Gattaca & Future Perfect
The CORE text for the Context study Future Perfect is Andrew Niccol’s film, Gattaca.
The storyline is quite simple. In a (future) world where people gain access to social and economic success not by their talents, but by their genes, a “faith-born”, Vincent, decides to “play a false hand” – pretend to be someone he is not, to gain his chance – quite literally, at stardom!
However, Vincent doesn’t only have his defective heart (99% probability, early fatal potential) against him; he becomes embroiled in the search to catch the murderer of the Mission Director, who is killed on the eve of a long-planned flight to one of the moons of Titan – a flight of which Vincent (in his assumed identity as Jerome) is the Celestial Navigator.
Vincent/Jerome also – with only a week to go – falls in love with Irene, another Gattaca employee. Ironically, Irene also suffers from a heart defect. Although her background as a genetically-enhanced human allows her to work at Gattaca, she knows she will never fly.
Vincent also owes a debt to the man whose identity he assumes to enter Gattaca: the real Jerome Morrow, a former Olympic swimmer who, after “only” winning silver, stepped in front of a car to end it all – and only paralysed himself from the waist down. In the end, however, Jerome’s medal turns to gold …
For us, the storyline contains some elements that we can consider to channel our questioning about the nature of the future – the way society still excludes people on the basis of factors less to do with ability and more to do with prejudice, for example.
But there are other aspects – the extent to which our personal qualities will be determined by manipulation of DNA in a “test-tube”, rather than left to chance; what things will, or will not be most affected by technological change (music, for example, seems ‘retro’ – classical piano is still the utmost in musical refinement: it just has to be played by a six-fingered pianist!)
As you develop your ideas, and explore Gattaca, you will also try to develop your writing ideas, aiming to work out a writing style that expresses your views, and uses Gattaca in some way – even if you react radically against it!
Adding more Context to your Future
Those who have suggested “extra film textras” to broaden our scope here – keep it up! In the last few days, I have watched “The Island”, “Solaris” and “Metropolis” (a b&w silent movie made in 1929!), and I have also finished William Gibson’s “cyber-punk” novel, “Neuromancer”, in which people and computer/internet technlogy are interwoven. You can ‘download’ knowledge, experiences, any information stored on the ‘web’ directly to your brain.
What we need to develop here is both an understanding of Gattaca AND a view of what it tells us about the future.
Another film, Solaris stars George Clooney. It’s about being human, so it has much in common with Gattaca and I Robot, as well. This anthropomorphic fondness is a hallmark of many sci-fi films. Aliens tend to look “like” us. They may have more or fewer limbs or heads that are oddly-shaped, but they are discernibly humanoid. Can we infer from this that “we” are more likely to respond favorably to a ”them” that resembles ourselves? Can we see this in Gattac? Is the homogeneity (and in Gattaca, pressure to conform) of our society evidence of this in a different way?
In The Island, the same question is asked in a different way. Humans wealthy enough allow themselves to be cloned, so that they have an “insurance policy” if they develop a cancer or other crippling disease or condition. Although legislation permits only organic tissue (a liver, or heart, lung etc) to be created in this way, the scientists involved create entire humans who resemble exactly their “outisde” originals. Thus, “using” the spare involves “killing” a human … Or does it? (The film’s first 40 minutes or so is very good … after that it degenerates into a few car chases and psychopathic ‘reallies’.)
Motropolis is challenging – the silent movie is a lost (to us) version of the film medium. We prefer our video on a plate, rather than in a form that makes demands. The two-tiered society that is portrayed IS reminiscent of Gattaca, and also of a number of other views of the future that forsee a world deivided into “haves” and “have-nots”.
Send me YOUR preliminary observations, and I’ll add them up here …
And here’s the sheet that I began to complete with responses and ideas in relation to the films, the Context and the writing task … from-the-presentations
Future perfect-extra-texts?
Now’s the time to start to look beyond the core text, to broaden your understanding of the ideas it promulgates. Start to look at “future text” more widely … Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, The Neuromancer, I Robot, The Minority Report, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? are all worth a read … Any good library will have them!
And films, of course, like … Bladerunner, Brazil, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Matrix, Terminator (1); together with series like Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica make excellent observations that relate very well to the ways Nicholls portrays the world in Gattaca.
Remember that you need to watch the movies (or read the extra books!) and ask: how does this compare to the way Gattaca shows the world? – For example, look at language; social control; technology; the environment; and relationships. Just a short response to these aspects when you watch the film/read the book will allow you great opportunities when it comes to write on Future, Perfect?
