I found this film deeply touching, unusual, and connected with our times. I saw parallels with my own life, a new sort of postmodern reality framed within an unexpected science fiction construct. The film was truly special. There's a couple spoilers in here, I'll warn ya. First, though, I'll cover some other topics for this node
Soundtrack:
Cameron Crowe tied the music intimately to the spirit of the film, evoking emotions and realities well-suited to it. I am going to buy this soundtrack and play the hell out of it shortly. Several of the songs, including "
Vanilla Sky", were written for the film.
- 2:46 REM - All the Right Friends
- 4:09 Radiohead - Everything in its Right Place
- 2:47 Paul McCartney - Vanilla Sky
- 4:24 Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
- 3:52 Julianna Gianni - I Fall Apart
- 2:53 Monkees - Porpoise Song
- 4:54 Looper - Mondo '77
- 5:29 Red House Painters - Have You Forgotten
- 3:25 Josh Rouse - Directions
- 3:44 Leftfield & African Bambaataa - Afrika Shox
- 9:16 Sigur Ros - Svefn-g-englar
- 4:33 Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
- 3:34 Todd Rundgren - Can We Still Be Friends
- 4:36 Bob Dylan - Fourth Time Around
- 2:44 Nancy Wilson - Elevator Beat
- 4:20 REM - Sweetness Follows
- 6:29 Chemical Brothers - Where Do I Begin
Vanilla Sky: the song
Vanilla Sky, written by
Paul McCartney. I tried my best to transcribe the lyrics. :)
The chef prepares
a special menu
for your delight or mine
Tonight you fly
so high up
in the vanilla sky
Your life is fine
The sweet and sour
Unbearable great
You gotta love every hour
You must appreciate
This is your time
This your day
You got it all
don't blow it away
The chef prepares
a special menu
for your delight or mine
Tonight you fly
so high up
in the vanilla sky
Melting tea leaves
cast your fortune
in a glass of wine
snaggle fish
balloon or dolphin
See your silver shine
This is your time
This your day
You got it all
don't blow it away
The chef prepares
a special menu
for your delight or mine
Tonight you fly
so high up
in the vanilla sky
in the vanilla
in the vanilla
in the vanilla sky...
A little freeform analysis
This film opens with Tom Cruise waking up, set to Radiohead's Everything in its right place. He gets out of bed and hops in his sports car. As he enters the street that mid-morning, he notices it's quiet. When he gets onto the avenue, no one is there. He enters a deserted Times Square as the Chemical Brothers' Where do I Begin, I believe, starts pulsing. He gets out of the car and starts running, as we are presented with a barrage of digital images, flying by, as a woman dances on the screens. From that moment, I thought, ahhh... Radiohead, deserted New York streets, perfect. I have pondered pulling off a similar visual stunt for a music video or something in my small town at 3 AM. just beautiful... Vanilla Sky presented a really intriguing postmodern reality, I thought, literally composing a reality recycled from pop culture components.
Some elements of the film seemed cliche and overwrought, though I think that the actors bravely attempted to do what they could. In particular, the scenes with Cruise jabbering to the psychologist with that mask on smacked of pretension. The mask served as a nifty visual tool through the movie, though. In particular, at the dance club, seeing that ghostly mask from a birds-eye view created a great image.
Spoiler time. All right, this film presented the ultimate postmodern reality (his dream, mostly) framed within a lower-level rational "modern" reality (the Life Extension simulation). Much of the film is composed of people living within cultural ideals, as Cruise is the rich and gorgeous playboy, with his "fuck buddy" stalker and lovely exotic crush (Cruz). Once we reach the lucid dream segment, when he wakes up on the street, the reality crosses from rational but idealized, to complete postmodern recycling. The Vanilla Sky is Monet, the streets are from Bob Dylan covers. Of course everything goes to shit as the simulated reality "glitch" gets out of hand. I thought it was a bit of a pity for the film to encompass the new reality it was building within a computer simulation, but it was ok, still, unlike the end of A.I., for example.
Cruise's character is so horrendously empty and flawed, though he is so apparently idealized. When his face is shattered, he cannot psychologically do anything, and he pushes his friends away ferociously. In reality, he signs up for the lucid dream program and kills himself because he cannot handle "loss of face," if you will. Literally ugliness has made reality unbearable. The tragedy of the tale is that Cruz would have loved him even with his broken face. He had a lot to live for, even with a messed-up face. The tragedy is that it takes a life and death for him to understand that. Cruise's character effectively presented the lonliness and sadness hidden within today's societal role models.
CD listing thanks to http://www.freedb.org/freedb_search_fmt.php?cat=soundtrack&id=f6115311 .
Huzzah! First node of 2002!