It’s interesting how this theme continues to be explored, particularly in film. Indeed, both Solaris (2002) and Inception (2010) share a similar theme with the The Matrix (1999) and Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) before that. I might even put Blade Runner (1982) in this list. And while I’m sure there are more, all of these films deal with the idea of the real versus the ersatz, and how we project our images of how-it-aught-to-be onto the how-it-is. Indeed, what is the real? This is a question that has been at the forefront of science fiction at least since the cyberpunks.

In Inception, the brain is a computer to be hacked. The interface comes in a steel briefcase that joins the participants with wristbands. This machine seems to put them asleep immediately, and they all meet in the virtual world of someone’s subconscious. Instead of projecting into a matrix that is out there, the network has become the mind of a single person. As Cobb says in the film, we both create and experience that creation at the same time in dreams. Now that’s computing power. They never explicitly compare the brain to a computer network in the film, but the implication is obvious. Whereas the cyberpunks saw the body as a sack of meat that contained the reality of the mind, Inception privileges the material world and knows the mind is the best access to it.

I can read Soderbergh’s Solaris as a comment on virtuality, perhaps Inception is concerned with genetics. The former seems to caution us about the affect of ubiquitous computer networks (Solaris itself is just a big computer that feeds back what is put into it), and the latter is ultimately interested in how the body is literally affected by technology and ideas.

In fact, the idea seems to become reality. That is the whole idea of “inception” in the film. Like typing a command on a keyboard and pressing enter to activate it: the word becomes real. When our bodies are the computers, this is significant.

. . .

I can’t help but notice within Inception the Homeric theme of coming home. I don’t want to give away the ending, but as Odysseus finds out: a homecoming can be dangerous. Home, especially in all of the films I mention above, seems to represent a comfortable place — where we want to be and where we think we belong. Yet, in these films, and Inception is no exception, “home” is an irrational projection that can trap us.

One of the great things about a home is that we must leave it occasionally to work, to shop, to travel, to grow. It’s the leaving of home that makes it valuable, one could argue. But what happens when you come home permanently? I think this is how both Soderbergh’s Solaris and Tarkovsky’s Solaris end. Each are ambiguous, but each also suggest that Kelvin has made a choice to retreat into a fantasy, rather than continuing to live in a painful world — what we would call the “real world.”

. . .

Check out Inception. I need to see it again to tweak these ideas a bit further.

Capitalism is the unquestioned, de facto economic system of the United States. It makes propaganda out of the belief that “all men are created equal.” By selling this idea to typical American citizens, it maintains the status quo: 5% of Americans have more wealth than the other 95% put together. Capitalists pay lip service to the American dream of wealth and prosperity — that, if you work hard enough, one day you just might make it, too. And the only way to make it is to embrace the system that has produced the world’s wealthiest people: capitalism.

Capitalism has turned America into a plutocracy, or rule by the wealthy. If you have any doubt, just look to the recent Supreme court decision that grants corporations even more power to influence the politics of this country. This debate is called “corporate personhood” and turns my stomach.

Moore illustrates how the capitalist system is amoral at best, and immoral in its routine practices. It upholds wealth over welfare. Its practices are counter-Christian, though ironically capitalism’s strongest proponents claim to be the most devout. Moore’s narrative even upholds the Catholic church as anti-capitalist, without going into their 2000 history of oppression. Maybe Bill Maher already made that film? Capitalism, like religion, is a mass delusion that helps only a few while hurting the majority.

Moore suggests that democracy might be a better economic model, or at least a more equitable one. One where the CEO makes the same money as the assembly line worker. Where all decisions are made my everyone that they will affect. Where all workers are treated the same, since they have the same stakes in the success or failure of the company. All are human beings with equal rights.

This sounds good, and just might work in economics where it has failed in politics. We Americans, perhaps as a result of capitalism, love money. The almighty dollar seems to be the measure of all success in this country. Therefore, when money’s on the line, people might pay more attention than they would when voting on some more abstract idea. Money is real. Politics are, well, not for most Americans. Democracy only works when citizens are engaged and educated about the issues and potential consequences of those issues on their everyday lives. If anything, much of America lives in the corporate fantasy world (PDF) of Fox News and MSNBC. No wonder democracy seems to be failing.

The best part of Moore’s film was the end, when he shows President Roosevelt’s last State of the Union address. FDR proposes the second bill of rights, perhaps the most progressive political statement I have heard from the twentieth century, and it was in 1944. It’s worth repeating in its entirety:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people — whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth — is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

Can you imagine if Obama suggested such a thing today? Glenn Beck‘s head just might explode all over his chalk board. These rights are antithetical to capitalism, a system that has one goal: profit at any cost.

