Which is the most philosophical movie of all time?
It might seem a moot question: after all, from the moment the Lumières pointed their camera at an oncoming train, movies have been dominated by the trivial, the sensational and the downright silly. Mostly because of the inherent qualities of the medium. The moving picture doesn’t, after all, naturally lend itself to deep pondering and introspection.
Ah, but ‘cinephile’ wankers would object, there’s movies and then there’s cinema. That one is a more elevated art form than the other is explicitly argued by director Martin Scorcese, who recently objected (and not without reason) that the likes of the Marvel movies were ‘theme parks’ rather than an ‘art form’.
No doubt, then, ‘cinephiles’ would tout some tedious, pretentious snoozefest by Tarkovsky or Bergman as truly ‘philosophical’. Or maybe some nerdy wankfest from Woody Allen. Mainstream moderns would probably claim that the Matrix films are totes philosophical, bro.
But while Robert Bresson claimed to be mainlining Schopenhauer, with Au hasard Balthazar, it frankly comes across as Benji’s boring, monochrome cousin. The Matrix was a one-question movie: ‘What if, like, we were just a brain in a vat, dude?’ Hitchcock’s films are masterpieces of craftsmanship, but hardly philosophical.
In fact, philosopher Mark Rowlands nominated a movie that might surprise many of you, but I happen to agree with him.
Total Recall.
Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 movie is much, much more than an Arnold Schwarzenegger science-fiction action blockbuster. I mean, even if it was only that, it would still be one of the best examples of its genre ever made. Not that that should have been a surprise: the Dutch-born Verhoeven had already shown that he was a clever filmmaker who simultaneously embraced and satirised American cinematic culture with Robocop (1987), his ‘American Jesus’.
But with Total Recall, Verhoeven pulled out all the stops, both trashy and philosophical.
For the trash-loving, popcorn devourers, Total Recall has it all: Arnold Schwarzeneggener in full muscle mode, lightning-paced action and over-the-top violence and gore. But for the philosophical types, the film explores multiple themes: self and identity, free will and the nature of reality. I’ll discuss each in turn, but first, for the handful of people who’ve never seen it, a brief synopsis (some spoilers):
It’s 2084, and Mars is a colony world run, like the Belgian Congo, by a ruthlessly exploitative commercial regime. On Earth, Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is a lowly construction worker who dreams of bigger things. Mostly, Mars: Quaid is plagued by recurring dreams of being on a blue-skied Mars (its real sky in the movie is black), with a mysterious woman. Unable to afford a real Martian vacation, Quaid visits Rekall, a company that specialises in ‘virtual vacations’: implanting false memories that are indistinguishable from the real thing.
Quaid chooses a ‘secret-agent action’ scenario, including a mysterious woman like the one in his dreams. However, while the implant is proceeding, Quaid wakes up and violently lashes out, believing that he really is a secret agent and that Rekall has blown his cover.
And there it all hits the fan. Quaid finds himself pursued by a mysterious gang of assassins, lead by ’80s action-movie staple villain Michael Ironside. On the run, Quaid is given a suitcase containing secret-agent stuff, plus a video recording of himself, in which he tells himself that he is not Douglas Quaid at all, but a real-life secret agent named Hauser. His own apparent wife, Lori (Sharon Stone), also reveals that she is a secret-service ‘minder’ and that their whole marriage is a false memory implant.
Quaid flees undercover to Mars and sets about trying to find the truth, along the way getting drawn into an underground rebellion against the tyrannical ruler of Mars, Vilos Cohaagen (played with relish by Ronny Cox, who also played the equally villainous corporate henchman Dick Jones in Robocop. Along the way, he meets the mysterious woman for real, Melina (Rachel Ticotin), a gang of mutant revolutionaries and mysterious alien artefacts.
Obviously, then, the first (and major) philosophical theme of Total Recall is self and identity. Who is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, really? Is he Quaid, is he Hauser or someone else entirely?
