Joshua Clover, November 2004
1844570452 £8.99
Directed by the brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski, The Matrix (1999) was truly an end-of-the-millenium movie, a statement of the American Zeitgeist and a prognosis of the future of big-budget Hollywood film-making. Starring Keanu Reeves as Neo, a computer programmer transformed into a messianic freedom fighter, The Matrix blends science fiction with conspiracy thriller conventions and outlandish martial arts violence, heightening their spectacular qualities to an unprecedented level through the use of groundbreaking digital techniques. A box-office triumph, the film was no populist confection: its blatant allusions to highbrow contemporary philosophy added to its appeal as a mystery to be decoded.
Joshua Clover undertakes that task of decoding. He examines the film in terms of its digital effects and how they were achieved: the painstaking choreography of stunts, the digitally generated special effects (especially 'Bullet Time'), the innovative design. He shows how The Matrix represents a melding of cinema and video games (the greatest commercial threat to have faced Hollywood since the advent of television), a hybrid kind of 'immersive' entertainment. He unpacks the references to philosophy before showing how The Matrix ultimately expresses the crises which faced American culture at the end of the 1990s.
Joshua Clover, author of the award-winning books of poetry Madonna anno domini and The Totality for Kids, is Associate Professor of Poetry and Poetics at the University of California Davis. He writes on art and politics for the Village Voice.
Other titles in the series .. ' Three Colours' Trilogy, The
Amores Perros
Blade Runner
Caravaggio
City of Sadness, A
Crash
Crying Game, The
Dead Man
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
Do the Right Thing
Don't Look Now
Eyes Wide Shut
Groundhog Day
Heat
Idiots, The
Jaws
L'Argent
L.A. Confidential
Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht
Pulp Fiction
Right Stuff, The
Salò or The Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom
Seven
Silence of the Lambs, The
Terminator, The
The Exorcist (Revised 2nd Edition)
The Shawshank Redemption
The Thin Red Line
Thelma and Louise
Titanic
Trainspotting
Unforgiven
Usual Suspects, The
Wings of the Dove, The
Withnail and I
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
WR - Mysteries of the Organism
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