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Contexts
for reading The Matrix
- Technology:
the rise of the Internet
- Two
social anxities
- Loss
of social freedom
- The
splitting of mind and body
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The
Matrix as aesthetic hybrid
- S/F
comics
- Cyberpunk
fiction
- Other
non-s/f influences:
- Computer
games
- New
age spirituality
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| cyberpunk
fiction's geography |
the
geography of The Matrix |
| the
ordinary 'real' world the hacker comes from |
the
'desert of the real': a post nuclear world |
| cyberspace
where the hacker makes a 'run' |
the
ordinary looking matrix simulation of Earth in 1999
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Novem
of The Matrix
- Digitize
everything and translate that code into neurological signals
- The
unprecendented power of an invisible simulation
- But,
if someone could crack the code...unprecedented freedom
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Questions
for reading The Matrix:
- How
does this film overcome the mind/body split that had been
necessary for the cyberpunk hacker to enter cyberspace?
- This
question can be put in generic terms: how does The
Matrix contrive to transform the hacker into a superhero?
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Three
stages of the plot
- The
extraction of Neo (scene index 1-9)
- The
Neo's education and training (10-27)
- Neo
brings mind and body into action (28-37)
Mythos:
the education and testing of a hero
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| Screening
Key scenes |
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Thinking
the unthinkable
- Morpheus
as guide: Neo offered a choice and goes down the
rabbit hole (8-9-10)
- Morpheus's
history lesson in the Construct (12)
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Learning
to hack with Kung-Fu
- Training
with Morpheus
- Morpheus's
paradoxical words after he beats Neo in the
sparring program: "Morpheus: How did I
beat you? Neo: You--your're too fast. Morpheus:
Do you think my being faster, stronger has anything
to do with my muscles in this place? Do you
believe that's air you are breathing now?"
- Neo
gets a cinematic assist from "Bullet-time"
- John
Gaeta on the use of bullet-time: "those moments
signify that the character Neo is actualizing
his mind over matter control of the Matrix simulation."
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Neo
as savior of humankind
- Rebirth
and final fight with Agent Smith (36)
- Coda:
final speech and flight (37)
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Michaelangelo,
the Pieta (St. Peters)
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