GATTACA
Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Tony Shaloub. Dir. Andrew Niccol, Columbia, 1997Between 1990 & 1997, Jon Peters & Peter Guber, exec producers of '89's mega-smash BATMAN, ran SONY Studios, releasing no significant hits & a number of notorious bombs over seven years which should have witnessed the hapless team run SONY/Columbia out of business, altogether. During those years Columbia invested in genre:scifi, scifi-horror, horror, including two films riffing on Stevenson's Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. One, 94's MARY REILLY, a literal retelling through the narative view of Jeckyll's Irish maid, flopped in large ways (though I happen to like it.) The other, Andrew Niccol's figuratative retelling involving genetics and faking one's DNA - like faking a piss-test - gained traction & a devout cult audience over the next decade+.
Writing about the former film recently, I opined on the nature of Jeckyll's formula allowing him to become Hyde. I didn't see it as immediately analgous to booze, more to sexuality, Hyde allowing him a sexuality his own morals & that of society deny him. True as far as it goes, watching GATTACA I'm struck again by the idea that, as AA says, "the bottle was but a symptom." When I drink & when Jeckyll drinks-in Hyde, and when Ethan Hawke's Vincent takes in Jerome's genetic essence, what all of us seek is the same.
Permission. To be someone else. I want to be a suave middle aged cinephile, Jeckyll wants to be rough-sex god Edward Hyde, Hawke wants to be someone with a future to match his mind.
They all - we all - gamble on chemistry to allow us another, better, more preferable identity. Unfortunately, permission given proves hard to rescind & identity established proves hard to contain. Hyde refuses to subordinate himself to Jeckyll. Jerome expresses skepticism Vince is worthy to be him. Booze renders me inarticulate, ungracious, eventually sick & remorseful. One side effect of permission is sticker shock.
As with any parasitic relationship, permission's strength is also its weakness. Hyde needs Jeckyll in order to survive, despite his desire for mastery. The substance-dependent portion of my personality needs the substances. Jerome needs Vince to become him as much as Vince needs to be Jerome. It's apt that GATTACA involves DNA/genetics. Jeckyll & Hyde, drinkers & the bottle, Vince & Jerome, DNA, itself, all flipsides of one coin, all one half of what takes two to survive. A double helix forms our DNA. We'd be literally nothing without each strand.
At the same time, writer/director Andrew Niccol encourages us, in the onscreen story, to contemplate a dystopian future in which discrimination for careers, income & status has become a hard science. Or does he want us to think about then-controversial urine drops &/or hair-samples as a basis of employment discrimination?
Thinking back on Stephen Frears's Columbia-backed '94 MARY REILLY, I'm astonished that the traditional '90s genre-trope, an abstracted & self-aware view of traditional genre-tropes, failed so totally in MARY REILLY's Irish-maid POV, the only character in the movie attracted to both of Jeckyll's selves, while it succeeds with GATTACA's straiģht-on approach. Perhaps that explains Niccol's ability to sell Columbia on an idea they'd followed up the garden path just three years earlier. Not that Niccols' personal achievement translated to box office gold. If GATTACA today enjoys a high profile in 1997 it figured as an afterthought. However Columbia failed to capitalize in '97, it ultimately counts in studio favor when films endure beyond their immediately projected audience. However wrong Peters-Guber got most of those years, and whatever flops accrue to them, they also made some remarkable, possibly legendary, films which time gives back to us. Of those, GATTACA stands tall as my current preferred example.
They all - we all - gamble on chemistry to allow us another, better, more preferable identity. Unfortunately, permission given proves hard to rescind & identity established proves hard to contain. Hyde refuses to subordinate himself to Jeckyll. Jerome expresses skepticism Vince is worthy to be him. Booze renders me inarticulate, ungracious, eventually sick & remorseful. One side effect of permission is sticker shock.
As with any parasitic relationship, permission's strength is also its weakness. Hyde needs Jeckyll in order to survive, despite his desire for mastery. The substance-dependent portion of my personality needs the substances. Jerome needs Vince to become him as much as Vince needs to be Jerome. It's apt that GATTACA involves DNA/genetics. Jeckyll & Hyde, drinkers & the bottle, Vince & Jerome, DNA, itself, all flipsides of one coin, all one half of what takes two to survive. A double helix forms our DNA. We'd be literally nothing without each strand.
At the same time, writer/director Andrew Niccol encourages us, in the onscreen story, to contemplate a dystopian future in which discrimination for careers, income & status has become a hard science. Or does he want us to think about then-controversial urine drops &/or hair-samples as a basis of employment discrimination?
I knew a number of guys in the late '90s who were indie-store Tarantinos who never showed up managing a big chain-store because Blockbuster took hair samples, allowing it to see if an applicant used hallucinogens in the last year. I passed on a few gigs at which I might've done well because I enjoy my bongtime. Or perhaps Niccol wants us to empathize with Hawke on the basis of our own limited experience with chemical analysis while also bearing in mind the all-too-real danger gentic analysis poses to an egalitarian society as it enbraces high tech.
