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Fri 12 Mar, 2004 02:35 am
The theme of illusion/reality seems ideally suited to cinema, yet it's treated surprisingly rarely. Audiences and especially Hollywood seem to much prefer knowing where they stand. Brazil, Mulholland Dr, Celine and Julie go Boating, Last Year at Marienbad, Persona are brilliant examples (i think) of more daring approaches that deal with dreams, "trips", and/or question what is real, 2001 goes off in search of a wondrous, barely imaginable destiny, and of course there have been surrealists like Bunuel, Cocteau and avant-garde experimenters. Any favourites that fit the bill, or thoughts on the subject?
This interests me a lot as i'm ever more convinced it's likely we're living in just one of many, if not an infinite number, of universes (each with infinite variations, similarities and differences). And if backwards time travel proves possible in future, then even this single human history will be changed over and over again, into endless variations.
As a kid, i used to think of infinite variations, of planets, countries, individuls, histories etc in an infinite universe, but this would surely depend not only on infinite space but also infinite matter, which (apparently) we don't have. But with infinite possible variations in time...?!.
We may be just playthings in some future super-computer's virtual reality variations. How do we know we exist, beyond a thought, some alien being's dream or some videogame recreation of future advanced humans/ beings? We may awake to find our lives were merely the dream of a jellyfish-type creature on the planet Zarg. We cannot even be sure of Descartes' " i think, therefore i am". And if we do exist as genuine flesh and blood, how do we know we are in the solitary universe? The likely outcome of our expanding universe, pondered by scientists- petering out, perfect balance, or repeated big bangs- may only be one of an infinite number of solutions. Each of us may also have other parallel lives, to which we may transfer after death here.
Just a few thoughts going through my disturbed mind recently, encouraged by Borges' tremendous short story The Garden of Forking Paths. Feel free to join in.
It all began with Cocteau! I love the homage to "Beauty and the Beast" in "Angels in America."
"Brazil," "Mullholland Drive," and the rest owe a lot to Cocteau.
Even Bergman paid homage to Cocteau's mirror scene in "Orphee" with the mirror scene in "The Magician."
Film is a medium where we can ponder on the connection between fantasy and reality, or dreams and reality if you prefer.
Thanks for those examples. I think i'll give Pirandello (Six Characters for starters) a try. I must admit it's been a long time since i went to the theatre. Ionesco; brings back memories of being a French student. We read his Rhinoceros as a class and i was the guy who changes into a rhinoceros (voice getting more and more hoarse)!
Actually, i underestimated the cinema's coverage, too; Fight Club, Carnival of Souls, ExistenZ, The Matrix, Donnie Darko, Sherlock jnr, The Purple Rose of Cairo all deal with illusion/reality in different ways, as do Bunuel films like The Phantom of Liberty and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and Run Lola Run and Kieslowski's Blind Chance deal with variations of fate.
billyfalcon addressed your premise better than I did -- movies have explored illusion/reality with mixed results and some of the films are masterpieces. The mysterious dissapearance in "L'Aventura" is very metaphysical (exploring the illusion of love against the reality of life's circumstances) and a core scene in "Vertigo" in the redwoods (just to mention one) also causes one to ponder deeply the divide between illusion and reality (actually, the entire movie is really about illusion and reality). The illusion doesn't have to be in the realm of fantasy and sci-fi.
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