"HARVARD BEFORE LARRY SUMMERS"

THE UNREAL THING: What's wrong with the Matrix? (ADAM GOPNIK, 2003-05-12, The New Yorker)

The basic conceit of "The Matrix"--the notion that the material world is a malevolent delusion, designed by the forces of evil with the purpose of keeping people in a state of slavery, has a history. It is most famous as the belief for which the medieval Christian sect known as the Cathars fought and died, and in great numbers, too. The Cathars were sure that the material world was a phantasm created by Satan, and that Jesus of Nazareth--their Neo--had shown mankind a way beyond that matrix by standing outside it and seeing through it. The Cathars were fighting a losing battle, but the interesting thing was that they were fighting at all. It is not unusual to take up a sword and die for a belief. It is unusual to take up a sword to die for the belief that swords do not exist.

The Cathars, like the heroes of "The Matrix," had an especially handy rationale for violence: if it ain't real, it can't really bleed. One reason that the violence in "The Matrix"--those floating fistfights, the annihilation of entire squads of soldiers by cartwheeling guerrillas--can fairly be called balletic is that, according to the rules of the movie, what is being destroyed is not real in the first place: the action has the safety of play and the excitement of the apocalyptic. Of course, the destruction of a blank, featureless, mirrored skyscraper by a helicopter, and the massacre of the soldiers who protect it, has a different resonance now than it did in 1999. The notion that some human beings are not really human but, rather, mere slaves, nonhuman ciphers, and therefore expendable, is exactly the vision of the revolutionary hero--and also of the mass terrorist. The Matrix is where all violent fanatics insist that they are living, even when they are not.

It would have been nice if some of that complexity, or any complexity, had made its way into the sequel. But--to get to the bad news--"Matrix Reloaded" is, unlike the first film, a conventional comic-book movie, in places a campy conventional comic-book movie, and in places a ludicrously campy conventional comic-book movie. It feels not so much like "Matrix II" as like "Matrix XIV"--a franchise film made after a decade of increasing grosses and thinning material. The thing that made the Matrix so creepy--the idea of a sleeping human population with a secondary life in a simulated world--is barely referred to in the new movie; in fact, if you hadn’t seen the first film, not just the action but the basic premise would be pretty much unintelligible. The first forty-five minutes--set mainly in Zion, that human city buried deep in the earth--are particularly excruciating. Zion seems to be modelled on the parking garage of a giant indoor mall, with nested levels clustered around an atrium. Like every good-guy citadel in every science-fiction movie ever made, Zion is peopled by stern-jawed uniformed men who say things like "And what if you're wrong, God damn it, what then?" and "Are you doubting my command, Captain?" and by short-haired and surprisingly powerful women whose eyes moisten but don't overflow as they watch the men prepare to go off to war. Everybody wears earth tones and burlap and silk, and there are craggy perches from which speeches can be made while the courageous citizens hold torches. (The stuccoed, soft-contour interiors of Zion look like the most interesting fusion restaurant in Santa Fe.)

The only thing setting Zion apart from the good-guy planets in "The Phantom Menace" or "Star Trek" is that it seems to have been redlined at some moment in the mythic past and is heavily populated by people of color. They are all, like Morpheus, grave, orotund, and articulate to the point of prosiness, so that official exchanges in Zion put one in mind of what it must have been like at a meeting at the Afro-American Studies department at Harvard before Larry Summers got to it. (And no sooner has this thought crossed one's mind when--lo! there is Professor Cornel West himself, playing one of the Councillors.)

So much for one of the most anticipated films of the Summer.

-ESSAY: What's So Bad About Living in the Matrx? (James Pryor)
-REVIEW: of The Matrix (David Denby, The New Yorker)
-ESSAY: The Gospel according to Neo: Theologians and pop-culture experts see 'The Matrix' as a phenomenon shaping public opinion about religion (Josh Burek, May 09, 2003, The Christian Science Monitor)

Matrix Glossary

Birth: When he is "unplugged" from the Matrix, Neo resembles a newborn. Once his "umbilical cords" are removed, we see that he is hairless, confused, and covered in a type of amniotic fluid. He falls down a long tube and into a pool of water. After this presumed baptism, he is carried up, with his limp body making a cross silhouette. Neo had to be "born again" before he could begin his mission.