It comes as little surprise to me that Niccol wrote as well as lensed GATTACA. Few not intimate with a screenplay already saturated in high concept would add another layer, turning in a dystopian neo-noir as stylized as BLADE RUNNER. IF Ridley Scott's '82 thriller consciously evokes the '40s & '50s, Noir's golden age, GATTACA achieves the same density of atmosphere in its moodily lit retrofuturism, never quite tipping its hand until Alan Arkin's police detective arrives wearing a fedora straight out of Raymond Chandler.
None of this means much, of course, if in service of a bad story or a good idea done too often to do well. The main question here for the unitiated has to be, "But let's say I don't buy all your 'ideas." Is it still a compelling, watchable, even rewatchable '90s scifi flick?"
The answer, as GATTACA's ongoing cult suggests, is an emphatic YES. Take the film as a hi-tech riff on both Jeckyll/Hyde & identity, or as a subtle neonoir cat&mouse picture, or something of your own imagining, it's hard to see not being engaged & inspired throughout GATTACA's run.
Hollywood, as we know, plays a dirty game with women actors (&directors), elevating a few to a kind of durable, age proof fame even Division 3 male talents like Jean Claude Van Damme take as their birthright, while consigning most to the ash heap of celluloid history, celebrated - if at all - for one role above a solid career of pretty-good films. Nowhere has this appeared more evident over the last year, to me, than in Uma Thurman. Valued for her face and model-status at first, Thurman displayed intellect & ambition as well, a confusing combination for image-obsessed Hollywood, at least in a woman. In the few performances I've watched of hers over the last 15 months, I see an actor who always brings exactly what's asked to a role, & so memorably I assume she achieved more than mere competence, whatever I saw.
Like - I assume - movie fans, I frequently assess & reassess talent, especially leading men. For a long time, I viewed Ethan Hawke as a dramatic-feature version of Ben Stiller - desirable for a certain clench-fisted, overamped emotional intensity rendered as a so-sensitive wince seen otherwise in Stiller's furrowed brow. Here I sit over 20 years later, however, noting that Hawke not only continues to headline pictures but to attract admiration from fans, critics, and interesting directors, all of which leads me to consider Hawke anew. He's a good actor - far more low-key and understated than my usual leading-man picks like Wayne, Eastwood & McQueen.
I mentioned Uma Thurman & Alan Arkin above without ever folding in their B & C-stories of police procedural & don't-listen-to-what-I'm-not-saying romance. Niccols's triumph in GATTACA is that I do not need to. Niccols serves us such a heady plate of new wrinkles on old ideas covered in a high-concept, hyper-stylized story that I can wax rhapsodic on but a portion of what's served. The biggest mystery of GATTACA & its creator lies in the future, specifically asking "How could a guy get it this right in GATTACA & yet follow with the AI-romcom disaster known as SIMONE?"
Sure, both bend'n'blend genre, but one does so in a way announcing a major new voice & one announcing the latest piece of product from a once-great hope. Niccol's CV reads as a classic journeyman, from small scale successes like LORD OF WAR & GOOD KILL to intermediate missteps SIMONE & IN TIME. Had Niccol started when Ridley Scott started in the mid-'70s it's possible to imagine his weakness at following up as the career eccentricity of a legendary filmmaker. Starting in the early corporate era of the late 1990s, however, it leads to an uneven ouvre always asking "Will he yet get another chance to show his quality?"
At age 57 there's no sign but still plenty of time. Clint Eastwood's last solid film, THE MULE, dropped when he was 90, so Niccols theoretically has awhile. I hope he's able to redeem that time. Three of his films argue he at least has it in him. Two say he's an interesting guy even on an earned strike. That's five movies suggesting Andrew Niccol rates as at least as interesting & of promise as either Russo brother.
Sometimes I hate a film and, decades later, the online/other consensus supports my conclusion. Sometimes I hate a film & others see something in it I never quite see, though its rep improves. Once in awhile, however, I dislike a movie based on pretty-much nothing, cling to that dislike & find myself overpowered with time & the good opinions of those I respect. I described this viewing of GATTACA as a "first time," but I tried watching it in the early Aughts, when ten minutes of it seemed so unbearably stupid I returned it to the library unwatched. Whatever steered me clear of GATTACA in '97 thus vindicated the notion it had anything to say until the early Teens, when it finally occurred to me I had read about 13 years' worth of "oh but actually" pieces on the movie. I spent the next decade looking for a chance to change my mind, only finding it in DVD-form in a Mississippi thrift store Monday last. If unclear, I HAVE changed my mind. If fault is to be found with Niccols it's that his wealth of interesting ideas leaves a little meat on the bone, but in this case that's casting for aspersions.
It comes as little surprise to me that Niccol wrote as well as lensed GATTACA. Few not intimate with a screenplay already saturated in high concept would add another layer, turning in a dystopian neo-noir as stylized as BLADE RUNNER. IF Ridley Scott's '82 thriller consciously evokes the '40s & '50s, Noir's golden age, GATTACA achieves the same density of atmosphere in its moodily lit retrofuturism, never quite tipping its hand until Alan Arkin's police detective arrives wearing a fedora straight out of Raymond Chandler.
