Dark City
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| Dark City | |
|---|---|
 Dark City Film poster |
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| Directed by | Alex Proyas |
| Produced by | Alex Proyas Andrew Mason Michael De Luca Brian Witten |
| Written by | Alex Proyas Lem Dobbs David S. Goyer |
| Starring | Rufus Sewell William Hurt Kiefer Sutherland Jennifer Connelly |
| Music by | Trevor Jones Pablo Beltrán Ruiz François Perchat Ben Weisman |
| Cinematography | Dariusz Wolski |
| Editing by | Dov Hoenig |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | February 27, 1998 |
| Running time | 100 min. |
| Country | Australia / USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $27,000,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
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 concerns a man waking in a hotel room with no memory, which soon proves to be but one of many troubles. He is 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 film might also be said to owe something to Expressionism and film noir, and may be considered neo-noir.
The visual aesthetic of Dark City resembles the shadowy, labyrinthine and crime-ridden 'Gotham' types of cities characterized in Batman and other DC Comics, a night-time world of streetlamps, skyscrapers, alleyways, seedy hotels and dimly-lit hallways, all imbued with a 1920s atmosphere and decor.
Many of the outdoor scenes in Dark City were filmed in Sydney, Australia in areas with a 1920s character, such as Sydney's The Rocks district near Sydney Harbour Bridge, itself built in the 1920s.
Other parts of Sydney featured in Dark City were Hickson Road and Museum Station, the latter being the location for the suicide of eccentric detective Eddie Walenski, played by Colin Friels.
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[edit] Plot
John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes in a hotel bathtub, having lost his memory. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) urging him to leave the hotel immediately. According to Schreber, a group of men called The Strangers is coming for him. Murdoch escapes, and shortly afterwards, finds out his name and that he has a wife named Emma (Jennifer Connelly). Unfortunately, he also finds out that he is wanted for a string of serial killings, of which he has no memory.
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 collectively falls into a comatose state of suspended animation, it is always night, and it seems to be impossible to leave the city. Allegedly, Murdoch was raised at a seaside resort named Shell Beach, a place that everyone seems to know, despite being unable to recall how to get there. Strangest of all, Murdoch has some sort of psychokinetic power, which the Strangers also seem to possess.
Meanwhile, police inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt), a sunken-faced cop whose deadpan manner hides an emotional side, is investigating the serial killings. Bumstead's colleague, Detective Eddie Walenski (Australian actor Colin Friels), had made inroads in the case, but was eventually driven mad by something he discovered. Bumstead takes over and soon begins to suspect that Murdoch is the victim of some plot.
Murdoch is also being sought by Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien), a Stranger who has absorbed 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.
Murdoch tries to return to Shell Beach using the subway, the last stop on the line according to the subway map, but the train goes out of service prior to that stop. Murdoch is told that he must take the express train to reach his goal, but finds that the express never stops to pick up riders.
As he is pursued by the Strangers, Murdoch sees the plastic nature of the city. At midnight, while everyone else is unconscious, the Strangers use their collective power to alter the very landscape; 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, which is what happened to Murdoch.
Eventually Murdoch, Bumstead, and a reluctant Schreber find their way to what at first appears to be Shell Beach, but turns out to be nothing more than a painting 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 nothing but the cold void of space beyond. At this point, the group is confronted by Strangers led by Mr. Hand, who holds Emma hostage.
Bumstead attacks the Strangers. In the ensuing struggle, he and one of the Strangers die when they are sucked out into space. The city is revealed to be a giant space habitat protected by a force field.
The Strangers 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 gives him the ability to shape reality as the Strangers do. This enables him to do battle with 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 Dark City.
Murdoch defeats Mr. Book, and uses his power to turn the city towards the sun, 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) is now called Anna, and has no memory of having been his wife. However, Murdoch is willing to make new memories with her.
[edit] Similarities to other works
The film's style can be compared to the works of Terry Gilliam, such as Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. Beyond that there are clear similarities between it and The Matrix, which was released one year after Dark City.[3]
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. The set for the scene in which Murdoch jumps between rooftops is the same set used in The Matrix for a similar scene with Trinity.
Some stylistic similarities have been noted to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 1995 film The City of Lost Children (also influenced by Gilliam's Brazil). In the film, one of the Strangers says that some unsuccessfully imprinted people are found "wandering like lost children".
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.[4] 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). In many ways, Ten Blocks on Camino Real by Tennesee Williams could be considered a primitive version of Dark City. There "Street Cleaners" take away the dead and admonish the losers. Although Tennesse Williams claimed that it was written about his time, the "convention" of it is that it does not exist in a specific time or place.
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?" (the Omphalos Hypothesis)
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.[3]
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 scene where Emma Murdoch is standing on a pier facing the ocean is strongly similar to that of a scene from Requiem for a Dream involving Jennifer Connelly's character.
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.
One of the last scenes of the movie, in which buildings "restore" themselves, is strikingly similar to the last panel of the Akira manga.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Trivia
- Dark City 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 Steven Spielberg's production company 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 film The Empire Strikes Back, and was an exact match for the Star Wars: Dark Empire comic series that had been published by Dark Horse Comics in 1991-92. 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] on the condition that Warner could use the original set of Dark City for The Matrix. [8]
[edit] 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
[edit] 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
[edit] See also
[edit] 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.
- ^ a b Morales, Jorge. Comparación de los Filmes "Dark City" & "The Matrix". Retrieved December 24, 2005 (Spanish)
- ^ "The Metropolis Comparison". Dark City DVD (1998).
- ^ 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).
- ^ Trivia for The Matrix, IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/trivia
