Dark City (1998 film)
| Dark City | |
|---|---|
| File:Dark City DVD.jpg IMDB  7.6/10 (29,757 votes) | |
| Directed by | Alex Proyas |
| Written by | Alex Proyas Lem Dobbs David S. Goyer |
| Produced by | Alex Proyas Andrew Mason Michael De Luca Brian Witten |
| Starring | Rufus Sewell William Hurt Kiefer Sutherland Jennifer Connelly |
| Cinematography | Dariusz Wolski |
| Edited by | Dov Hoenig |
| Music by | Trevor Jones Pablo Beltrán Ruiz François Perchat Ben Weisman |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates | February 27, 1998 |
Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | Australia / USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $27,000,000 |
Dark City is a 1998 film written by Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer, and directed by Proyas. It stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly. While not a box office hit, it has a considerable reputation. Film critic Roger Ebert is a well-known fan of the movie, having rated it with four stars out of four[1] and naming it the best film of 1998.[2] Ebert uses it in his teaching, and also appears on a commentary track for the DVD.
The story begins with a man waking in a hotel room with no memory, which soon proves to be but one of many troubles. He is being sought by police, who believe him to be a serial killer, and also by a group of mysterious men with psychokinetic powers. Furthermore, something appears to be wrong with the world at large: time, memory, and identity behave in unusual ways. The film is dedicated to the memory of Dennis Potter, which may be considered a useful indicator of the style of the story. The style of the film might also be said to owe something to Expressionism and film noir, and may be considered neo-noir.
Plot
Note: At the request of studio executives, the movie begins with a voice-over narration that gives away several key plot twists. Some fans prefer to watch the opening minutes (until Keifer Sutherland's first onscreen appearance) with the sound off in order to get around the studio-ordered narration and the plot details it gives away.
Template:Spoiler John Murdoch (played by Rufus Sewell) wakes up in a bathtub at a hotel, having lost all of his memory, including who he is. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber (played by Kiefer Sutherland, in an apparent homage to the style of his father Donald Sutherland) urging him to leave the hotel immediately. According to Schreber, a group of men (who may not actually be humans), referred to in the movie as The Strangers, are coming to the hotel to find Murdoch. Murdoch escapes them, and shortly afterwards finds out his name and that he has a wife named Emma (played by Jennifer Connelly). Unfortunately, he also finds out that he is wanted for a string of serial killings, which he has no memory of and does not have the urge to commit.
He also starts to find strange things happening around the city, all of which seem to have some connection to The Strangers. For instance, whenever the clock strikes midnight, everyone in the city falls into a comatose state simultaneously and it is impossible to wake them; it is always night; and it seems to be impossible to leave the city. Apparently, Murdoch was raised at a seaside resort named Shell Beach, a place that everyone seems to know despite being unable to remember how to get there. Strangest of all, Murdoch has some sort of psychokinetic power, which the Strangers also seem to have.
Meanwhile, police inspector Frank Bumstead (played by William Hurt) is investigating the serial killings of which Murdoch is suspected. Bumstead's colleague who worked on the case before was apparently driven mad by something he discovered, and Bumstead soon begins to suspect that Murdoch is not guilty, but the victim of some plot. Murdoch is also being sought by Mr. Hand (played by Richard O'Brien), a Stranger who absorbs the memories Murdoch has "lost" (in truth, those of the serial killer that he is suspected of being) in order to track him. Unusual amongst the Strangers, Mr. Hand desires to experience life as a human through Murdoch's memories, but merely ends up manifesting the homicidal rage that comes from the memories of a serial killer.
As he is pursued by the Strangers, Murdoch witnesses the true nature of the city. At midnight, while everyone else is unconscious, the Strangers use their collective power to alter the very landscape of the city; growing buildings out of the ground while dissolving other buildings out of existence, transforming slum tenements into mansions and vice versa, and injecting some of the citizens with fresh new memories, often transforming them into entirely different people.
