Robot Heavens and Robot Dreams: Ultimate Reality in A.I. and Other Recent Films
Numerous recent films understand ultimate reality to be multi layered. This article examines the various formulas films use to express this idea, such as heaven, dreams, technology, temporal loops and altered mental states, while also exploring the various religious and philosophical traditions on which these "ultimate reality films" draw. Next, I suggest a postmodern framework as a way of accounting for the ubiquity of the reality theme across filmic genres and I argue that film is a unique medium for expressing this epistemology. Finally, I turn to an extensive analysis of A.I. as a case study of a postmodern, multivalent "ultimate reality film" and illuminate nine possible endings that combine myth, religion, Freud and Jung with themes of technology and ontological identity. This article is available in Journal of Religion Film: https:/digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol7/iss2/7 Every age has its anxieties. Ours has produced a particular shade of angst, one colored by apocalyptic fervor over the millennium as well as by postmodern specters that have crystallized in the last century like never before in history. We are now on familiar grounds with terrorism, war fought with weapons of mass destruction, worldwide environmental devastation, rampant consumerism, technological advancement without ethics, and globalism without community. Whether an attempt to foster escapism or to offer a genuine solution, Hollywood has responded with a particular epistemological answer: this material world of suffering that we perceive is not the only world. Drawing on an array of both "Eastern" and "Western" religious and philosophical traditions including Buddhism, Hinduism, Neo Manichean dualism, Gnosticism, Neo Platonism, Descartes' mind body dualism, and Jewish Kabbalah several recent cinematic releases articulate an understanding of true reality as a multi layered one, sometimes with and sometimes without an identifiable ultimate level. In the article that follows, I argue this orienting (or disorienting) worldview of a multi layered reality lies at the core of numerous recent films, although the formulas for articulating the scheme vary widely. I further submit that although many of the films draw on ancient religious and philosophical themes to express this notion, at its root, the cinematic focus on questions of ultimate reality constitutes a postmodern response to a troubling period of modern "progress." I 1 Flannery Dailey: Robot Heavens and Robot Dreams: Ultimate Reality in A.I. and Other Recent Films Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2003 also suggest that film is a uniquely qualified medium for expressing this cosmology. Finally, I explore A.I. as an illustration of intelligent, postmodern myth making that constructs a multi layered reality by interweaving dreaming, technology, ontological confusion, non linear time, religion and myth. Formulas for Ultimate Reality Depending on the film at hand, the formula for what constitutes ultimate reality varies, as does the mechanism for accessing alternate levels. A short illustrative survey of the presence of these themes in thirty films, mostly from around the turn of the millennium, suffices to demonstrate the pervasiveness of these notions in recent cinema. Several films frame reality as untrustworthy from within the subjective vantage point of the human mind, as in Fight Club (1999) Memento (2000) Minority Report (2002) Waking Life (2001) and Vanilla Sky (2001) In these cases, the gateway to accessing another reality could be mental illness (Fight Club) mental defect (Memento) or dream states (Minority Report, Waking Life and Vanilla Sky) Other films present ultimate or alternate planes of existence in a more literal fashion. In Pleasantville (1998) a television and a deus ex machina Don Knotts facilitate entry into a parallel sitcom universe, while in Dark City aliens conspire to keep a group of humans imprisoned in a false world which repeatedly 2 Journal of Religion Film, Vol. 7 [2003] Iss. 2, Art. 7 https:/digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol7/iss2/7 changes while they are asleep (cf. The Truman Show [1999] and EDtv [1999] In time travel films such as Kate and Leopold (2001) and the remake The Time Machine (2002) technology offers a way into our world set in another time, which thus becomes another world. The theme also pervades children's films: Monsters, Inc. (2001) explains that closet doors are really portals into another dimension filled with capitalist monsters. However, most "ultimate reality films" go further, massaging the boundary between our seemingly objective, external reality and internal, subjective reality. Sixth Sense (1999) Spirited Away (2002) and similar films assert that another ontological reality is nestled in amongst ours; this "Land of Spirits" is accessible by a shift in consciousness (as well as by death) Jesus' Son (2000) offers hallucinogens as the gateway to altered mental states and, apparently, to genuine glimpses of