Brainstorm (1983 film)
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| Brainstorm | |
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 Film poster |
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| Directed by | Douglas Trumbull |
| Produced by | Douglas Trumbull |
| Written by | Philip Frank Messina Robert Stitzel from a story by Bruce Joel Rubin |
| Starring | Christopher Walken Natalie Wood Louise Fletcher Cliff Robertson |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Cinematography | Richard Yuricich |
| Editing by | Dennis Freeman Edward Warschilka |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | September 30, 1983 |
| Running time | 106 min. |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood (in her last film appearance).
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[edit] Synopsis
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (January 2008) |
A team of scientists which includes estranged husband-and-wife, Michael and Karen Brace (played by Walken and Wood) and Michael's research colleague, Lillian Reynolds (played by Louise Fletcher) invent a special recorder and player device, called "The Hat", which allows sensations and higher brain functions to be scanned directly from a person's brain, taped and reproduced, allowing another person to experience them. Memories and experiences are stored on an iridescent laser tape recorder/player.
Over time, the Hat is refined from a heavy instrument to a lightweight and portable format, and the surrounding technology is improved as well. Recording becomes possible in a greater variety of locations and situations, and the team experiments with these new possibilities. The newly improved system even makes it possible to directly experience computer-generated virtual reality. One of the team members uses the system to create and distribute a "sex tape," resulting in his being dropped from the project and increased tension, as the possibilities for abuse become apparent.
When Reynolds suffers a fatal heart attack, she manages to record her own death. Michael attempts to experience the recording, but nearly dies in the process. Michael then modifies the output of his local playback console to prevent the lethal effect and tries again. A third party scientist group from the same location with ties to the military, is monitoring Michael through a security camera. A member of this team is ordered to record the playback of the Reynolds death tape, and a second member is ordered to inspect the contents by viewing the playback live. As the recording is viewed without the safeguards Michael has put into place, the person quickly dies from it. Michael is quickly interrupted and the recording is locked away; subsequently, Michael and Karen are kicked off the team.
Michael, now obsessed with viewing the recording in full, makes several attempts to hack into the lab's computers, and discovers the closely related project "Brainstorm," which includes such applications of the device as torture and brainwashing. Michael's son is inadvertently exposed to one of the "toxic" tapes that had been developed as part of the project, and suffers severe mental trauma as a result. This adds to the stress on Michael and Karen's relationship, in addition to Michael's close friendship with the late Dr. Reynolds and his obsession with the project and the death tape.
Now more determined than ever, Michael enlists the help of his ex-wife, as well as a friend who had been part of the original project team, so that he can finally view the tape of Reynolds' death, even at the cost of his own life, and destroy project Brainstorm. Contact with the original father and founder of the project reveals that the project would never have gone this far without powerful financial backing from the defense industry.
When Michael finally views Dr. Reynolds' death tape, he sees the wonder of her last thoughts. It is filled with time memory bubbles, each with its own memory and story. She recalled a hilarious meeting with Michael and the robot that knocked down a stack of soda cans; she remembers a potential suitor at her lab, attempting to woo and flatter her; she also remembers being devastated when her boss told her that her private funding was lost, Project Triad was dead and the Pentagon would take over. Her last thought, recorded on the tape right before she died, was that of seeing stars, a heavenly chamber and hundreds of angels flying into a great central cosmic light; then the tape ends. Michael began crying, because Dr. Reynolds had seen Heaven and entered it.
While Michael Brace views the tape, his wife Karen uses the same line in the opposite direction to hack, with his implicit approval, into the computer of the funding industry, in order to issue commands that destroy the robotic factory that is manufacturing the mind recording helmets for the US Military.
[edit] The making of the film
Brainstorm was the second film Trumbull directed after Silent Running (1971).
The "Brainstorm" virtual reality sequences were photographed in Super Panavision 70 with a wide aspect ratio of 2.2:1, while the rest of the film was shot in standard 35 mm with an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. In the original 70 mm theatrical release, the brain-scan playback scenes appeared dramatically wider and much sharper than the 35 mm scenes, giving them a sense of heightened reality and excitement. Unfortunately, the video and DVD versions have the 35 mm and 70 mm sequences letterboxed in their respective aspect ratios, spoiling the intended effect. The laserdisc release, however, presents the movie as it should be seen: the brain-scan playbacks take the full width of the screen (with black bars on the top and bottom since the presentation is letterboxed) and other scenes are narrower, having black bars on the sides as well. In the theatre the curtain would have been opened to show the entire 2.2:1 sized image so brain-scan playbacks would fill the entire screen making quite an impression while other scenes would be narrower. The sound also changed dramatically between brain-scan playback and other scenes with playback scenes having enhanced surround effects and other scenes being predominantly centre-channel only.
Press reports at the time of production indicate that Trumbull's original intent was to shoot the brain recording sequences in the Showscan process that he had previously developed. The Showscan format uses 70 mm film (65mm negative stock) in the same format as conventional 65/70 processes but is shot and projected at 60 frames per second creating a greater sense of realism. If this plan had followed the other parts of the film would have been printed in a way to make them compatible with 60 fps projection so the entire film runs as a single 60 fps 70 mm strand but only the virtual reality sequences would convey the stark realism from the Showscan system. The plan was abandoned in light of the impracticality and expense of installing Showscan projection in large numbers of theatres. The difficulty in producing conventional 24 frame per second 35 mm prints for ordinary theatres may have also been a consideration.
James Horner composed and recorded the haunting musical score in Hollywood using a studio orchestra. The Varese Sarabande album/CD release is a re-recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, produced shortly before the original theatrical release.
[edit] Natalie Wood's death
Brainstorm was Natalie Wood's last film. Near the end of principal photography Wood was about to film a crucial, climactic scene for the movie when she drowned on November 29, 1981, leaving production in limbo for almost two years. MGM considered offering the rights to Paramount Pictures so the movie could be finished but ultimately Trumbull decided to create an ending using body doubles and Natalie Wood soundalikes along with already-shot footage, completing production for a 1983 release. Stories had Natalie's sister Lana Wood doing certain scenes, but it wasn't really needed. Most of the film had been shot.
While critically acclaimed, the film was a box-office disaster.
Brainstorm carries the dedication credit To Natalie (in honor of Wood's memory).
[edit] Application and further Inspiration of the Film
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This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (January 2008) |
Brainstorm was an inspiration to early virtual reality work by Mike McGreevey and Scott Fisher at the NASA Ames Research Center. McGreevey located the essential optics from Pop Optics in MA, which combined with the data glove by Jaron Lanier and Polehemus motion tracking hardware cobbled with two Evans & Sutherland Picture Systems, created their first head mounted "glasses" and later their first helmet mounted system using a pair of 100x100 LCD (B&W) arrays (one to each eye). It needs to be said that such simulation systems were of quite some interest for the military, but it's questionable to claim that there was any relationship whatsoever between this and the basic idea depicted in the film.