Murdoch and Bumstead eventually meet, confront Dr. Schreber, and force him to reveal that the city is a vast experiment conducted by the alien Strangers, designed to reveal an aspect of humans that the Strangers lack and need to survive (hinted at being the nature of the human soul). The Strangers are in fact a dying race of alien parasites, who use human corpses as vessels. In their experiments they put the entire city to sleep and, with Schreber's help, manipulate the memories of the citizens in an attempt to learn about nature and nurture. Occasionally, however, people wake up during the process and are left without memories. This is what happened to Murdoch.
Murdoch, Bumstead, and a reluctant Schreber make their way to Shell Beach, which turns out to be nothing more than a fake beach painted on the brick wall that makes up the impenetrable edge of the city. An enraged Murdoch proceeds to tear the wall apart, only to discover the cold void of space beyond it. At this point the group is confronted by Strangers led by Mr. Hand, who holds Emma hostage.
Bumstead attacks the Strangers and is killed when, in the ensuing struggle, he and one of the Strangers are sucked out into space. Bumstead is seen flying out into space at the edge of the city, revealing it to be a giant space station protected by a force field. The Strangers then capture Murdoch, and attempt to have Dr. Schreber overwrite Murdoch's memories with their own collective memory in order to "share his soul". However, Schreber manages to imprint Murdoch with a different set of memories, which teach him about his ability to shape reality just like the Strangers. Murdoch's newfound mastery of his ability allows him to easily overpower the Strangers, culminating in a massive psychokinetic battle between Murdoch and the Stranger leader, Mr. Book (played by Ian Richardson), in the skies high above the Dark City. Murdoch defeats Mr. Book, and uses his power to turn the city towards the sun which the space station is orbiting, bringing sunlight to the city for the first time and causing the surviving Strangers (including a recalcitrant Mr. Hand) to flee into the darkness. Murdoch also "recreates" Shell Beach by flooding water out of the edge of the city so that it pools in the city's force field. He then seeks out Emma, who (due to a memory change by the Strangers) is now called Anna, and no longer has any memories of having been Murdoch's wife. However, Murdoch decides to meet her again for the first time, and make new memories together.
Similarities to other works
The film's style is often compared to that of the works of Terry Gilliam (especially Brazil), and there have been many comparisons between it and The Matrix, which was released one year after Dark City and reused some of its sets (in fact, the set where Murdoch flees the Strangers on the rooftop is used at the begining of The Matrix when Trinity runs from the Agents). One scene, in which Murdoch looks out a window into an alley to view an approaching Stranger, is almost identical to a similar scene in The Matrix between Trinity and an Agent; and the staircase on which Neo experiences déjà vu was previously used by Murdoch to flee Bumstead's curiosity.
Some stylistic similarities have been noted to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 1995 film The City of Lost Children (also influenced by Gilliam's Brazil).
Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis was a major influence on the film, showing through the architecture, concepts of the baseness of humans within a metropolis, and general tone.[3] The plot also contains many similarities to Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Philip K. Dick's short story Adjustment Team, and Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars. The random permutation of people's social identities is reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges's short story "The Lottery in Babylon" (in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the story of the Tower of Babel is a key theme).
References to Memoirs of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber (after whom character Dr. Schreber is named) can be found in the film, notably in the use of his "fleetingly-improvised men" concept. The film has also been interpreted as containing references to the Bible, with John Murdoch being an allegorical Jesus; for example, the number of the room John is in at the film's beginning — 614 — may evoke John 6:14, a biblical verse in which Jesus' followers say of him, "This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world." Notice also the DVD cover, where Murdoch is stretched across a clock face in a manner bespeaking either crucifixion or the Vitruvian Man (as well as being another reference to Lang's Metropolis).
Also quite noticeable is the use of Cartesian philosophy. This tends to draw comparisons to other films made around the same time that made use of it, such as The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, and eXistenZ. While the idea that sensory experience could be manufactured by some form of virtual reality is not new in science fiction, Dark City addresses the (arguably more radical) question of memory. In Bertrand Russell's words, how can we be sure that "the world was not created five minutes ago, and our memories with it?"
Comparisons have been made between Dark City's villain Mr. Hand and the villain from the Matrix Trilogy, Agent Smith. Both are enforcers for the film's antagonists (the Strangers/the Machines), but both are somehow different from their otherwise homogeneous fellows. Both develop a bond with their human opponent (Hand through Murdoch's memories, Smith through Neo's code), which causes them to become more human and to develop some of humanity's worst characteristics. Subsequent movies in the Matrix Trilogy further this comparison, as the climactic fight scene in Dark City is not unlike the one seen in Revolutions.
