Brainstorm

Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983) Effects wizard Trumbull's second (and, to date, last) feature film had him experimenting with themes and film formats.   Usually films taking on that track, either have a case of the cutes (see More American Graffiti), or have all the charm of a demonstration disc.  But, in Brainstorm the jarring transitions seem necessary, dramatically proper, and perfectly suited to what's going on on-screen.


And that may be its trouble.  Brainstorm has always seemed  
snake-bit for one reason or another...unfairly, I think.  It is notorious for being Natalie Wood's last film, as she died in a midnight boating accident during the filming, an event that has always had an element of the unknowable about it.  No one knows why she rowed away from her boat in the middle of the night, making it the subject of gossipy speculation, and thus, irrelevant to the film.  Some scenes went unfilmed, but the majority of her work made it to the finished film, and there are no continuity bumps noticeable from her absence.  But the event did cast a pall over the film, probably to its detriment, as Death is already a major player in the film.


But there's another reason it's unlucky.  It premiered at the dawn of home-video, and if there was an film that needed to be seen full-screen in a roadshow presentation, it is Brainstorm.  I had the happy occasion to see it at a press preview where it was one of the attractions that would be demonstrating the wide screen glory of the new Grand Cinemas Alderwood, north of Seattle, which, bucking the trend of cracker-box multiplexes, were built large in scope and multi-channeled in sound to take advantage of the post-Star Wars spectaculars that were starting to flood theaters, after the timid response of the studios to large format fare.  The Grand was the perfect place to see it large enough to encompass the full-width of the big-screen sections, but intimate enough to keep you from feeling cheated when the smaller format drama scenes took precedence.


And that was something home-video and cable screenings never could duplicate—the awesome transitions from the scenes of scientists and technicians toiling over the wires and ramifications of their brainwave recorder to the hyper-dimensionality of the gizmo's playback in action.  For that is the crux around which the film and its unique formatting revolves.  Dr. Mike Brace (Christopher Walken) and his team of neuroscientists under the leadership of Dr. Lillian Reynolds (Louise Fletcher) are working on the ultimate video machine.  They plan to actually tap into the brain's higher functions to capture memories—initially, just sight and sound, but eventually, the other neuro-pathways, as well.  Thus, hardwired, they can experience another person's recorded memories, thoughts...even emotions...more real than real, with the exception that they're not yours.


The possibilities soon move beyond precipitous roller-coaster rides and flights over the Grand Canyon, as the scientists do their own beta-testing on themselves.  For Brace, it renews his memories of the first blush of romance with his ignored-for-science wife, Karen (Wood, whose character's job is to streamline the helmet for Fahrvergnügen), for another, it's straight to sex, suffering a breakdown when he splices an endless loop of "the good stuff" (Buddy, if it lasts more than four hours, call your doctor!), and in the ultimate trip, Reynolds turns on the machine and records her experiences while suffering a fatal heart attack.


That last tape becomes an obsession for Walken's Brace, risking everything to take that journey with the proviso that he has an "Off" switch for The White Light, a Cosmic Clapper if you will.  For Trumbull the tech, it's an opportunity to pull out all the FX stops with journeys through memory bubbles, a Boschian vision of Hell, and a slit-scan trip down Heaven's main thoroughfare, complete with angelic Hosts.


Quite the show.  But, in its attempts to present its Stairway to Heaven, the art design gets a little busy and too specific in its architecture, while disorienting the actual journey (was the trip through Hell necessary?).  It's a bit too high-tech for its own good, as beautiful as it is.  And, taken in context with the more teasing glimpse of the afterlife afforded by Hereafter, it might be too much of a God Thing.

Silent Running

"Silent Running" (Douglas Trumbull, 1972) I'd been planning to look at this movie for a long time now, but the release of "Moon" put me in mind of it again, the two films sharing a melancholy feel for the isolated man in space, both of whom are dirt-farmers of their own kind.

"Silent Running" postulates a world so over-populated that the planet becomes overrun with cities, the flora (and some fauna) rocketed into space until such a time that the Earth can find space for them again.

Questions immediately come up: no room for vegetation? Where does the planet get its oxygen? It's phyto-plankton? It seems that if you take vegetation out of the equation that the food pyramid will pretty much collapse in on itself, and with it, the human population who are subsisting on what...space food sticks? Soylent green?

None of this matters to the four caretakers (Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint and Bruce Dern), three of whom could care less, and Astronaut Freeman Lowell (Dern)being the one for whom the Mission is a sacred trust. Needless to say, they don't get along, Lowell's sole companions being the nursery-bots tending to the plants' daily needs.

Things go to seed, when word comes up from Mission Control that Earth doesn't give a rip anymore—budget cuts or some such—so they should jettison the space-green-houses, blow 'em up, and return home. Rather than commit planticide, Lowell chooses, instead to go all-PETA and decide that his fellow agro-nauts' best function would be as fertlizer. A bit extreme, maybe, but we are talking about Bruce Dern here. And, to hide his crimes, he sends the ship into a collision course with Saturn's rings to try and convince Mission Control the ship will be destroyed. However, pesky-persistent techies that they are, NASA manages to find him, and Lowell must come up with a way of saving the plants and allaying any suspicions.

Douglas Trumbull did some of the FX work on "2001: A Space Odyssey," creating 3-D forced perspective lunar landscapes and perfecting the "slit-scan" technique—a frame-by-frame animated geometric horizon that made up the bulk of the "Star-gate" sequence near the film's end. "Silent Running" was his first feature, and he maintained a healthy career as director ("Brainstorm"), special effects guru ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Blade Runner"), pioneer with film formats (his "Showscan" became a staple at world's fairs displaying huge 70mm films at a reality-approaching 60 frames per second, and designer of thrill rides (for the Luxor and Universal Tours).

In "Silent Running," Trumbull managed to make an ecological low budget sci-fi film, with illusion work that rivalled "2001"—he even managed to make a realistic looking Saturn, something that wasn't possible years before with the Kubrick film. His robots were strange little non-humanoids forms that suggested walking amplifiers, and the story (and Dern's acting) makes them sympathetic little synth's. The ships designed for "Silent Running" were subsequently used for stock footage for years in such shows as "Battlestar Galactica" and Trumbull's considerable work served to influence the look and techniques of "Star Wars."*

Not the greatest of films, but not through lack of trying, as director, star and art team stretch their budget impressively and play it for all the drama it's worth. But the story is a little skimpy, the protagonist a bit bi-polar, and the conclusion not exactly rousing. A good study in movie-making, if not necessarily story-telling.

* Specifically, the look of R2-D2, and the flotsam scattering separations (emulating real NASA footage) that are in both movies. Trumbull's squat little helper-bots were performed with the help of double amputees in plastiform shells walking on their hands. The effect is totally convincing, and he avoids the cliche of the humanoid robots.