4/9/2023 0 Comments The terminal manThe symmetry and clean, minimal spaces of the mise-en-scène simultaneously reflects, yet belies, Benson's deteriorating state of mind, and The Terminal Man is a prime example of this 1970's motif. There is almost a mini-genre made up of such films, but that is for another article).Īs with many of the characters in the aforementioned 'paranoid' films, the protagonist's gradually fragmenting personality is reflected, quite literally, through windows and mirrors, or the intermediary transmissions of monitors. (Perhaps the origin of such 'spectator surgery' scenes comes from A Matter of Life and Death (1946). ![]() Similar medically based scenes, shot in a semi-documentary, precise style, feature in films like Fantastic Voyage (1966), The Boston Strangler (1968) and even the Woody Allen comedy, Sleeper (1973), where the locations are bright-white and antiseptic, everyone seems very clinical and aloof, and there is an audience of medical students watching from above in an auditorium. In one sense nothing much happens, yet it's riveting as the small details, minutely observed, are played out by the hospital staff. Over the first hour or so, the viewer sees the medical preparations and the surgery for the insertion of the brain implants. It's best not to spoil the ending, suffice to say that it is tragic, poignant and nihilistic. He then attempts to attack his female psychiatrist at her home, and his situation spirals out of control thereafter. He escapes from hospital and then goes on the run after the compulsive murder of a prostitute. However, the artificial melding of automatically dispensed sedatives, computer gadgetry and his primal, unconscious emotions causes a dangerous malfunction, whereby he rapidly undergoes fits of increasingly extreme violence. So, he volunteers as a human guinea pig for state-of-the-art surgery, having computer-controlled electrodes implanted in his brain in order to control his violent seizures. He suffers from a form of epilepsy which sometimes causes him to black out and become uncontrollably violent, later oblivious to the abuse he has committed. The film's story is simple, but highly effective: Harry Benson (George Segal) is a computer scientist, who happens to think that computers and advancing Artificial Intelligence will gradually take over the world. Conceptually, and artistically, these were the 'Mobius Strips' of the movie world, and The Terminal Man, is undoubtedly a part of that peculiar cultural continuum. With their adroit ethical dissections of government and corporate funded violence and control, as well as the societal dangers of encroaching technology, these films employed, ironically, that very technology's gadgetry and special effects in order to pose such pressing questions via the style and aesthetics of the cinematic medium. Such highly atmospheric, portentous yet rather detached films as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The President's Analyst (1967), The Conversation (1974), and The Parallax View (1974) were of this ilk. The Terminal Man came out of that same zeitgeist, some of the best films of which were preoccupied with government corruption, surveillance and espionage, especially around the time of the Watergate scandal. ![]() Indeed, it is very of its time: that rather odd, shifting period in Hollywood - roughly from the late 1950's up to the advent of box office successes like Jaws, in 1975 - when the big studio corporations were forced, for various reasons, to give way to more independently structured, lower budgeted films. In some ways it's a mood piece, relying more on the pared-down symmetry of the visuals and measured pace than outright plot, action or dialogue. ![]() Ostensibly, The Terminal Man is a science fiction film, but of the more subtle, minimalistic kind. The Terminal Man should be better known and comes second only to director Hodges' justly celebrated masterpiece Get Carter (1971). Based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, known for co-creating crowd-pleasing blockbusters like Jurassic Park (1993), but who also wrote and directed that other cult SF film, the brilliant Westworld (1973). For this instalment James DC takes up arms in defence of Mike Hodges' paranoid sci-fi thriller, The Terminal Man.įor unknown reasons Mike Hodges' The Terminal Man remains underrated and has yet to acquire the cult status it may be expected to have attained. Welcome to Injustice For All, a semi-regular feature here on The Quietus in which we ask our writers to nominate their choice of underrated film and to argue its case.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |