The Matrix
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by Veit M. Etzold, based on the movie by Andy and Larry Wachowski, Warner Brothers, 1999
contributed by Veit M. Etzold, 2006
The Matrix was a very successful movie, dealing with the topic of the ambivalence of perception and presenting it in a very stylish and innovative design
The thesis of the film that reality might not be what it seems is presented as a shocking revelation; however, reflecting about the ambivalence of reality is almost as old as mankind
The Matrix managed to bring a philosophical topic with great success to the average viewer. The reason for the success is that technology in the late '90s was already that advanced that virtual reality was something for everyone to see (PlayStation, Xbox …). Thus Matrix integrated old, philosophical theses into a contemporary phenomenon
Keywords:
Ambivalence, See, Seeing, False, True, Redeemer, Jesus, Christ, God, Religion, Computer, Digital, Illusion
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Introduction
The topic of The Matrix is as old as the hills: Reality, as we know it, is a product of our imagination, we cannot really judge what is true or false. While the whole topic goes back as far as Plato's Allegory of the Cave, The Matrix managed to sell this philosophical debate as a new and shocking revelation. In Matrix, all human beings are enslaved by machines and their bodily warmth is used as a source of energy supply. To prevent mankind from uprising, people's brains are logged inside a big computer that gives them the impression that they live in the real world—however, this real world is nothing but a gigantic, interactive simulation of reality—the Matrix! Whereas other movies with a similar topic flopped at the box office—like Ridley Scott's Blade Runner from 1982—The Matrix hit big with the right topic at the right time. The technology of the '90s, that delivered high-level interactive computer games made the ambivalence of perception something that mattered to everyone—and made Matrix a box office hit netting nearly one billion dollars in revenues!
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The Matrix
"But all be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre," writes Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, referring to the often less than satisfactory financial situation of philosophers and humanists in general. But Andy and Larry Wachowski's The Matrix, one of the most successful and hotly discussed movies of the '90s, proved that it is possible to make a lot of money with the story and marketing of Western philosophy's insights. Breath-taking special effects, thrilling action scenes, an intelligent plot, new dimensions of style and fashion, and quotations from the entire history of film and ideas made The Matrix a doubly coded work of art par excellence. With its allusions to Film Noir, Western, and Science Fiction films, Gothic and paranoia, hackers and detectives, epistemology and media sciences, comics and computer games—plus the question and quest for a fixed position within the apparent ambivalence of perception—The Matrix was a movie that almost every theatergoer, independent of his or her educational and personal background, was able to identify with in one way or another.
The computer specialist Thomas A. Anderson, who hacks into business and government computer networks under the alias Neo, is contacted by a mysterious organization. The boss of the organization, a certain Morpheus, informs Neo that the reality surrounding him is just an illusion. The real world is a wasteland destroyed by war. Humans, Morpheus claims, created highly intelligent machines, and eventually war broke out between the two. Ultimately, the machines won. Ever since, humans have been enslaved by machines and used as batteries for their body warmth. To prevent uprisings, every human is connected to a gigantic computer and fed with an illusory reality in which he or she is free. This reality looks exactly like the world on the threshold of the 21st century. But in truth, that which humans call reality is nothing but a huge, neurally interactive simulation—the Matrix. In the course of the movie, Neo disrupts his neural connection to the Matrix and becomes the savior of humanity, strong enough to fight against the tyranny of the machines.
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