2011 - My Year in Review

In the year 2011 I turned 28.  I feel a lot older than that on most days and I attribute that to several causes.  Their names are Aiden who turned 6, Ian and Evan who turned 2.  I wouldn’t trade them for anything though, they are awesome and I love giving everything I have to and for them.

In 2011 I completed eight years of military service.  The Army was a great experience for me and it exposed me to not only other people, but to other cultures out there in this wide world where all to often people forget their knowledge is limited by their experiences.  I got to see what poor really is (materially speaking), what suffering really is, and it has caused me to truly appreciate what I have and the country I live in.  

The Army also introduced me to stupid.  Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of smart, honest, hardworking, and dedicated people in the army.  That type of organization has to have them.  I think it is because of those people that the stupid ones stand out more.  In that way, through leaders both good and bad, the Army reinforced the values that were instilled in me by my parents.  I learned, grew, made mistakes, took responsibility, thrived, and suffered.  It has made me a better person and I will forever remember the people I met and the experiences I had.

In 2011 I also made the decision to go back to school.  I completed my first semester of college with a 3.0 GPA (A, A, B, ____. You can figure it out, I don’t want to talk about it. Lesson Learned!) Go Argos!  

I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but the important thing is that I’m still learning, still growing, and still striving to become better than who I am.  Upon completion of my B.S.B.A. I will have 8+ years real experience working with, for, and managing people, property, and money along with the degree.

The final noteworthy thing I accomplished in 2011 was after 12 or so years of smoking about a pack of cigarettes a day, I quit.  I have not had a single cigarette since March 3, 2011.  While I still think about it every once in a while the urge to go out and buy a pack or bum a smoke is easily dismissed.  

I can never explain how truly grateful I am for the things that I have and for the wonderful people in my life. Thanks to my parents for raising me, instead of just letting me grow up.  Thanks to my wife, Emily, for being my best friend.  Thanks to Aiden, Ian, and Evan; you guys motivate me to be a better role model and therefor a better person.

In 2012 I would like to eat healthier, live better, exercise more, drink less, appreciate more, slow down, and have more patience with the people that matter.

Pancakes and Bacon!

Fried bacon drizzled over with pancake batter...  looks good huh?

This morning's meltdown

After 30 minutes of translating Whiny into English with the further impediment of a pacifier I finally discovered what Ian wanted: His blanket and pillow in the hallway.  Not on his bed, not on the couch, not on Mommy and Daddy's bed.....  the hallway.

On Individuality in A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Based on the short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” (Aldiss) A.I. was  originally a twenty year ongoing project of Stanley Kubrick, who offered the story to Steven Spielberg. The film begins with gray waves crashing against each other while a narrator provides the  backdrop for our story. He explains that the polar ice caps have melted due to green house gases.  The disembodied voice tells about the millions of people who have been displaced and of the hundreds of millions starving in poorer countries.  In developed countries, legal sanctions were placed on pregnancy to control population and a “high degree of prosperity survived”.  We are informed of all of this to put into context the reason for the popularity of robots; who do not consume resources past their initial manufacture.  As the narration continues the scene transitions from gray waves to a human shaped silhouette in the rain.  The camera slowly tracks backwards as the silhouette remains in the background; a single, isolated figure left in the gloomy deluge while a meeting is conducted by men and woman indoors.  The silhouette foreshadows the films protagonist, David (Haley Joel Osment), who is the subject of the meeting.  David is, or rather at this point in the story will become, the prototype “mecha” who is programmed to love the parent or parents he imprints upon.  Through the analysis of mise-en-scene in the film I will endeavour to show how the director, Steven Spielberg, portrays the dystopian element: loss of individuality.  

The film itself, as a whole, suffers from a loss of individuality.  It seems to have an identity crisis and has two stories instead of one, each with their own ending (Huntley).  The first story is told from the perspective of the creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt) and comes to a close when David fulfills his creator’s intent by dreaming and desiring outside of his original programming.  David finds his way “home” to the great joy of his creator.  The second story, similar to one of the inspirations for A.I., Pinocchio, involves David’s quest to become a real boy.  It begins when Monica (Frances O’Conner), David’s surrogate mother, activates his programming to love her and ends with Monica and David spending the day together and going to sleep forever with the words “I love you” hanging audibly in the air.  This duality is a reoccurring theme throughout the film and further supports the idea that individuality is precious and must be maintained.

David is a mechanical boy, or mecha for short.  He is first introduced in a scene that is back-lit to the extreme with white light, his image appears blurry and distorted, his movements are somewhat jerky.  The blurry silhouette he projects is almost identical to the statue seen from the conference room window mentioned earlier.  This is not the last time that the image of a faceless, vaguely human shape is used in the film.  In Ben Sampson’s “Visual Study of A.I. Artificial Intelligence” he points out several instances of layering faces.  The first example is the same scene just mentioned, where David is brought to his prospective new mommy for the first time as the intended replacement for Martin, the couple’s cryogenicly frozen biological child.  As Monica and Henry (Sam Robards) watch from around the corner David investigates their family photographs. His face is seen reflected in each photo, superimposed over the family he will belong to, yet can never become a part of.  A second example occurs during the Flesh Fair, a “Celebration of Life” where outmoded mecha’s are run through explosive circus acts reminiscent of a monster truck rally and gladiatorial combat.  During this scene David is locked in a cage after being captured with other free range and unlicensed mecha’s.  His face is layered over by the lead singer/guitarist of a band playing on the stage above him who wears a mask over his own face. Shortly after being discovered by a little girl who mistakes him for a real boy his face is scanned by an x-ray gun that displays both of his faces at once.  All of these instances of layering faces serve to show David, not as the unique individual that he is,  but rather they allude to his manufacturers intent to mass produce his model.  As such, they foreshadow the climax of this line of thought when David meets Professor Hobby, his inventor, and comes face to face with himself.  Not only a layered face (although that too happens), an exact duplicate.  Not only a single duplicate, but an entire product line of “David’s-in-a-box” being prepared for commercial use.  There is one more example of these layered faces of Ben Sampson’s, just prior to the final scenes with Monica and David.  Two thousand years after the movie’s first story ends, a team of robotic scientists discover David and reanimate him.  During this process the robots link together by way of touching one another and displayed on their faces are the images David had seen throughout his journey. The images of all the human faces stored in his memory become displayed on the “faces” of these futuristic robots whose form is reminiscent of that first statue and of David’s introduction to the film.  It is also important to note that each of these futuristic robots appears exactly the same, there is no variety in them and no individuality. The culmination of the thousands of years of evolution of man has resulted in an artificial being with no visible individuality.  Ironically, these robots are seeking out the meaning of existence and are attempting to do so through research into extinct human beings.