At one point, Moore implicitly asks the question: what’s wrong with socialism? Why does it seem to be so demonized in the media? In many ways, it’s what the defeated countries of the second World War received: constitutions that made the government on the side of the people, not of the corporations. Instead, we the people continue to support that which dehumanizes us and even profits from our deaths. When will it stop?

The film suggests that the election of Obama could be a turning point, but there remains doubt. I, for one, am dubious though hopeful. Can Obama really go against the corporate interests that helped get him elected? So far, it seems not.

Americans, what’s wrong with socially progressive political and economic policies?

I liked Moore’s closing statement, and I’m paraphrasing: I refuse to live in a country that allows such a flagrant disregard for the lives of others. And I’m not going anywhere. Can’t we do something?

Indeed, this question seems even more appropriate as one that currently haunts the American psyche after 9/11/2001. While the dust was still settling from the collapse of the twin towers, ordinary Americans expressed their outrage and consternation by calling for blood — revenge — a face to represent the evil. “Who are those guys?” Who are those for whom life means nothing? After 2001 terrorist attack on American soil, I watched as many of those around me went nuts. Flag waving zealots marched in the streets calling for revenge — they didn’t care who we bombed — they just wanted someone to pay. The Bush Administration heard their pleas, and we have been paying for decisions made on this irrational bloodlust ever since, and we’ll be paying for it for years to come. As will the innocents of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and other countries who will feel the fallout of these wars.

Who are those guys? has invaded the national consciousness. George W. Bush was distracted by questions of national, now “Homeland,” security, and he made us feel his distraction. He seems to have done more for the terrorists than 9/11 ever did. His administration was preoccupied with terrorism’s very real threat to ‘Merica. Every speech was loaded with language crafted not to assuage American fears, but to heighten them. What better way to keep power and justify tighter government control and waning freedom for citizens? Anyone who challenged his administration was labeled anti-American, an elitist, a traitor. The American intelligentsia was silenced, and anyone who was different was vociferously challenged, silenced, ostracized, and sometimes even killed: homosexuals, Arab-looking Americans, Muslims, French wine.

‘Merica is now a nation of paranoids and xenophobes, shutting down their borders, distrustful of anything that doesn’t sound ‘Merican, self-righteous and proud of their ignorance and simplicity, and scared shitless about even what may live next door. Even though ‘Mericans are much more likely to die from drowning in their bathtubs than from from a terrorist attack, many of them can’t get the paranoiac who are those guys? out of their heads.

One solution is more guns. Not only did gun sales increase after 9/11, but also after Bush left office. Perhaps it’s more appropriate to say when Obama was elected. Some articles suggest buyers worry that their rights will change under this “socialist” president. I think it has more to do with the same irrational fear I’ve been writing about: Who is that guy? Isn’t that the very question that Republicans employed to seed fear and doubt about Obama? He’s to be feared: his whole name is Barack Hussein Obama; he’s a Muslim; he’s not an American citizen; he’s an elitist; he’s educated; he’s not white. Not one of us.

Guns seem to symbolize ‘Merican fear, irrationality, and paranoia. Yet, they also are integral to our past and the building of our nation. Since the bad guys — those who want to take away our life, liberty, and private property — have guns, the good guys must have guns. And the good guys can have guns because they are . . . well, good!

Ironically, Butch and Sundance were heroes in Hill’s film, yet real-life outlaws. Robert Leroy Parker (“Butch Cassidy”) and Harry Longabaugh (“The Sandance Kid”) performed the longest string of successful train and bank robberies in American and Old West history with the other members of the “Wild Bunch.” While known for being non-violent, the Wild Bunch were responsible for several murders during their careers as thieves and outlaws. If caught in the states, they certainly would have been hanged for their crimes. Yet, in Hill’s film, Butch and Sundance are heroes — how could Newman and Redford be anything else? Look at these handsome Americans. Who would doubt it? We know exactly who they are.

Maybe we need to turn the question on ourselves, instead of looking outward. Perhaps we Americans need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves: who are these guys?

See part one: “Gun Fight.”

I think this is why I like Lawrence Kasdan’s Silverado so much: it combines all of the mythic elements of the Western along with an excellent cast and a subtle script (for a Western). I distinctly remember when Kevin Kline’s character Paden has finally had enough, and he straps on his six-shooter to confront the corrupt and murderous Sheriff Cobb, played by Brian Dennehy. It might not be high noon, but the town of Silverado sits by itself on a dusty plain, and Cobb awaits Paden with the heaviness of fate. The moment is tense, as it always is during a final confrontation, but Paden’s resolve can no longer be influenced by be Cobb’s smooth talk. Both men stand their ground in the street, only the dust and tumbleweeds dare move, until two shots ring out in quick succession, and Cobb crumbles to the ground under Paden’s precise shot. The evil has been purged from Silverado, and now its simple folks can begin to build their dreams under the protection of Paden, the new sheriff.

Another aspect of our hero Paden is that he only reluctantly picks up a gun. He used to run with Cobb and his boys, but was left behind, a victim of his own moral choice. Paden served time, and decided to walk the straight and narrow. He is found at the beginning of the film by Emmett, Scott Glenn’s character, who is the main protagonist of the film. When Emmett finds Paden, the latter has been left with literally nothing, a victim of a robbery who has been left to die in the desert. Paden is soft-spoken, mysterious, and sympathetic. He is soon swept up again by Cobb, but ultimately makes the decision to stand by his convictions and not be swayed by Cobb’s empty promises. He must finally act decisively, if he is able to bring peace to himself and those he cares about. Violence, in Silverado, is an unfortunate final recourse for our heroes.

Perhaps Kasdan’s 1985 Western is America grown up — an America where the brutal Western no longer has a place in a more mature cultural consciousness? The Western as a genre is not much seen after the mid-eighties, except with a couple of notable exceptions: the Young Guns (1988 and 1990) two-film franchise and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992). There are undoubtedly more. However, these films have the same message: that while we might long for the familiar nostalgia of the old West, it is gone — something relegated to a raw and violent past. At the end of Young Guns II, Billy the Kid survives, but he is an old, dying man, left alone and forgotten in the lands where he was once a young and ruthless outlaw. Eastwood’s William “Billy” Munny has also seen better days, and after he is forced to take revenge, he, too, rides into obscurity. Both Billys are now too old and broken to need or want their guns.

This is the real point of this entry: gun fights. The topic of gun ownership makes this country stupid. Why have Westerns made a comeback when I thought they had peacefully and gracefully faded out over twenty years ago? I think it has something to do with an American paranoia about the evil that lurks in a vague band of bandits that could ride into town at any moment, shooting up the place, stealing the woman, and leaving the town a shambles. “We put every ounce of our money and dreams into this town, Mister, and these bandits have taken it all.” While we long for a mysterious stranger to rescue us from the faceless evil, no one steps forward out of the dust.

Perhaps it’s because we are our own villains today? We are so scared of the vague terror that we are trying to bring back the old west: if everyone has a gun in their holster, this fact alone will keep the peace. A peace under fear. Talk of the Nation had a show about handguns on Tuesday, and I really couldn’t believe what I was listening to. Some pro-gun dude was suggesting that if we allowed guns on university campuses, then incidents like Virginia Tech would be avoidable? I have heard this argument before, but it still astounds me.

Apparently in Georgia, you can get a permit — or maybe anyone can do it — to carry a handgun in a holster on your belt. I have seen this a few times, mostly by older, outspoken white dudes. Once was at a car dealership while I was waiting on my car, and the other time was in-line at Kroger. Both of these guys were scruffy, displayed the obvious accoutrements of the mythic cowboy, and didn’t mind being offensive. What was I going to do? Say something to upset them?

And this is just my point: how can we have a frank and critical discussion of ideas in a room full of guns? Especially today, when most Americans seem to be on-edge and unwilling to thoughtfully consider the validity of their convictions.

Is our final recourse like that of Paden? Will we all be forced to pick up our guns?

Continue to part two: “Who Are Those Guys?”

Beowulf is a Christ-like figure both in this revision and the original epic, sacrificing himself for the good of the people but not before, as Gilgamesh would say, his name was stamped on bricks. Yet, while he did vanquish Grendel in the film, he gave in to temptation as that young hero (you have to see the film). His attempt to atone for his sin as an older king does free his people, but brings down his son, and by implication, his way of life as well. With the death of Beowulf and his son (you have to se the film), the age of heroes comes to a close. A new king has been crowned and the old ones must pass into legend.

I’m reminded of the end of John Boorman’s Excalibur: Arthur kills his son Mordred, but sacrifices himself in the battle. Both Kings (Beowulf and Arthur) are left without heirs, so their reins must come to an end with their respective deaths. Both kings, too, are laid to rest on boats, but while Arthur is destined for Avalon and perhaps a return some day, Beowulf sinks beneath the waves as his ship becomes his pyre. Boorman and Zemeckis both tell the stories of the end of epochs — not the demise of patriarchy, but a change — perhaps with one superstitution being replaced with another.

Zemeckis’ film deals with the guilt of the father. The human women are chattel, as one would expect in an epic, but they are sympathetic and strong, demanding respect from the heroes. (There is a scene where one of Beowulf’s men — who we know is married — tries to have his way with a girl. She says “no” and struggles out of his grasp, delivering a final slap across his face before leaving. Cool.) Grendel’s mother is the most interesting: she is the demon of a heroic age (I can’t help but think of Circe, the sirens, Helen, Eve, Medea, Dido…) that has a magical influence over even powerful men. She desires a son, too, like a king — an heir to her kingdom. She represents disorder to the patirarchs Beowulf and Hrothgar, but she also has a potency that neither can resist.

The end of the film is fascinating. It’s a transition, but one that’s bittersweet and ambiguous. I didn’t think I’d like this film very much; I’m not a fan of the go-motion animation. However, this one is provocative and exciting, both in a viscreal and a thoughtful way.

It makes me want to go read Beowulf again.

One of the first characteristics of a hero that the class suggested is bravery. Indeed, bravery seems to be a universal characteristic of the hero. At on point, Palmer Joss asks Ellie why she wants to be the one to take the machine seat. She cannot answer explicitly, and Palmer tells her that she is the bravest person he has ever met. She relies, “Or the nuttiest.” Ellie’s desire to see what’s on the other side represents her community’s current need to see what’s beyond their world. It’s interesting that Contact came out in 1997, at the height of the X-Files‘ assertion that “the truth is out there.”

Part of Ellie’s bravery, and perhaps that of the hero in general, is her unselfishness. This might also suggest her sacrifice, her pioneering action, her strength, her ability to survive, and her endurance. Indeed, we want our heros to do what we cannot: these deeds are what make them heroic. Ellie’s endurance, her drive in the face of adversity to pursue what it is she believes in is admirable. Perhaps this also suggests that heros need to be idealistic and a bit impractical. If Ellie had listened to Drumlin, she would never have heard the signal from Vega. If she let witch hunters like Kitz wear her down, she would invalidate her integrity and be less heroic. When is the last time our culture lionized a sell-out?

In fact, Ellie became a scapegoat in the end during a scene reminiscent of the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. Senator Kitz tries his best to force Ellie to renounce her testimony that she ever traveled to a distant part of the galaxy. His relentless questioning and citing of tangible fact had Ellie doubting her own experiences by appealing to her reason as a scientist. Since she had no proof of her journey — something science relies upon — Kitz suggests that she imagined the whole thing. Her refusal to be swayed even by hard scientific evidence suggests her strength and endurance, and also shows how she grows as a character.

Heros must be human; therefore, they must have flaws. Ellie’s flaw was her inability to conceive of answers that can be proven by science. Ellie’s experience with the machine and her journey to Vega teaches her about faith, in belief that transcends the empirical.

Some negative characteristics were also suggested: pursuit of fame, pride, and arrogance. The former has been a characteristic of many heroic traditions. The Greeks believed is a grim afterlife, so any living would have to be done while alive: that was the time of the hero, as Achilles teaches Odysseus in Book 11 of the Odyssey. By proving one’s skills, one could achieve fame, an immortality in the verses of the poet. While this sort of fame was important to the Greeks and others, our culture often views fame as a hollow pursuit, one that is essentially the desire for money and power. An indeed, Ellie seems to want this as well: when her idealism is stomped on at every turn by the opportunist Drumlin, her disappointment is always evident. Her pride and drive also keep her from making an enduring connection with Palmer Joss and the rest of her community. These traits show that a hero is often a leader, but that leadership can be a lonely and isolating place.

Finally, heroes are often mythic and archetypal. Here is where the hero enters the realm of the poet and takes on a life beyond the physical. Myths are stories of profound truths of a culture. Though they might not be “real” in a sense that they actually happened, their significance paradoxically is in the ideals, answers, and guidance that they provide for a culture. Facts, here, become irrelevant, or at least superseded by the story. This is a difficult lesson for the scientist to learn, and is perhaps a lesson for our age.

As our culture takes its first “small moves” into space, we might find that we need our heroes again. When myths of the previous age encounter the realities of the present day, we find ourselves searching for new truths — new stories to help guide us into the next age, perhaps with that notion that the truth is out there. What will we do when we realize that we are not alone in the universe? We will need the heroes and the poets again. The deeds of the hero mean nothing if there’s not a poet to record them. Pay attention to this relationship as you read the selections this semester. Often the poet and the hero are one-in-the-same. This relationship suggests the continued importance of our own literary traditions and the heroic efforts of those that try to keep them alive.

Near the play’s climax, while the emperor Saturninus and his new wife Tamora feast on Chiron and Demetrius pies, Titus poses this rhetorical question to the emperor: “Was it well done of rash Virginius– / To slay his daughter with his own right hand / Because she was enforced, stained, deflowered?” (5.3.36-38). To which the emperor replies, probably from rote, as if, like an Our Father, he has known the answer his whole life: “It was, Andronicus” (5.3.37). This dramatic irony is lost on Saturninus, as Lavinia approaches Titus, like the knowing lamb to the slaughter. Titus prolongs the inevitable by asking the emperor why the daughter must die, to which a ready-made answer is thoughtlessly provided: “Because the girl should not survive her shame, / And by her presence still renew his sorrows” (5.3.41-42). As if Titus was awaiting the sanction of the emperor, father kills daughter in front of his guests.

This action brings immediate shock from Saturninus: “What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?” (5.3.48). The irony should not be lost on viewers, but is, I would argue, by the very fact of the spectacle of a father killing his only daughter on stage, or in the case of Julie Taymor’s 1999 film, on the screen. Greek tragedies made a point of not presenting the tragedy’s brutality on stage so that the audience is not distracted by the literal horror of the act, and they can think about the implications of their pity and terror. Elizabethan theatre, however, showed as much gore as possible, reveling in the creative sophistication of the theatre and perhaps losing some of the consideration of the events to the spectacle. We are more akin to the Elizabethans than the Athenians, methinks, especially with film. It might be argued that the very fact of the genre itself suggests entertainment, rather than promotes contemplation. So Titus snapping Lavinia’s neck does not allow us to contemplate what might be the central lesson of Titus Andronicus and perhaps the subject of Titus’ own anagnoresis.

Like Rome itself, Titus does everything deliberately, wearing his intentions on his sleeve. His devotion to Rome is unquestionable, and his duty upholds its laws and traditions absolutely, without flinching, like a proud Roman general. This selfless sense of duty is the Roman virtue of pietas first exemplified by the founder of the empire, Virgil’s Aeneas. Titus exemplifies pietas in his commitment to the ideals of Rome, and its this very devotion to the state that is his hamartia, or tragic flaw. The Romans do not dissemble, but arrogantly and deliberately say what they mean, and do what they say.

Indeed, one of the very reasons why Tamora is so disliked is her ability to dissemble. Like Shakespeare’s best Machiavells, Tamora acts on her advice to the newly crowned Saturninus: “Dissemble all your griefs and discontents” until you can “find a day to massacre them all” (1.1.444 and 451). In fact, I would argue that Titus is only able to get the upper hand by learning the act of deception from the Goth Queen. After the pain of losing the favor of the crown, the slaying of Mutius by his own hand, the raping and maiming of Lavinia, and the execution of Quintus and Martius, Titus seems to have lost his mind; even Marcus comments: “Alas, poor man! Grief has so wrought on him / He takes false shadows for true substances” (3.2.79-80). Even 3.2 seems to suggest to the audience that that this once great general has indeed fallen so low that his mind is incapable of coping. However, once Titus achieves a direction for his revenge, he is able to act again, but this time as Tamora would, and not a Roman general.

After Lavinia is able to disclose the crimes of Chiron and Demetrius, Titus begins to arise from his nadir. Even young Lucius says he’ll deliver a message “with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire” (4.1.120). Yet, Titus is finished with being the Roman general, and now acts like a guerilla: “No, boy, not so. I’ll teach thee another course” (4.1.121). In a “wilderness of tigers,” one must be equally ferocious to survive (3.1.54). Titus’ mind is still sharp, but he distracts Saturninus and the goths (and perhaps the audience) with more ranting in 4.3. Yet, this unusual scene has its purpose: Titus is able to lure Tamora and her sons into his web, and he feels as bad about draining their blood as a spider would a fly’s.

Titus’ killing of Lavinia should promote questions, but only ends up shocking. It seems to be Titus’ final break with the laws and traditions of Rome, a reversal of the Titus at the beginning of the play who unquestionably supported the state. Lavinia as sacrificial lamb seems an egregious symbol, and I’m still not sure that Titus can be forgiven for this, but like Medea seems to reason, it has to be done to end the tyranny of oppressive ideologies. Indeed, one could also argue that Titus, in killing Tamora, allows Lucius to kill Saturninus and take the throne of Rome: a victory for the Andronici. Therefore, Titus’ blasphemy maintains the orthodoxy. What kind of king will Lucius make? Amnesty for Aaron? Nope. It seems that Lucius may just pick up where Saturninus left off, which posits the most disturbing question: can Rome be reformed?

