Patricia kaiser

PATRICIA KAISER
CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF VENEZUELA, VENEZUELA
“THE POSTMODERN AESTHETICS IN 1990’s SCIENCE FICTION FILMS:
A POLITICAL APPROACH?”
I want to talk here about the aesthetics of the films of the last decade (and some recent films too). My starting point is that the conditions of our age, that have influenced the way that we create and live our fantasies, that is the films themselves. So, let us make an exercise of the imagination, and move ourselves to the future. Suppose that the world is a matrix, and we are not aware of it. Let us suppose, as many movies do, that the reality is a simulation, the effect of truth that hides the fact that truth does not exist (see Baudrillard). What consequences does that generate? Well, if we are not aware of that, then our senses can not apprehend the true reality, the true state of things. This leads to a doubt with regards to the capacity and dependability of the senses when we have to perceive the material world; maybe because reality does not allow us to apprehend it either. The simulation is so perfect and reality so empty, that we begin to ask more reality from it than from reality itself: hyperrealism. A good example of this is eXistenZ, where Pikul and Allegra find themselves playing inside eXistenZ, but not knowing exactly on which level they are or when the game will be over. At a certain point, Pikul gets closer to a chair to discover that it is more perfect than the chairs of the “real” world. That states, where the individual can not make the difference between him (or her) with the environment, is named “sicastenia,” and is a state in which the real space, defined by the body of the individual itself, is mixed up with the simulated space. And obliges the organism to blend with its surroundings as the only way to live it. This generates a symbiosis between the organism and the simulated space, that produces a reproduction of elements of the environment in the organism; and at the same time, a fusion of the organism when the difference between it and the environment has disappeared (Olalquiaga 28). Now, blending with the surroundings results in an identity loss in the individual. What is outside and what is inside merge and it is impossible to tell them apart, leading to a loss of distance between me as an individual and the other (we can consider the other as an This loss of confidence in senses produces in the individual what Olalquiaga has defined as “obsessive compulsion,” a phenomenon “consisting in a lack of connection between body and mind, a situation of mutual mistrust in which every action is suspicious and the perception of yourself is not trustable” (29). As a defense mechanism against this mistrust, people mechanically repeat an action in an attempt to exorcise the emptiness created by doubt, with the multiplication of its elements (for instance, everybody puts the keys in their pockets after locking the door, but who does not check whether he or she has not forgotten the keys?). The individual now lives in a state of permanent excitement and turns into his worst enemy. But, terrible, this is the only way to live in the new spaces. First, because the duplication of the reality in the mirrors and in the screen, makes the space to be defined not by its depth and its volume (mirrors and screen are flats) but by a cinematic repetition (temporal in nature); and it also makes time to be characterized by the freezing of a moment of immobility (of the space of the mirror or the screen where we can Now, let us consider the contemporary individual: we live merged with our surroundings, unable to distinguish ourselves from it, endlessly repeating the same act, desperately seeking to fill with action a moment and a space, that are not what they are This behavior transforms the individual in an automatized being, without initiatives and under the power of the corporations and of a superior “narrative.” The concept of superior narrative is related to video games, that provide for the player a series of options, always subject to what the narrative (and the programming) have predetermined. In the case we are studying, the movies from the 1990’s seem to have a taste for “metadiegesis” (stories inside stories), where the characters are ruled by the will of more powerful characters that, when they find themselves into a “metadiegesis” of a higher narrative level, automatically define themselves as superior (both for the power given to them in the story and for the fact that they control the plot). This is what happens in 13th Floor. There, the leading characters are trying a machine to travel in time, just to discover that they are puppets of the machine of another individual from the future, who, by the way, controls them completely. Even what they see, and what In many of the studied films, the sensations felt by the characters do not come directly from their senses, but from the mediation of a technological agent. A consequence of this, is that the hero-viewer identification effect passes through the imposition of a way to see. That is why there is a recurrent use of the subjective camera, through which the public is put in the position of the individual watching pornography, or committing a robbery, a rape or a murder. And the recent films intensify the disorienting sense of disembodied presence. This film style provides a more fully articulated vision of electronic altered consciousness. Even the films that not represent cyberspace are characterized by computer graphics, rapid camera movements and extreme angles, while the “real” world is live-action footage shot pedantically in conventional Hollywood style (Springer 210). This cinematic style mechanism leads the viewer to the same narrative position occupied by the characters, and therefore, their judgments are temporarily suspended or it is the same as that of the hero, which is a ideological mechanism of the movie industry. Since reality has been deprived of meaning, the simulacra hiding it has to use violent events as the only way to produce in the viewer an “effect of truth” (and the cinematic style collaborates with that). This is just because the experiences that combine violence and physical pain “acquire extreme features of reality, which explain the increasingly greater fascination generated by the images of death and mutilation seen in pop culture and the mass media” (Olaquiaga, 