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The Portrayal of the Future, in Film

Page history last edited by Kathryn Hansen 14 years, 3 months ago

 

"Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions."

Edgar Casey (6),

 

If there is one thing that we as humans do not truly understand it is the future, and yet we have a certain fascination with it. Whether it is traveling through time to see the future or simply setting a story (in this case, movies) in a futuristic land, the world of film, literature, and television is full of depictions of the far off and distant future.

 

From 2001: A Space Odyssey

 

 

From Blade Runner

 

 

from Metropolis

 

 

 

 Where does one start to construct the future?

The main concept that people look to during the progression of time is the assumption that over time, things change. This is a seemingly logical conclusion. These changes can have usually one or two outcomes. One is positive change: flying cars and miracle medicines. The human mind goes crazy with the possibilities of the future. In our minds it is limitless because in a sense, it is. There is also negative change that can occur, which is usually the focus of dsytopian fictions. If everything was all perfect and happy, they would not be very interesting for the audience. So how does one design the markers of a future? Imagine what you don’t like about today, and fix it with things that we simply do not have access to quite yet- this seems to be the vantage from which many futuristic visions are born.

 

Themes seen in futuristic movies

-Human/robot crossovers are bad

-Over-mechanization of humans is bad

-Flying cars (why always flying cars?!?!)

-Human thought as evil

-Too much information leads to prejudice of people, and problems of difference

-Some things should not be altered by technological advances

 

 

Why use the future in film?

Often times, a futuristic story is used to get at one of three ideas:

1) Try to make a point that is better suited if placed outside of today’s society. This is prominent in Blade Runner.

2)To warn today’s audiences about how choices we make today can impact the future to an insane extent. Take for example the movie 1984, based on George Orwell’s famous novel.

3)To draw on satire to make people look at present situations in new ways.

 

Examples of Science Fiction Inspiring Invention

Some of what science fiction writers could dream up, actual scientists could create. Flash Gordon traveled into space, but at that time we were far from the reality. Moving sidewalks called "pedwalks" were visualized, they are now being used in most airports. Satellites. We actually have a television show to thank for many ideas. Startrek.Uhura's wireless earpiece is now the bluetooth. Communicaters look surprisingly like flip phones. Portable memory devices, are disks or USB drives. They could always locate anyone on the ground with some device;  we now have GPS.  Some of the medical devises used in "sick bay" we now have in hospitals. Such as monitors and beds that can read vital signs. Let's not forget about phasers, we have lazer beam guns and others are in development.(4)

 

Framing the Future: Film and Architecture

When portraying the city of the future, filmmakers basically have two options. Either build a city from scratch,using sets, backdrops and special effects. or use elements of the existing environment and modify and frame them in such a way as to create something recoginzable yet different.Blade Runner combines both approaches mixing modelwork, studio sets and real locations,(5).

The set based option is usually traced back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The principal advantage of this method is that filmmakers have total control over the look and feel of the backgroud to what ever story they want to tell. As you can see in the photo of Metropolis above Lang's portrayal of the future held a forboding omen concerning the consequenses of man's progress.(5).

How ever we interprete the future glorious or grotesk, humankind does grapple with many unanswerable questions. The biggest question of all is what's in my future?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Examples of Futuristic Films

 

Blade Runner

 

Metropolis

 

2001: A Space Odyssey

 

The Matrix

 

Minority Report

 

Delicatessen

 

12 Monkeys

 

Planet of the Apes

 

V for Vendetta

 

Gattaca

 

Fahrenheit 451

 

A Scanner Darkly

 

A Clockwork Orange

 

Back to the Future Part II

 

Star Trek

 

AI: Artificial Intelligence

 

The Postman

 

Waterworld

 

Serenity

etc etc etc

 

 

 

 

 

background research 

   http://snarkerati.com/movie-news/the-top-50-dystopian-movies-of-all-time/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopian

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian

 

  (4). http://www.filmjunk.com/2009/01/21/treknobabble-50-top-10-star-trek-inventions-in-use-today/

 

 (5). http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3128110 

 

 (6). http://www.brain.com

 

 

Comments (2)

Sean Desilets said

at 8:56 pm on Nov 18, 2009

* Also--technically speaking, it seems as though some attention to *how* the future gets invoked seems important. These three images present a fascinating diversity of mise-en-scene approaches to depicting the future

Sean Desilets said

at 8:53 pm on Nov 18, 2009

* A more systematic comparison or analysis of particular visions of the future could be interesting
* I found myself wondering how _2001_ fit into this schema of motives for representing the future
* The fact that movies themselves are an extremely new art form in the scheme of things seems interesting here. They seem to carry the stamp of the future in themselves in many ways--that was certainly the truth for Lang
* Nice illustrations

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