I like Taymor’s end: the young Lucius takes Aaron and Tamora’s baby out of the coliseum and presumably away from it stifling traditions. Perhaps the lesson is that a corrupt system does not allow for internal change. No matter how much Titus tried to get the upper hand, he, in the end, is still a Roman. In order not to be a Roman, perhaps one must leave Rome. Shakespeare’s play leaves this ending open as well. We never do find out what happens to Aaron’s baby. It seems realistically, that its brains would be bashed out on the wall in front of its father. I guess there’s only too much spectacle Romans, Elizabethans, or we can take in one sitting.

According to Muntius, Solaristics is the space era’s equivalent of religion: faith disguised as science. . . . Solaristics is a revival of long-vanished myths, the expression of mythical nostalgias which men are unwilling to confess openly. The cornerstone is deeply entrenched in the foundations of the edifice: it is the hope of Redemption. (Lem Solaris 173).

Unlike either Tarkovsky‘s or Soderbergh‘s film versions, both of whom seem to have taken Muntius’ interpretation of Solaris to heart, Lem’s 1961 novel suggests that Solaris remains alien, something that humanity’s cataloging and ordering cannot explain. The great ocean, despite humanity’s greatest minds, remains essentially mute and inexplicable, unable to be coded by scientific reason, explained through empiricism, or contacted through poetry. Lem seems to suggest, in the aftermath of science fiction’s Golden Age, that science is not the panacea or pinnacle of evolution and striving: it, like religion, is a faith-based language unique to the creatures that invented it. Lem’s vision seems introspective — it turns a mirror on a species that used science to create the possibility of annihilation by splitting the atom and mocks our pretenses to transcend our own human follies. While contact with the other may not be possible in Lem’s vision, perhaps the universe does contain wonders if we can just see past our own desires.

Lem’s novel is about Kris Kelvin’s exploration of his own psyche. A trained Solarist and psychologist, Kelvin is sent to Solaris to see what has become of the crew, but unknown to Kelvin, he is traveling light years to encounter not the strangeness of the alien sea, but his own troubled existence. He travels alone, strapped inside a ship he cannot control and is hurdled toward the Solaris station. Chapter one, “Arrival,” illustrates his own sense of alienation: his surroundings are familiar, but hostile to human life. He understands the academic history of the ocean planet — what he calls a useless jumble of words, a sludge of statements and suppositions . . . [that] has not progressed an inch in 78 years since researchers had begun” — but he has never experienced it himself (23). However, his mission is not to study Solaris, but to try to gain some understanding of what happened to the crew.

When Kelvin encounters first Snow, then the dead Gibarian, then Sartorius he begins to see what is going on, but his scientifically trained mind cannot accept whet his eyes tell him. Each of the crew has a “visitor,” ostensibly produced by Solaris for an unknown purpose. Snow speculates that they are meant to show “our own monstrous ugliness, our folly, our shame!” (73). He speculates that the ocean probed their brains and penetrated their deepest fears and regrets: the visitors are “a genetic substance . . . a plasma which ‘remembers.’ The ocean has ‘read’ us by this means, registering the minutest details, with the result that . . . well, you know the result” (74). Snow believes that he understands the how, but he does not know the why. The scientists cannot rid themselves of the visitors; they appear when the scientists have slept; they regenerate when hurt; they seem immortal, and, as Sartorius opines, “They are not autonomous individuals, nor copies of actual persons. They are merely projections materializing from our brains, based on a given individual” (102). Kelvin elaborates further:

The origin of the materialization lies in the most durable imprints of memory, those which are especially well-defined, but no single imprint can be completely isolated, and in the course of the reproduction, fragments of related imprints are absorbed. (102-103)

As scientists, they arrive at the conclusion that they themselves are the subject of an experiment (103).

Experiment or not, the visitors begin to learn after they arrive. Snow later speculates that: “When it arrives, the visitor is almost blank — only a ghost made up of some memories and vague images dredged out of its . . . source. The longer it stays with you, the more human it becomes. It also becomes more independent, up to a certain point. And the longer that goes on, the more difficult it gets. . .” (150-151). After that time of adjustment, Snow suggests, they become human, now a part of the life on the station. They learn from their surroundings, and begin to question; Snow states: “In a certain subjective sense, they are human. They know nothing whatsoever about their origins. You must have noticed that?” (74). While in one sense the visitors mirror the scientist’s memories, in another they are also as questioning, answer-less, and alone as humans.

Science begins to falter, offering no answers, but only guesses as to what might be happening. Kelvin begins to accept his visitor, his dead wife Rheya. Early on, Kelvin confesses that her suicide is his fault: he left her in a psychological fragile state with enough drugs to do away with herself. He left her, and she killed herself, and he carried the blame with him for a decade. Yet, when Rheya appears to him on Solaris, the scientist in him dismisses her as ersatz, a simulacrum undeserving of the status of human. He launches her into orbit, but she is soon replaced by another, one that he begins to grow attached to, despite the fact that she is not Rheya and was born out of an alien ocean. Yet, he longs to have another chance to redeem his mistake with Rheya and begins to think of this Rheya as human, someone to be cared for and loved: “It was Rheya, the real Rheya, the one and only Rheya” (93). However, as much as wishes to believe that, this Rheya learns that she is a product of Solaris and cannot accept that fact herself.

