I’m not ashamed to admit that I love Vanilla Sky. I don’t care how arrogant Tom Cruise is, or how sappy Cameron Crowe is. Jerry Maguire still gets me every single time.
After we touched upon postmodernism in class, my mind immediately went to the film. I don’t want to give away too much, but the idea of a lucid dream IS the hyperreal. The concept is very similar to The Matrix. The lucid dream is sort of a matrix, just not in some post-apocalyptic, robot-infested world. People exist in the hyperreal which is even further removed from reality.
The lucid dream takes past experiences and throws them into the conscious. The mind of David Aames is filled with pop culture reference after pop culture reference. So all these simulations are forming what he believes is his reality. In the film, there is a reason why his lucid dream has masked his reality (I’ll keep my mouth shut in case anyone is inspired to watch it).
I found an article called “Technology and the Time-Image: Deleuze and Postmodern Subjectivity” by Clayton Crockett. In it, he discusses time in the hyperreal. Vanilla Sky presents time in an unusual way. The simulations don’t exactly exist in a nice, chronological order. Crocket also touches upon whether Baudrillard has nostalgia for “finding something pure”. David Aames also gets to this point, where he wishes to find something pure. My lips are sealed.
I would even argue that Vanilla Sky involves psychoanalytic theory. David Aames has a whole bunch of problems with his unconscious that surface in the lucid dream. Not to mention he is being psychoanalyzed throughout the film (by the oh-so-suave Kurt Russel). I know psychoanalysis of a character leads to problems, but I think the film is trying to say something about repression.
I’d like to develop this essay around the idea of the lucid dream. It ties in with simulation, simulacra, hyperreal, and all that good stuff. The lucid dream, full of all its simulations, masks reality. It is a copy with no origin. The original may have been David’s life (yet, isn’t that full of simulations too?), but the lucid dream has developed to be more than that. My concern is that this idea could probably use a little tightening.
P.S. The theory is nice, but my main reason for choosing this film is that I can get all mushy when Tom Cruise kisses Penelope Cruz under the vanilla sky to Sigur Ros.
P.P.S. If you like Sigur Ros, watch the film. Spencer I’m talking to you.
4 comments:
Pretty good idea, but I feel like either you didn't say enough about how you're going to explore the topic or you're not planning on breaking apart the film from too many angles. I think you might be able to see postmodernism in the way the movie itself is presented to the audience. Just an idea.
By "the way the movie itself is presented to the audience" do you mean the sort of "HA! Gotcha!" ending?
From the perspective of David Aames, he realizes this is all a simulation, and also the audience realizes the same thing.
I agree with Max in reference to his comment on how you are going to explore Vanilla Sky. I think I am facing the same dilema.
I like the idea of thinking about the subconscious; I think that it relates to the movie in many ways. It has been a long time since I have seen the movie, but I know I loved it too. There is deffinitaly something in the movie that relates to Baurdrillards' theories.
Post a Comment