The 17th century philosopher John Locke defined a ‘person’ as a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection and can consider it self as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places. This is the fundamental challenge for Quaid/Hauser. Quaid considers himself only as ‘Quaid’ – and Quaid is very, very different from Hauser. Where Hauser is an enforcer for Cohaagen’s regime, Quaid is an idealist drawn to the cause of the rebellious mutants.
What does this mean for his identity? Locke, realising that one’s beliefs and attitudes, even physical being, change markedly over time, further argued that the self can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person; it is the same self now it was then; and ’tis by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that Action was done.
But Quaid has no real memory of Hauser. All he has are video recordings of someone physically identical to himself, telling him that he was Hauser. For most of us, identity is a concatenation: the child becomes the adult and grows old, day by day, year by year. But there is no such gradation for Quaid/Hauser. The same physical being simply wakes up one day as Quaid, fully grown like Athene springing from Zeus’ head.
Quaid not only does not consider himself as the same thinking thing, only in different times and places, as Hauser. But Hauser doesn’t think he is Quaid: ‘You are not you,’ the video recording tells him. Shortly after, re-emphasising the problem of identity, Quaid projects a double of himself to confuse the pursuing henchmen. ‘You think this is the real Quaid? It is!’
So, which is the real ‘person’?
For that matter, what is ‘real’, at all?
From the moment Quaid starts the Rekall implant, his grip on reality is entirely shattered. After all, he wanted a secret agent adventure on Mars – and that’s exactly what he gets. Complete with his dreamed-of mystery woman. So, was his ‘waking up’ with the realisation that he actually is a secret agent under deep cover just part of the whole Rekall package?
In fact, halfway through the film, Quaid is confronted with exactly this possibility. His wife Lori and Dr Edgemar (Roy Brocksmith) appear on Mars to explain that Quaid is still under anaesthetic in the Rekall facility, trapped in his false memory and on the verge of permanent brain damage.
Quaid rejects this possibility with the requisite violence, but the question remains to the end of the film. When Quaid’s adventure ends exactly as he had requested (complete with blue sky), he turns to Melina and remarks, ‘What if this was all a dream?’
This is more than a classic Arnie one-liner: it’s the central theme of the whole film. What if the life we’re living right now is all a dream?
This is a question which has haunted philosophy since the 17th century, when Rene Descartes proposed the possibility that everything we believe we know is nothing but an illusion fed to us by an evil demon. In the 20th century, Robert Nozick updated the idea, with his ‘brain in a vat’ thought experiment. That thought experiment is the core theme of The Matrix, but in Total Recall it is explored not only in more depth but without a final answer. Where Neo (Keanu Reeves) knows the matrix is all an illusion, Quaid cannot ever be sure.
When Quaid rejects first Dr Edgemar’s offer to return to ‘reality’ (involving the first cinematic use of the ‘red pill’ device), then Cohaagen’s and Hauser’s entreaties to return to the fold, he is exercising free will.
Or is he?
A classic thought experiment in the philosophy of free will is the ‘brain implant’ idea. Imagine that a subject has a device secretly implanted in their brain that lets an external agent control their actions. The implanted subject has no idea the device is in their head, and its impulses are indistinguishable from their own thoughts. At some point, the agent sends an impulse instructing them to murder a particular person. It seems fairly clear cut that the subject is not acting with free will.
But what if the implant breaks right at the moment the instruction is sent – yet the subject murders the person anyway? Have they still acted from free will? Could they have done otherwise?
In fact, Quaid in Total Recall is instructed to murder someone – but another agent, Benny (Mel Johnson Jr) whom Quaid has unsuspectingly fallen in with does the deed. Is Benny acting from free will, or has he been similarly programmed, like Hauser?
When Quaid ultimately spurns Cohaagen and his Hauser-self, is he acting from free will or is it just the Rekall implant requiring him to play the hero?
Few movies have ever asked so many deep philosophical questions at once, let alone in the context of a gaudily ultra-violent Arnie action movie.
So, treat yourself and watch Total Recall again and prepare for your brain to unwind.
