Film Noir Features in Blade Runner and The Matrix
“The Matrix” has a main science fiction theme but also includes
features of film noir films. It is directed and written by Andy and
Larry Wachowski. Other than Science Fiction and film noir the film can
also be classed as a Hybrid.
“Blade Runner” is more of a film noir film than “The Matrix”. Although
it does include action and fighting scenes but these have film noir
features in them. Most ideas about the film are connected with film
noir such as the mystery, the low key lighting and symbolic objects.
It was directed by Ridley Scott and written by Phillip K. Dick,
Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples.
The main characters in “The Matrix” are Laurence Fishburne as
Morpheus, Keanu Reeves as Thomas A. Anderson or Neo and Carry-Anne
Moss as Trinity. In Blade Runner the main characters were Harrison
Ford as Rick Deckard, Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty and Sean Young as
Rachael.
Film noir comes from the French term, ‘A Black Film’ or a ‘Dark Film’.
It was noticed in America during the forties and fifties by a French
film critic who saw how quite a lot of films made had dark looks and
themes. These appeared to be mainly in American Crime and Detective
films released during World War 2.
Typical features of film noir include feelings of fatalistic
pessimism, incidents of treachery, and a sense of a corrupt and
violent society threatening the hero and other hero – like characters.
Other features are darkness, secretive and mysterious people and
mystery. A reason for the low lighting in film noir films is that in
Hollywood studios, after the war they could not afford expensive
...
... middle of paper ...
...ld
being real and being able to tell the difference and also if
technology is a good thing to evolve e.g. artificial intelligence but
the ideas that “The Matrix” has made me consider are things like what
rather than who in the world are real and if the world that we live in
is real or not, could we be made to think that this is the real world.
The film that I enjoyed the most out of the two is “The Matrix”. This
is because it involves more special effects and fighting scenes than
“Blade Runner” also because I feel that “Blade Runners” story line is
not as complex and as challenging to follow as “The Matrix”, “The
Matrix” made me think about reality and what it is, it also made me
think as the film was evolving, when were the characters in the real
world or the matrix and how they were doing the things that they were.
In chapter ten of the book “Problems from Philosophy”, by James Rachels, the author, the author discusses the possibilities of human beings living in an actually reality, or if we are just living in an illusion. Rachels guides us through concepts that try to determine wiether we are living in a world were our perception of reality is being challenged, or questioned. Rachels guides us through the topic of “Our Knowledge of the World around Us”, through the Vats and Demons, idealism, Descartes Theological Response, and direct vs. indirect realism.
When the trailer for this film was first introduced to the public, many expected The Matrix to be just another science-fiction film with phenomenal special effects which lacked an intriguing plot. The majority of the reviews definitely put an end to this misconception. Most of the reviews written on this film eloquently complement the Wachowski brothers on their excellent story line. The Biblical references of this film incorporated with the phenomenal cinematography distinguish The Matrix from all other science-fiction films in which the main characters are on a race to save humanity. "The script, written by the Wachowski brothers is intelligent but carefully not geeky."2
The movie "Matrix" is drawn from an image created almost twenty-four hundred years ago by the greek philosopher, Plato in his work, ''Allegory of the Cave''.The Matrix is a 1999 American-Australian film written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. Plato, the creator of the Allegory of the Cave was a famous philosopher who was taught by the father of philosophy Socrates. Plato was explaining the perciption of reality from others views to his disciple Aristotle. The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave share a simmilar relationship where both views the perciption of reality, but the Matrix is a revised modern perciption of the cave. In this comparison essay I am going to explain the similarities and deifferences that the Matrix and The Allegory of the Cave shares.In the Matrix, the main character,Neo,is trapped in a false reality created by AI (artificial intelligence), where as in Plato's Allegory of the Cave a prisoner is able to grasp the reality of the cave and the real life. One can see many similarities and differences in the film and the allegory. The most important similarity was between the film and the Allegory is the perception of reality.Another simmilarity that the movie Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave shares is that both Neo and the Freed man are prisoners to a system. The most important difference was that Neo never actually lived and experienced anything, but the freed man actually lived and experinced life.
While there are many different ways to classify a Neo-noir film, Roman Polanski’s, Chinatown captures many. The 1974 movie consists of many of these elements, including both thematic and stylistic devices. One of the main themes of neo-noir film that is constant throughout the film is the deceptive plot that questions the viewers’ ideas and perceptions of what is actually happening in the film. Every scene of Chinatown leads to a twist or another turn that challenges the practicability of the film’s reality. All of the never-ending surprises and revelations lead up to the significant themes the movie is trying to convey in the conclusion of the film.
As we stated in the beginning Hollywood is very good at making movies because they base them of these myths. The hero's myth is the favorite and as we can see, the Matrix fit this myth perfectly. Maybe that is why it won four Oscars and three MTV awards.
as being reality and very often there is a person making another believe in the
TELOTTE, J. P. (1989). Voices in the dark: the narrative patterns of film noir. Urbana, University of Illinois Press.
Everything that is real is a lie except your thoughts. If someone approached you with this statement you would assume they are insane and you would try to convince them that you are real and the world is real. As you begin to try to prove reality you begin to question yourself, under what circumstances do we understand reality? As we acknowledge what we believe to be realities, we form conclusions and assurances about our own existence and the existence of everything around us. Because our existence is assured through our perception of reality, we believe to be part of an existing real world. The existence of the real world is based upon belief and cannot be proven. The existence of the real world originates from our brains. Reality is dependent of our perception, experiences, senses, and reasoning.
I believe that it is all real in some way or the other the physical world is of course real, we feel pain, happiness, love how else we would feel those if it was not real. The spiritual world is real in a different way by that way we cannot see. Here is an example at my old house I would be home alone and every so often I would hear noises upstairs like foot steps to this day I could not tell you what the noise was.
The Matrix is a science fiction movie about artificial intelligence computers replacing mankind. I believe that this movie is a common type of display from the media is common paranoia so that they can get a reaction from people and sell their story. In the case of The Matrix, the movie dazzles people with awesome special effects using modern computer technology, which I find ironic. I find it self-conflicting and hypocritical for the media to use modern computer technology for their own good to show people how bad technology is. Amy Bruckman and Howard Rheingold would probably find this movie interesting in that it disagrees and agrees with certain aspects about their beliefs about the use of computers.
Reality is something that we humans have a hard time comprehending. We don’t know the exact reason why we live and why we exist but we have many theories that could be the reason. For example, Christians believe that God made the world in six days and that we live as his creations, to worship and adore him. Jose Luis Borges likes to conduct thought experiments with his stories and one theme he uses quite often is the nature of reality. Borges created a perplexing universe in “The Library of Babel” that plays with the idea of never being able to grasp certain concepts because of the limit of what one can perceive.
"BR: In every sense we create our own reality, and this goes much further than most people aware of or are willing to admit. The reason most people can't see this is because everyone is creating their own reality, but 99.9% of them are creating the same one-using
The Matrix. Dir. The Wachowski Brothers. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne. 20th Century Fox, 1991.
"The way to find the 'real' world is not merely to measure and observe what is
Fate and freewill remain two ongoing themes in this movie having major significance throughout. The Matrix directed by the Wachowski brother’s developed in 1999, became world famous due to its unique structure and unusual visual effects known as ‘bullet time’ as well as the ‘green tinge’.