Nor do the comparisons end there; both Matrix and Dark City concern artificial memories and habitats, and both are patrolled by faceless superpowered beings challenged when a human develops comparable powers. Comparisons have been made between scenes from the movies, making note of similarities in both cinematography and atmosphere.[4]
The Animatrix short story A Detective Story is remarkably similar to Bumstead's story arc in Dark City. In the short story, a detective is pursuing an enigmatic figure (Trinity, who like Murdoch is an "enlightened" human with knowledge of the false nature of their reality). Over the course of the investigation he learns that the previous investigators went insane or disappeared. In the end, the detective catches up with his target and learns the true nature of his world, only to die shortly thereafter.
The overlying plot of the anime The Big O also features an isolated, noir-esque city, where virtually everyone suffers from amnesia, people possess memories that are not their own, and in the end it is revealed that the city is apparently some sort of experiment, ending and resetting itself every 40 years.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film was released on February 24, 1998 on the TVT label.[5] It features music from the original score by Trevor Jones, and versions of the songs "Sway" and "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" performed by singer Anita Kelsey. It also includes music by Hughes Hall from the trailer, as well as songs by Gary Numan, Echo & the Bunnymen, and Course of Empire that did not appear in the film.
Trivia
- Has one of the shortest average shot lengths of a modern film; a cut occurs in the film, on average, every 1.8 seconds.[6]
- Warner Bros., the film's copyright holder (New Line Cinema, a division of Time Warner, distributed it), objected to the title Dark City early in the film's production. They felt the title would confuse audiences with Mad City, Warner's soon-to-be-released film starring John Travolta and Dustin Hoffman, which they predicted would be a commercial hit. The filmmakers changed the title to Dark World, but the estate of Steven Spielberg threatened legal action, feeling the title was too similar to their film The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The title was then changed to Dark Empire, but legal action was again threatened, this time by Lucasfilm, who felt the title was too similar to their own well-known sci-fi film The Empire Strikes Back (and was an exact match for the Dark Empire comics that had been made about Star Wars). However, by the time the film was completed and ready for release, Warner's Mad City had come and gone from theatres and was not the hit they hoped it would be, and the filmmakers were allowed to use their original title.[7]
Awards
Dark City won the following awards:
| Year | Award | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Bram Stoker Award | Best Screenplay (tying with Gods and Monsters) |
| 1998 | Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival - Silver Scream Award | |
| 1999 | Saturn Award | Best Science Fiction Film (tying with Armageddon) |
| 1999 | Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film - Pegasus Audience Award | |
| 1999 | Film Critics Circle of Australia Award | Best Original Screenplay |
It was also nominated for the following awards:
- the 1999 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
- the 1999 International Horror Guild Award for Best Movie
- the 1999 Saturn Awards for Best Costumes, Best Director, Best Make-Up, Best Special Effects, and Best Writer
Technical data
- working titles: Dark Empire, Dark World
- writing credits: Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, David S. Goyer
- music: Trevor Jones
- runtime: 100 minutes
- sound: Dolby Digital / SDDS
- aspect ratio: 2.35 : 1
- release date: February 27, 1998 (USA)
- budget: $27,000,000
- total gross (USA): $14,378,331
- distributor: New Line Cinema
- MPAA rating: R
See also
References
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "Dark City". Chicago Sun-Times. February 27, 1998.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "The Best 10 Movies of 1998". Chicago Sun-Times. December 31, 1998.
- ^ "The Metropolis Comparison". Dark City DVD (1998).
- ^ Morales, Jorge. Comparación de los Filmes "Dark City" & "The Matrix". Retrieved December 24, 2005 (Spanish)
- ^ Fawthrop, Peter. "Dark City (Original Soundtrack)". All Music Guide. Retrieved March 4, 2006.
- ^ Boardwell, David. "Intensified continuity: visual style in contemporary American film". Film Quarterly. Spring 2002.
- ^ Goyer, David S. Audio commentary, Dark City DVD (1998).
External links