None of this means much, of course, if in service of a bad story or a good idea done too often to do well. The main question here for the unitiated has to be, "But let's say I don't buy all your 'ideas." Is it still a compelling, watchable, even rewatchable '90s scifi flick?"
The answer, as GATTACA's ongoing cult suggests, is an emphatic YES. Take the film as a hi-tech riff on both Jeckyll/Hyde & identity, or as a subtle neonoir cat&mouse picture, or something of your own imagining, it's hard to see not being engaged & inspired throughout GATTACA's run.
Hollywood, as we know, plays a dirty game with women actors (&directors), elevating a few to a kind of durable, age proof fame even Division 3 male talents like Jean Claude Van Damme take as their birthright, while consigning most to the ash heap of celluloid history, celebrated - if at all - for one role above a solid career of pretty-good films. Nowhere has this appeared more evident over the last year, to me, than in Uma Thurman. Valued for her face and model-status at first, Thurman displayed intellect & ambition as well, a confusing combination for image-obsessed Hollywood, at least in a woman. In the few performances I've watched of hers over the last 15 months, I see an actor who always brings exactly what's asked to a role, & so memorably I assume she achieved more than mere competence, whatever I saw.
Like - I assume - movie fans, I frequently assess & reassess talent, especially leading men. For a long time, I viewed Ethan Hawke as a dramatic-feature version of Ben Stiller - desirable for a certain clench-fisted, overamped emotional intensity rendered as a so-sensitive wince seen otherwise in Stiller's furrowed brow. Here I sit over 20 years later, however, noting that Hawke not only continues to headline pictures but to attract admiration from fans, critics, and interesting directors, all of which leads me to consider Hawke anew. He's a good actor - far more low-key and understated than my usual leading-man picks like Wayne, Eastwood & McQueen.
I mentioned Uma Thurman & Alan Arkin above without ever folding in their B & C-stories of police procedural & don't-listen-to-what-I'm-not-saying romance. Niccols's triumph in GATTACA is that I do not need to. Niccols serves us such a heady plate of new wrinkles on old ideas covered in a high-concept, hyper-stylized story that I can wax rhapsodic on but a portion of what's served. The biggest mystery of GATTACA & its creator lies in the future, specifically asking "How could a guy get it this right in GATTACA & yet follow with the AI-romcom disaster known as SIMONE?"
Sure, both bend'n'blend genre, but one does so in a way announcing a major new voice & one announcing the latest piece of product from a once-great hope. Niccol's CV reads as a classic journeyman, from small scale successes like LORD OF WAR & GOOD KILL to intermediate missteps SIMONE & IN TIME. Had Niccol started when Ridley Scott started in the mid-'70s it's possible to imagine his weakness at following up as the career eccentricity of a legendary filmmaker. Starting in the early corporate era of the late 1990s, however, it leads to an uneven ouvre always asking "Will he yet get another chance to show his quality?"
At age 57 there's no sign but still plenty of time. Clint Eastwood's last solid film, THE MULE, dropped when he was 90, so Niccols theoretically has awhile. I hope he's able to redeem that time. Three of his films argue he at least has it in him. Two say he's an interesting guy even on an earned strike. That's five movies suggesting Andrew Niccol rates as at least as interesting & of promise as either Russo brother.
Sometimes I hate a film and, decades later, the online/other consensus supports my conclusion. Sometimes I hate a film & others see something in it I never quite see, though its rep improves. Once in awhile, however, I dislike a movie based on pretty-much nothing, cling to that dislike & find myself overpowered with time & the good opinions of those I respect. I described this viewing of GATTACA as a "first time," but I tried watching it in the early Aughts, when ten minutes of it seemed so unbearably stupid I returned it to the library unwatched. Whatever steered me clear of GATTACA in '97 thus vindicated the notion it had anything to say until the early Teens, when it finally occurred to me I had read about 13 years' worth of "oh but actually" pieces on the movie. I spent the next decade looking for a chance to change my mind, only finding it in DVD-form in a Mississippi thrift store Monday last. If unclear, I HAVE changed my mind. If fault is to be found with Niccols it's that his wealth of interesting ideas leaves a little meat on the bone, but in this case that's casting for aspersions.
Thinking back on Stephen Frears's Columbia-backed '94 MARY REILLY, I'm astonished that the traditional '90s genre-trope, an abstracted & self-aware view of traditional genre-tropes, failed so totally in MARY REILLY's Irish-maid POV, the only character in the movie attracted to both of Jeckyll's selves, while it succeeds with GATTACA's straiģht-on approach. Perhaps that explains Niccol's ability to sell Columbia on an idea they'd followed up the garden path just three years earlier. Not that Niccols' personal achievement translated to box office gold. If GATTACA today enjoys a high profile in 1997 it figured as an afterthought. However Columbia failed to capitalize in '97, it ultimately counts in studio favor when films endure beyond their immediately projected audience. However wrong Peters-Guber got most of those years, and whatever flops accrue to them, they also made some remarkable, possibly legendary, films which time gives back to us. Of those, GATTACA stands tall as my current preferred example.
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