the Machine Man. Freder sees Maria on the roof of a cathedral being chased by Rottwang. Freder saves her.

Production: Wikipedia

Fritz was obsessed with making this film as authentic as possible as Brigette Helms recalled: “when Grot drags me by the hair, to have me burned at the stake. Once I even fainted: during the transformation scene, Maria, as the android, is clamped in a kind of wooden armament, and because the shot took so long, I didn’t get enough air."[22] 

Title 14 (2:23:50-2:26:50) (3:00)

Freder saves his love, Maria, and Freder brings his father and the worker’s foreman, Grot, together to shake hands. 

My viewpoint

This film was made in 1927 but it is probably more relevant now than ever with the class and racial tensions in the country today. Roger Ebert called this film angry and I agree. But Metropolis is a warning for any society that reduces its citizens to numbers and especially a warning to a society where the poor are concentrated on the bottom underneath an oligarchy of the few that are wealthy. 

Theme

Again, in this scene we see the triangle or pyramid motif as the foreman Grot, forming the head of the pyramid, leads the workers up the steps of the cathedral to confront Fredersen, the master of Metropolis. This suggests the Biblical scripture that says the 1st shall be last and the last shall be first. Now, the workers have a say. This is a very symbolic scene and no accident that it culminates on the steps of a church. The pyramid motif is reflected everywhere throughout the design of this scene (finish)