Buddhism: The chief problem faced by humanity, according to Buddhist thought, is not sin or evil: it's ignorance of the true reality. The lack of an explicit divine being and references to "focus," "path," and "free your mind" also smack of Buddhist influence. Matrix rebels download truth and reprogram their minds to achieve salvation.

Cypher: The name of this traitor who excels at Matrix code means, according to Webster's Dictionary: Zero...a person or thing of no importance or identity...a system of secret writing based on a key. His character has many parallels to Judas. At one point he exclaims, "Whoa, Neo. You scared the bejeezus out of me."

Evil: Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the original Matrix world was "designed to be a perfect human world." No one accepted the program, he explains, because "human beings define their reality through misery and suffering." By drawing on parts of Genesis and comparing humans to a virus, Smith establishes evil as a natural, intrinsic state of human nature.

God: God does make a cameo in The Matrix only as an expletive from Trinity. Yet the word "miracle" is used in clear cases to signify the need - and reality - of divine intervention. But there's no implied sense of a covenant between God and man.

Jesus Christ: The name Jesus is often used in association with Neo, most explicitly when Choi, a drug user, thanks Neo for providing him with illicit software. "Hallelujah. You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ."

Matrix: Literally, a computer program used to imprison mankind. According to Webster's, "matrix" means: 1) orig., the womb; uterus 2) that within which, or within and from which, something originates, takes form, or develops. At its heart, The Matrix is a story about birth and creation.

Morpheus: Neo's mentor. Some observers identity him with John the Baptist, since both men were appointed to prepare the way for a messiah. In Greek mythology, Morpheus, the son of Hypnos, was the god of dreams.

Music: The final song, played by Rage Against The Machine, is "Wake Up."

Neo: The messiah. This is Thomas Anderson's virtual name. Literally meaning "new," Neo is also referred to as the "One," which is an anagram for Neo.

Nebuchadnezzar: Morpheus's ship. This figure referenced in the Book of Daniel was the powerful king of ancient Babylon who suffered from troubling dreams. The name literally means "Nebo, protect the crown."

Numerology: Neo's apartment number is 101, suggesting that he's "the one." Neo is shot in apartment number 303, and after 72 seconds (72 hours = 3 days), he rises again.

Phone calls: In keeping with prophetic tradition, Neo is "called" to his task, not by a burning bush, but a FedEx employee. Their brief exchange - "Thomas Anderson?" | "Yeah, that's me." - mirrors Bible language constructions used to signify special identity.

Postmodernism: Neo hides his illicit software within a chapter titled "On Nihilism" within a volume called "Simulacra and Simulation," by Jean Baudrillard. This seminal work of postmodernism advances the idea of a copy without an original. The Wachowski brothers assigned Keanu Reeves to read this book before filming began.

Thomas Anderson: The Apostle Thomas was also called Didymus, which in Greek means "twin" or "double." Anderson means "son of man," one of the titles Jesus uses for himself. The twin names suggest his dual nature. As "Mr. Anderson," he is vulnerable to the powers of the evil agents. As "Neo," he has dominion over them.

Trinity: Her kiss restores Neo from death. The doctrine of the three modes of God is central to Christian orthodoxy, yet the word "trinity" never actually appears in the Bible. Neo deepens the mystery of who Trinity is when he says to her, "I just thought, um...you were a guy."

Logos: The altered studio logo at the opening of the film may be highly significant. The Matrix-coded WB letters could simply be the Wachowski brothers thumbing their nose at the Warner Bros. But by altering the logo - from the Greek term "logos," for word - the film's opening does two things. First, it corrupts the Gospel of John, which begins with "In the beginning was the Word...". Second, it asserts that metaphysical meaning can be gleaned by mining deep into words, or code.

Zion: The last human city. In the Old Testament, Zion refers to the royal capital of David. Matrix agents desire the codes to Zion above all else.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 12, 2003 7:01 PM