At one point, Snow offers his view of humanity’s travels into the cosmos:

We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. . . . We don’t want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. . . . We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don’t want to enslave other races, we simply want the bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. . . . We are only seeking Man. We have no need for other worlds. We need mirrors. . . . We are searching for an ideal image of our own world. (72)

Yet Solaris presents them with the opposite: their own fears and shortcomings, and they have difficulty accepting that. They consider that they are mad, but when madness cannot be justified, they ask why Solaris is doing what it’s doing. Science cannot answer why, it can only answer how. The Rheya simulacrum falls into this trap as well: a reflection of Kelvin’s mind, she cannot accept her own alienness, and like the real Rheya, finds a way to kill herself. Perhaps this is what humanity is, then: an exclusive club that seeks to conquer and not understand.

Lem’s novel seems to call into question the very notion of human science. Like a religious faith, science was upheld in science fiction as an endeavor that could save us from ourselves. It is a rational discipline that stands upon human reason and knowledge, not fear and superstition. However, science itself is only a human belief system, something that may hold true in our remote corner of the universe, but it cannot allow us to make contact or examine the complexities of the universe or our own minds. While science might tell us how our minds operate, it cannot disclose the implications of its operation. Perhaps Solaris suggests that having too much faith in science can destroy our own humanity, making us more like machines than beings who are capable of looking beyond our own beliefs and prejudices. Perhaps the word “human” is in need of re-articulation if it cannot encompass difference.

At the end of the novel, Kelvin decides to visit the ocean on Solaris. He lands his craft on a “mimoid,” a seemingly random structure spawned by the sea. As he considers his experiences on Solaris, he ponders his existence and that of the planet. Despite the trouble and pain of this trip, he thinks “We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them” (204). He seems to shrug his shoulders at the ocean, at the defeat of humanity to make contact, to break out of its own arrogant little shell. Yet, his final thoughts might be the beginning of a new life: “I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past” (204). However cruel his experience, at least Solaris represented something outside the sphere of humanity. Perhaps this thought is comfort enough when our experiments fail us.

When Kelvin first arrives on the station, he quickly learns of Gibarian’s death, meets with the remaining crew members — the jittery Snow and the measured and paranoid Gordon (Sartorius in the novel and Tarkovsky film) — and begins his investigation into just what is happening. In an early scene (chapter 8 on the DVD), Kelvin watches a video journal of the dead Gibarian that echoes Tarkovsky’s: “we don’t want other worlds, we want mirrors.” Gordon echoes this sentiment later when she and Kelvin discuss the reality of the “visitors,” particularly the Rheya simulacrum:

GORDON: It is a mistake to become emotionally engaged with one of them. You’re being manipulated. If she were ugly, you would not want her around. That’s why she’s not ugly. She’s a mirror that reflects part of your mind. You provide the formula.

KELVIN: She’s alive.

GORDON: She is not human! Try to understand that if you can understand anything.

KELVIN: What about your visitor, the one you’re so ready to destroy without hesitation. Who is it? What is it? Can it feel? Can it touch? Does it speak?

GORDON: We are in a situation that is beyond morality. Your wife is dead.

KELVIN: How do you know that? How can you be so definitive about a construct that you do not understand?

GORDON: She’s a copy. A facsilime. And she’s seducing you all over again. You’re sick!

The distinction here is meant to be ambiguous, calling into question what is human. Both react according to how they interpret human and their own desires. Also, human seems to be a product, not only of culture, but of environment. How could something that appears to come from an alien ocean planet, constructed from a particular person’s memories, and manifested physically by an alien thing be “human”? Gordon, as an empirical scientist cannot buy it; Kelvin, a psychologist remains dubious. Yet, we cannot so easily discount his desires and the morality — a human invention — of calling the obviously alien construct “human.” The visitors are a fact; there’s no doubting that physically. However, since science cannot explain their appearance, the question enters the realm of metaphysics.