29-31). This is clear in recent films where violence is the main weapon to seduce the viewer. And the most successful formula to achieve this is the combination of sex, An example of this is Cronenberg’s movies, particularly Crash, the return and rise of Real TV (The Blair Witch Project is an example in cinema) or the thin line between action A point that has to be mentioned here is the stylistic imitation of the past, dubbed by Jameson as “pastiche”: eclectic grouping of a diversity of artistic styles, brought together without any reference to their origin (44). As a result, “without the specify provided by history (time) and ubication (space), what once was cultural icons […] now floats freely as merchandise, the ethnic quality of which keeps arousing the greed of the market and increasing their own value. In this sense, the features of this combination of icon and merchandise seem to be the result of an exchange logic, more than the result of the cultural identity conventions” (Olalquiaga 43). This seems to bring to light a certain inability to think and represent our own experience of the present, which forces us to make use of the past The sicastenia, the compulsive obsession, the metadiegesis as the narrative structure, the new cinematic style, the ultra violence, the pastiche, the incapacity to represent our present and the automatization of the individual, translates it into a lack of materialization of a political ideal. Our leading characters, even our heroes, do not want to change the general state of things or wage a revolution. What they really want to change are the negative For instance, in Johnny Mnemonic, Loteks struggles to get the cure for the NAS (Nerve Attention Syndrome), not to change the nature of the state. And the fire at Pharmacom (the company in power) is a street revenge due to the fact that it has the solution to the main problem of public health and has not made it available. Still, the fact that the changes defended by our heroes are at the same time an utopia is a paradox. Equality of opportunities in Johnny Mnemonic, freedom of choice in The Matrix, equality of races in Strange Days, the right to live in the reality in eXistenZ. This paradox is perfectly normal in these postmodern times: even if major political changes are not perceptible, small projects continue working, particularly those that are basically psychological or interpersonal (Heller 131). With the exception of The Matrix, and the bizarre end of eXistenZ, every struggle carried out by our heroes begin with a personal battle, This can be related with the new function of the cyberspace (as a metaphor): “these films often employ the cyberspace as a therapeutic device to restore order even after they have implicated it as the cause of dangerous instability […]” (Springer 210), in other words of the same author: “[…] cyberspace […] plays out a series of psychological tropes: it signifies fractured, unstable subjectivity or amnesia and the Imaginary realm [….] It also holds the therapeutic power to solve the problems it is responsible for creating. Resolution consist of asserting the primacy of the “real,” of restoring or attaining an identity that exists “outside” of the electronic arena. This is an essentialist resolution that hinges on the assumption that an individual is defined by a single true subjectivity […]” (Springer 215). But this hides another paradox, or better, a problem: we must resolve our socio- political fears and anxieties in the imaginary realm, because it seems that we are unable to do it in the real world. Many people say that this has been the social function of the arts and the cinema. But maybe this is the new way to weaken the power of the individual in the social realm, moving his (her) actions toward the imaginary realm. But, is not the imaginary a part Maybe these movies just show us the new way to do politics in present times, and the new way to assume our subjectivity and our identity. Because maybe the future is telling us Primary Sources
12 Monkeys. Dir. Terry Guilliam. Perf. Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe. Atlas Entertainment, Classico and Universal Pictures. USA, 1995. Blair Witch Project, The. Dir. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. Perf. Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams. Blair Witch Film Partners, Haxan Cell, The. Dir. Tarsem Singh. Perf. Jennifer Lopez, Vicent D’Onofrio, Vincent Vaughn. Avery Pix, Caro McLeod, Katira Productions GmbH & Co. KG, New Line Cinema. Crash. Dir. David Cronenberg. Perf. James Spader, Holly Hunter. Fine Line Features, Allliance Communications, New Line Cinema. USA, 1996. Crow, City of Angels, The (aka The Crow 2). Dir. Tim Pope. Perf. Vincent Pérez, Iggy Pop. Bad Bird Production, Dimension Films, Miramax Films. USA, 1996. EXistenZ. Dir. David Cronenberg. Perf. Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ian Holm, Willem Defoe. Alliance Atlantis Communications, Canadian Television Fund, Natural Nylon Entertainment, Serendipity Point Films, The Harold Greengerg Fund, TNM, Téléfilm Johnny Mnemonic. Dir. Robert Longo. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Dine Meyer, Ice-T, Takeshi Kitano. Alliance Communications Corporation, Cinévision, TriStars Pictures. USA, Matrix, The. Dir. Wachowski Bros. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishbourne. Warner Strange Days. Dir. Kathryn Bigelow. Perf. Ralph Phiennes, Angela Bsset, Juliette Lewis, Tome Sizemore and Vicent D’Onofrio. Lightstorm Entertainment. USA, 1995. Thirteenth Floor, The. Dir. Josef Rusnak. Perf. Vincent D’Onofrio, Craig Bieko, Gretchen Mol. Centropolis Films Production. USA, 1999. Terminator 2. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean, La ilusión del fin. La huelga de los acontecimientos. 2nd ed. Barcelona: Heller, Agnes. “Los movimientos culturales como vehículo de cambio.” Colombia: El despertar de la modernidad. Eds. F. Viviescas and F. Giraldo. Santa Fe de Bogotá: Foro Nacional por Colombia, 1991. 123-137. Jameson, Fredric. El posmodernismo o la lógica cultural del capitalismo avanzado. Buenos Olalquiaga, Celeste. Megalópolis. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1991. Springer, Claudia. “Pycho-cybernetics in Films of the 1990s.” Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema. Ed. Annette Kuhn. UK: Verso, 1999. 203-220.

Source: http://fef.baskent.edu.tr/amer/includes/conference2papers/PATRICIAKAISER.pdf