Another example the film uses can be seen in the fact that in the not-so-far future of A.I., humanity is dominated by white society (Komninou).  Contrary to what Komninou writes in the essay "AI: man, machines and love" there are a few exceptions to this rule and to point them out will highlight their intentional use as individuals in the film’s key points.  The very first scene a dark skinned woman counters Professor Hobby’s desires to build a robot capable of love with a moral question; “If a robot could genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold towards that mecha in return”?  This question plays a pivotal role in the film and is the main motivation for the protagonist.  David’s journey to become a real boy is motivated by one thing only, his desire to be loved by his Mother.  It is fully an hour before another non-white individual is seen in the film and this time it is a mecha.  The scene is the Flesh Fair and David is locked in a cage while a mannequin like robot with dark brown plastic skin and the voice of Chris Rock is being carried past a large circular fan, a flaming hoop and eventually to the cannon that is aimed at those obstacles.  He is subsequently stuffed into and then projected out of the cannon, through the flaming hoop and into the whirling blades of the propeller. It is this event, as the mecha’s  head lodges between the bars of David’s cage directly in front of him, that he realises his extreme danger.  It is David’s fear that precipitates his friendship with Gigalo Joe by reaching up to hold his hand.  It is Joe’s carnal knowledge and experience that leads them to Dr. Know in Rouge City.  The Flesh Fair is also the first time in the movie where several instances of racial variety can be seen and it marks a turning point in the story. After one of the Flesh Fair employees tells David “you are one of a kind” he is dragged onto the center of the stage and a drop of acid provokes his begging to be saved.  His pleas rally the already volatile crowd and in the commotion he and new found friend, Gigalo Joe, escape to make their way towards Rouge City, the futuristic reincarnation of Pinocchio's Pleasure Island.  

Finally, through the use of doubling or pairing key individuals in the film we see a reoccurring theme where the individuality of the one character is taken away by shadowing or copying it with others.  This is almost entirely done between one mecha and one “orga” as some of the film’s characters refer to “real” humans.  We are first exposed to this pairing technique as the opening meeting breaks up and the female mecha that took place in the demonstration is seen touching up her make up.  In the very next scene Monica can be observed applying her make up in an eerily similar fashion.  “The match cut identifies them as doubles, reflections of each other” (Kreider).  As already mentioned, this technique was used with David and the statue outside Cybertronics headquarters building as well as with the futuristic robots at the end of the film.  David is also subjected to a pairing with Martin, Monica and Henry’s biological son.  A scene where David’s face is layered over Martin’s in the family photos further serves to bind the two characters together as well as both characters being frozen (Martin cryogenically, David due to glacial ice). Further enforcing this motif is when Gigalo Joe is dragged onto the center stage with David and holds him protectively during the flesh fair and in the following scene Professor Hobby is seen in photographs holding David, his son and model for the mecha boy, in a similar manner.  Tim Kreider takes the theory one step further and suggests that a pairing occurs between David and Gigalo Joe as well.  “He’s the “adult” version of David, fulfilling mommy’s other needs.” Kreider comments that “David is a kind of vibrator for the soul” and serves to fulfill the needs of grief stricken Monica much like Joe fulfills the needs of his customers.

Throughout the course of A.I. Artificial Intelligence there are many examples of individuality and of conformity and of individuality becoming conformity.  The two separate stories being woven into one.  General similar sounding terminology such as “mecha” and “orga” to refer masses instead of individuals.  The layering of faces on top of one another so that when one is viewed you can not help but see the other.  The rarity of ethnic variety and using it to portray key elements or pivotal points in the film.  Finally, the pairing of individuals so that even those characters that stood out from the others are not unique.  All of these elements point towards Steven Spielberg’s and possibly Stanley Kubrick’s views on humanity and the importance of individuality in society.

WORKS CITED

A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Dir. Steven Spielberg, Warner Bros. 2001. Film.
Aldiss, Brian “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”  Harper’s Bazaar, December 1969.

Print

Huntley, Chris “A.I. Wars The Dueling Visions of Stanly Kubrick and Stephen Spielberg

in A.I. Artificial Intelligence”. Dramitica. Web. 30 November 2011

Komninou, E. "AI: man, machines and love. (Film)." Futures 35.7 (2003):

793+. General OneFile. Web. 30 Nov. 2011.

Kreider, Tim. “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence”  Film Quarterly, Vol 56. no. 2, December 2002.  

Print.

Sampson, Ben “A Visual Study of A.I. Artificial Intelligence”

filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com 14 January 2010.  Web. 30 November 2011

Ahh! The Civilian Life..

One of the most awesome advantages of being a civilian.  Beer with my lunch!