the future. In scenes that resonate with The Matrix (1999) The Thirteenth Floor (1999) depicts simulated parallel universes within space time that are created by technology and accessed through technologically induced shifts in perception. Being John Malkovich (1999) presents another twist by entertaining the possibility of literally entering another person's mind, thereby intertwining certain characters' "external" reality with John Malkovich's "internal" reality. Still another of Charlie Kaufman's films, Adaptation (2002) ingeniously calls attention to the falseness of reality as well as of film itself by cleverly conflating the filmic 3 Flannery Dailey: Robot Heavens and Robot Dreams: Ultimate Reality in A.I. and Other Recent Films Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2003 narrative, the mind of the screenwriter, and "real life" outside of the film. Furthermore, films such as Defending Your Life (1977) A Life Less Ordinary (1997) What Dreams May Come (1998) and Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth (1997) completely collapse ultimate, exterior reality and subjective reality by asserting that heaven is a mental projection of whatever one imagines. Finally, some films create a multi layered perspective that defies the identification of any definitive ultimate level. Whereas The Matrix (1999) ended by calling into question the illusory material world that human minds make real by virtue of the software program of the matrix, The Matrix: Reloaded (2003) ends by calling into question the boundaries of the matrix itself, as Neo is able to manipulate the material world in what the viewer thought was the "real" world of Zion and the Nebuchadnezzar. The most popular formula for suggesting that material reality is an illusion entails the metaphor of dreaming. Films such as A.I. (2001) the visionary Kurosawa's Dreams (1990) Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, A Waking Life, Jesus' Son and Mulholland Drive (2001) explore dream life and waking life and conclude that distinctions between the two are often blurry or indiscernible. Other films play on the epistemological trope by suggesting that insomnia brings an alternate understanding of reality not available to those who sleep (Fight Club, Dark City) The dream metaphor is so apt for expressing the wavering nature of reality that numerous films have employed it more subtly through incorporating images of 4 Journal of Religion Film, Vol. 7 [2003] Iss. 2, Art. 7 https:/digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol7/iss2/7 sleeping or beds in the mise en scene (apparent in numerous films, e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968] Eyes Wide Shut [1999] Blade Runner [1980] and of course The Matrix) Films which adopt a multi layered perspective of the cosmos often draw on a host of ancient religious and philosophical traditions both "Eastern" and "Western" in order to articulate their epistemology. A relatively great deal of attention has been paid to one facet of the ultimate reality issue in film, namely the "Body and Soul" aspect, particularly in terms of Descartes' mind body dualism. But a philosophical framing of the question of reality is not the only possible one. Most recently, The Matrix and The Matrix: Reloaded have received public and scholarly attention for their thoughtful syntheses of Neo Platonism and Baudrillard's postmodern philosophy with Gnosticism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jewish mysticism, Christianity, Neo Manicheanism, and the theology of the Cathars. Other "ultimate reality films" utilize similar syncretism (albeit without the uber successful fusion of cyberpunk, computers and slick leather) For example, Neon Genesis Evangelion utilizes Christian, Kabbalistic and Gnostic themes in a heavy handed but interesting way; Jesus' Son combines overt Christ figure imagery with more restrained Buddhist and Hindu themes of karma, temporal loops and reincarnation; and Susan Schwartz has noted that What Dreams May Come fuses 5 Flannery Dailey: Robot Heavens and Robot Dreams: Ultimate Reality in A.I. and Other Recent Films Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2003 a European appearing heaven with South Asian religious themes, particularly the concept of maya or the illusion of the material world. What these various films have in common is a distrust of the senses in favor of some essence that makes us human be it called mind, spirit, intuition, nonrational perception, or soul. It is this essence, they suggest, which allows us to access alternate realities. For instance, The Matrix and The Matrix: Reloaded proclaim the slogans, "Free your mind," which allows one to perceive the false reality of the matrix and, judging from the second film, of successive layers of the matrix. Like several films that precede them, the series also gestures towards the question of whether humans alone possess this capacity. Since mind is not equivalent to the brain or organic flesh, (as expressed so beautifully by Cuba Gooding, Jr. in What Dreams May Come) artificial intelligence such as computer