Sunday, September 21, 2003
This is a write-up that I did for english class on the movie Dark City, which I just saw:
Several movies and books have dealt with the issues of memories. The wonderful Memento had a main character that could not form new memories and was constructed in such a way that the audience had almost the same limitation. 1984 had a world in which doublethink allowed the party to manipulate the memories of the citizens. Dark City is a world in which the humans are implanted with memories, many of which change everyday. The Strangers are allowed to carry on their experiments by injecting humans with new sets of memories which they create. Everything must be strictly controlled, or something will happen like what happened with John Murdoch.
The statement that Winston Smith makes in 1984 about those controlling the present controlling the past is certainly true in Dark City, although it is more of the other way around. The Strangers control the past by implanting memories into people that either previously didn’t exist or existed under a different identity, and therefore they control the present because the people act in the present based on their background. They slip up at times, but even those people that figure out what is happening drive themselves mad like Walenski. The only hope for humanity lies in John Murdoch.
Personally, I think if the hope of the entire race depends on Rufus Sewell, I’d call my bookie and put my money on The Strangers. In all seriousness, though, his character is the person that is the indicator of the difference between this movie and 1984. In 1984, there was absolutely no chance of defeating the “enemy” because everything was systematically planned out to remove dissenters. In Dark City, The Strangers have no idea what to do when they find out about Murdoch except that they have to try to do their best to track him down, follow him, and kill him with those little daggers. They have no way to be able to know that they are in the world of an implausible movie in which the good guy will be able to evade every assassination attempt and eventually come face to face with the head of the evil force in a showdown that the good guy will eventually win. Plus, he has Kiefer Sutherland on his side. In this respect, Rufus Sewell certainly has a leg up on the competition. This is why Dark City fails where Oceania succeeds, and that’s what separates a great book from a mediocre movie.
Several movies and books have dealt with the issues of memories. The wonderful Memento had a main character that could not form new memories and was constructed in such a way that the audience had almost the same limitation. 1984 had a world in which doublethink allowed the party to manipulate the memories of the citizens. Dark City is a world in which the humans are implanted with memories, many of which change everyday. The Strangers are allowed to carry on their experiments by injecting humans with new sets of memories which they create. Everything must be strictly controlled, or something will happen like what happened with John Murdoch.
The statement that Winston Smith makes in 1984 about those controlling the present controlling the past is certainly true in Dark City, although it is more of the other way around. The Strangers control the past by implanting memories into people that either previously didn’t exist or existed under a different identity, and therefore they control the present because the people act in the present based on their background. They slip up at times, but even those people that figure out what is happening drive themselves mad like Walenski. The only hope for humanity lies in John Murdoch.
Personally, I think if the hope of the entire race depends on Rufus Sewell, I’d call my bookie and put my money on The Strangers. In all seriousness, though, his character is the person that is the indicator of the difference between this movie and 1984. In 1984, there was absolutely no chance of defeating the “enemy” because everything was systematically planned out to remove dissenters. In Dark City, The Strangers have no idea what to do when they find out about Murdoch except that they have to try to do their best to track him down, follow him, and kill him with those little daggers. They have no way to be able to know that they are in the world of an implausible movie in which the good guy will be able to evade every assassination attempt and eventually come face to face with the head of the evil force in a showdown that the good guy will eventually win. Plus, he has Kiefer Sutherland on his side. In this respect, Rufus Sewell certainly has a leg up on the competition. This is why Dark City fails where Oceania succeeds, and that’s what separates a great book from a mediocre movie.
