Reality and Hyperreality in Cinema

A Case Study of Matrix

Table of Contents

1) Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

2) The 1990s SFs as an Allegory2) Simulation and Simulacra3) Visual Images as Simulacra

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

• The Matrix (1999)• Written and Direct

ed by Andy and Larry Wachowski

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

• A short synopsis• Computer hacker Tho

mas Anderson has lived a relatively ordinary life until he is contacted by the enigmatic person called Morpheus who leads him into the REAL world.

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

Morpheus makes Andersonrealise that the world around him is a computer simulation, a false version of twentieth-century life (exactly speaking 1999) named the “Matrix” and the REAL world (of 2199) has been laid waste and take

n over by advanced artificial intelligence machines.

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

The computers have created the “Matrix” to keep the human slavessatisfied, while the AI machines draw power from the humans.

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

Morpheus and other rebel warriors are constantly pursued by the police or "Agents" (computers who take

on human form and infiltrate the Matrix), while struggling to overthrow the Matrix.

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

• The Truman Show (1998) written by Andrew Nichol and directed by Peter Weir

• The hero’s home town and the surrounding area is the world’s largest soundstage (television stage).

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

• Dark City (1998) written and directed by Alex Proyas

• The decrepit urban labyrinth is eventually revealed to have been built by aliens for observing human behaviour.

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

• The Thirteenth Floor (1999) written and directed by Josef Rusnak

• One of the scientists perfecting a sim-city realizes slowly that he himself, and everything he knows exists merely as part of another sim.

Certain Cinema Tendencies in the 1990s

• Sim City is a city building simulation game, first released in 1989 and designed by Will Wright.

The 1990s SFs as an Allegory

• Allegory

• The war between machine and man (old cinema concept in the most recent films)

• (The possibility that) Reality is a hoax and simulation.

• Our anxiety about how our relationship to the real should be, or how our relationship to the fake should be.

Simulation and Simulacra

• A key to understand the allegorical meanings of The Matrix

• A brief shot of a book, Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation

Simulation and Simulacra

• To dissimulate – to feign (or pretend) not to have what one has.

• To simulate – to feign (or pretend) to have what one doesn’t have (there is nothing)

• “To simulate is not simply to feign … or dissimulation leaves the reality intact … whereas simulation threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false’, between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’” (Jean Baudrillard, p. 5)

Simulation and Simulacra

• Simulacrum = what is simulated; a copy of reality which has already lost its original presence, immanence and meaning

• Simulacrum = an empty sign which refers to only itself and does not stand for something else

• Our reality itself is made of simulacra

• There is nothing which is not simulated in our reality - postmodern reality.

Simulation and Simulacra

• Art as simulation - does not even pretend that it is a copy of reality. Art being devoid of original presence.

Simulation and Simulacra

• Present-day simulators make the real coincide and coexist with their simulation models.

• We are surrounded by images - films, TV, games, holograms, computer graphics, etc.

• Copies, replicas, models

Simulation and Simulacra

“Disneyland is presented as imaginary inorder to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation”(25).

Visual Images as Simulacra

• What The Matrix shows us is the reality like ours which consists entirely of simulated and mediated people and objects - hyperreal objects.

• The Matrix present a simulated reality which is more real than our reality. But how …

Visual Images as Simulacra

• Digital image surroundings

• Videogames: The Matrix deploys digital effects and images resonant for gamers

• Whether one played on a PC or a platform like PlayStation or X-box, videogame images are all digitally coded.

Visual Images as Simulacra

• We are surrounded by digitally created images: video game and computer game

• Wire fighting effects

• example

Visual Images as Simulacra

• Immersion effects (effects which make you completely absorbed in the film) You leave your reality for a moment and are absorbed in another reality. Made possible by digital effects: digital effects

• Wire-fighting choreographed by legendary Hong Kong choreographer/director Yuen Wo Ping (Yuen Cheun-Yan)

Visual Images as Simulacra

• Jackie Chen films

• The Matrix

• Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon (2000)

• Kill Bill (2003)

Visual Images as Simulacra

• Bullet time = a computer enhanced, extreme slow-motion effects

• It is thrilling, and filled with visual pleasure, and designed to surround one’s consciousness utterly. Matrix, Trinity