It always seemed to me the height of human metaphysical arrogance to create God in our own image, specifically a white man — I guess the “white” part is the product of later Western artists, as Kelvin suggests during a flashback of a dinner party: “The whole idea of God was dreamed up by man. The limits that we put on it are human limits. It designs. It creates–” Rheya interjects, “No, I’m talking about a higher form of intelligence.” Gibarian is there, too, and adds: “No, you’re talking about something else. You’re talking about a man in a white beard, again. You are ascribing human characteristics to something that isn’t human.” While Rheya listens, she becomes uneasy. Kelvin continues, somewhat condescendingly, “Given all the elements of the known universe and enough time, our existence is inevitable. It’s no more mysterious than trees, or sharks, or your mathematical probability and that’s all.” Yes, you can’t explain everything, but that, according to Kelvin and his friends, does not prove the existence of a higher form of intelligence. As Solaris shows them, how we measure intelligence becomes mute in the presence of something that it cannot explain, so we attempt to make it fit into the parameters that we invented to define ourselves. The truly alien becomes a reflection of ourselves, a mirror. In a true postmodern moment, Kelvin speculates that even if there is a God, we cannot possibly hope to understand it. Yet, faced with God, Kelvin and the rest of the scientists seek to do just that.

The pivotal scene comes when Gibarian visits Kelvin in a dream — again the “dream” part is ambiguous. The latter accuses him of not being human, a mere puppet, but Gibarian returns: “Maybe you’re my puppet, but like all puppets, you think you’re actually human. Hence the puppet’s dream: being human.” Kelvin questions him about his son, but Gibarian answers that his son is back on earth. He continues: “And that’s not your wife. They are part of Solaris. Remember that.” Kelvin continues to probe, asking what Solaris wants. Gibarian answers: “Why do you think it has to want something? This is why you have to leave. If you keep thinking there’s a solution, you’ll die here.” Yet, Kelvin cannot leave her, remembering the guilt of leaving her the first time on earth, an action that precipitated her suicide. Kelvin must find the answers; he must understand Solaris so that he can cleanse his guilt and remorse. Gibarian says finally: “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you: there are no answers, only choices.” Yet Kelvin, like the western conception of the rational human, believes that he can find the answers to the puzzles that Solaris presents.

Soderbergh’s Solaris reflects humanity’s quest for place where we can be most ourselves. This seems a vain and solipsistic longing to make the world a reflection of our inner perceptions that gives meaning and order to the universe, but simultaneously objectifies external realities and recreates them in our own image. We want to be like gods, whose creating words become manifest in the physical world. This brings security and comfort, like we might find at home, or that a filmmaker might find in his vision of a novel.

Indeed, the final scene vindicates this quest: Kelvin is again at home; he again is slicing vegetables for dinner and again cuts his finger as before, but this time he is able to wash away the cut, to erase it with water as easily one might erase a mistake on a computer screen. The scene cuts back to Kelvin deciding to remain on the station as Solaris expands to encompass it: he will not return to earth, a place now that is alien to him, where he would have to relearn to be human. Cutting back to the apartment, Rheya appears calling his name, and he asks if he is alive or dead. She, with an expression that is mirrored through the film, replies that “We don’t have to think like that anymore. We’re together now. Everything we’ve done is forgiven. Everything.” Their final embrace suggests his acceptance of this reality that seems to be the reflection of Kelvin’s greatest desire made manifest by Solaris. Kelvin has ostensibly found his place. He is now trapped in a reality of his own making.

Like Tarkovsky’s ending, Soderbergh’s seeks to find a repentance, an idea of heaven born from our greatest desires — a reflection of forgiveness and solace, a chance to right our greatest mistakes. Yet, again like Tarkovsky’s, this ending is also a trap, one from which Kelvin will not escape. He, like his patients at the beginning of the film, is now trapped in his own mind, having succeeded in making it his reality. His forgiveness is not external, but internal: he has forgiven himself his trespasses and now feels he deserves peace in the familiar. What is love other than a reflection of ourselves, a place to feel the most comfortable and secure? While we can live in this place, it also traps us, making the real world of human interaction less bearable and ultimately impossible.

While Tarkovsky’s answer seems to be a return to nature, away form the alienating concrete and steel of the city, Soderbergh’s seem to suggest technology might provide these moments of connection, but at a price. Like our family and friends, the technology that we surround ourselves with reflects our desires and provides us with spaces where we can be most ourselves, where transgressions are quickly erased and leave no scars. The digital world mirrors how we perceive ourselves, how we wish to be perceived, and how we perceive others. It’s a haven of security on one hand, and a place to interact on the other. Yet, even though we might chat, browse, or email, we are still physically sitting alone in our own rooms looking at a monitor that, if we look closely, reflects our hopeful faces in its glass. Solaris seems to be an effort to come to terms with our anxieties about what it means to be human in an increasing age of digital technology. What will happen when the digital becomes manifest in the products of nanotechnology, genetics, and robotics. What then?