| If they teach courses on it at Princeton and Harvard, is it a wonder that people are lost? When I walked out of The Matrix Revolutions last week, there were a few cries of, "What the hell was that?"
I’m still waiting for a satisfying review of the film that doesn’t complain about the lack of action. My partner and I debated for hours on the religious references, semiotics, the role of Terminator and my insistence that there’s some parallel with Jean Luc Godard’s 1965 film Alphaville.
It’s been almost a full year since The Matrix series launched a philosophical component to its website at whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/phi.html. This is the best source of philosophical essays on the movie from recognized philosophers, cybernetics enthusiasts and professors of religion. There are more than a dozen essays to wrap your head around, with arguments from Descartes, Heidegger, Gnosticism and Plato’s cave.
If you’re looking for an approach from Joe Public, try corporatemofo.com/stories/051803matrix.htm. Ken Mondschein fleshes out The Matrix Reloaded with talk of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Merovingians and Dante’s Inferno. With helpful links to the sources in his discussion, you’ll be able to contribute more than "it was neat" around the water cooler.
If you’re still waking up in the middle of the night and wrestling with your perception of reality, try some recommended reading from www.ursasoft.com/matrix/. Here you’ll find a comprehensive listing of books written on the films with links to purchase.
Most of the discussions are based on the first two films in the series, so it’s worth bookmarking the sites to see how thoughts on the third will develop. In the meantime, I’ll be searching for relevant information from my buddy, Alpha60. |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.