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From the beginning we ask “what is real” before we have even established the vaguest idea of such, to the point that, for the first half hour or more, we can’t be sure if we are watching dream or reality, or something else altogether.
The absurdity of the violence here moves freely into the surreal, where it belongs. Outline of Plot:
" We used to live in the imaginary world of the mirror, of the divided self and of the stage, of otherness and alienation. Today we live in the imaginary world of the screen, of the interface and the reduplication of contiguity and networks. All our machines are screens. We too have become screens, and the interactivity of men has become the interactivity of screens." Jean Baudrillard, Xerox & Infinity. According to postmodernism, the has been abandoment of the symbol, overuse of the sign. The Matrix world, is framed as dream world, which every person is a sleeping slave. According to postmodernist dream theory, by reading our dreams for the dominate order, we may be led to insights about our relationship with the signs and symbols that make up our world and inner world. Reading the matrix can show assumptions about our current views of reality and how that in turn recreates itself. The industrial revolution made possible the serial replication of these signs, exterminating any reference, producing an explosion of referents. Thus in the invention of the computer, with more meta-symbols layered upon our linquistic ones, in the post-industrial era, metaphysical models of the code create a world of simulation without any reference to the real, an order of simulation that has no interest in the real whatsoever.
When Neo opens the book early in the movie to get the computer disk for the people at the door the book is opened to the chapter "On Nihilism". Nihilism, according to The MacquarieDictionary under Philosophy states, (a) A belief there is no objective basis of truth. (b) an extreme form of scepticism, denying all real existence. "The real is produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command models - and with these it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times. It no longer has to be rational, since it is no longer measured against some ideal or negative instance. It is nothing more than operational. In fact, since it is no longer enveloped by an imaginary, it is no longer real at all. It is a hyperreal: the product of an irradiation synthesis of combinatory models in hyperspace without atmosphere … It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication , nor even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself." (167) The Matrix subverts these lingual bounderies, with Neo eventually bridging the gap between the real and the unreal. Okay, that is all I have for now. My back is aching, and I want to go to sleep at a reasonable hour--so I can finish it up tommorrow.
02/15/00 02:25:44 AM |
Melissa Miles
welcome
to journal entry Valentine's Day. This morning my family
exchanged gifts (I got a long stem rose, a card, and an
amethyst ring and necklace set). My sister Lindy got a
bouquet of flowers sent to her, on my suggestion. I am
sorry that my entries have been kind of wimpy for the
past week. I have been busy with my finals and papers
that are all piling up on top of me. However, I did take
a break and went out to eat with my mom and dad--I
haven't eaten out in quite awhile. Another frustrating
thing that has been happening is my internet connection
keeps being flaky, and I am not sure why. Perhaps it is
the hackers at it again. Anyway, I have decided that
instead of making the entries for this week short, I am
going to bounce off some ideas in this journal. That way
you can stay in touch with and also get a chance to see
how my mind works. I am right now debating what to do. I
have a choice to turn in my essay or final for Don
Quixote on Weds. So, since I am on the internet right
now, I am going to explore some ideas on Deconstructing
the Matrix. However, I might end up just doing the Don
Quixote essay--it seems easier, in many ways
This quote somes up the
metaphysics of the film: “Do not try and bend the
spoon. That’s impossible. Instead . . . only try to
realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you’ll
see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only
yourself.” 
There’s an early moment in The Matrix when
Keanu Reeves’ character retrieves contraband from a
hollowed-out copy of Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra
and Simulation, one of the canonical texts of
Postmodernism in which Baudrillard suggests that modern
reality is little more than a series of items and
experiences which are replicas of all that has come
before; that ours is a reality comprised of resemblances.