Tiffany Farnsworth



How Free Are You? Hollywood’s Portrayal of a Timeless Question

By Tiffany Farnsworth

“Do you believe in fate, Neo”?

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like the idea that I’m not in control of my life.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

~The Matrix, 1999

Are you free? Do you possess the free will to determine the outcome of your life? Do you have control over who you marry, what job you take, even what you eat for dinner tonight? When you first hear this question, your instincts most likely tell you yes. But have you ever sat and wondered—what drives you to certain choices? How much control do you actually have over your own life?

Since the dawn of time, man has questioned their purpose in this world. The issue of whether or not we as humans possess free will has been debated between philosophers and feared by many. Fear, however, is only a natural reaction when you sit back and consider the possibility that any choice you’ve ever made wasn’t by your own determination, but actually predestined and beyond the realm of your control. The risk in thinking of it this way, is that “your” life is no longer really yours; it is simply something that just keeps happening to you (Blessing and Tudico 244). Now, not only is this issue being discussed in philosophy books, but it has emerged in popular culture through the genre of science fiction film.

However, before we analyze the underlying philosophy found in this new wave of sci-fi film, we must first understand the roots of the issue. When someone questions you about free will, religion is often times the first subject that comes to mind. However, Webster’s dictionary defines free will as the “freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention” (Merriam-Webster). Therefore, though free will can be related to the divine, it is also an equally secular concept. The first portion of this definition is related to determinism, a concept written and discussed by some of history’s greatest philosophers, including Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume. Determinism holds that “every event, including human cognition and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences,” essentially saying that everything is in a chain reaction (Wikipedia, “Free Will”). Though question of whether or not free will and determinism can co-exist has also been a topic of heated debate between philosophers. S. Roush of Harvard University argues in his article “Alternate Possibilities and their Entertainment,” that no matter what hypothetical situation you present, determinism leaves no room for genuine free will (Roush). Renowned American psychologist and self-proclaimed determinist B.F. Skinner also addressed the issue in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972), writing that humans should altogether relinquish the notion that they have free will (Irwin 96). If you follow this approach, every choice you make is not really a choice, but actually just an inevitable action caused by prior events.

Let’s turn now to a religious approach to the subject. St. Augustine, considered to be the “theological fountainhead” of the Reformation by the Catholic Church, wrote extensively on the concept of free will. His work On the Free Choice of the Will consists of a dialogue that sets forth his early philosophical analysis of the problem. In it, Evodius, a reformed Christian asks

“Suppose that God foreknew that the first human being was going to sin...Since God foreknew that he was going to sin, his sin necessarily had to happen. How, then, is the will free when such inescapable necessity is found in it?” (Blessing and Tudico 249-50).

Augustine answers by arguing that God is omniscient, but for Him, there is no separate past, present, and future. His knowledge does not follow our thinking of before and after. Augustine instead argues that knowing what the future holds is not the same as determining it in advance. To illustrate this point, think about the following scenario. Your girlfriend insists on dragging you to the newest chick flick that is playing at the same time as the first game of the NBA finals. Rather than risking a fight with her, you agree to go, but have your roommate tape the game. You wake up the next morning and watch it without ever hearing about it from your roommate. He already knows what’s going to happen—he has foreknowledge of the end result of the game. But does his foreknowledge of the outcome give him any control whatsoever over the game? Of course not. How you react to and experience the game will not be influenced by his knowledge of the outcome (Blessing and Tudico 250).

It is in this manner, therefore, that Augustine and other religious philosophers argue that Divine knowledge and free will have the capacity to co-exist.

An attempt to weed through the history of the philosophy surrounding the free will debate quickly becomes a daunting task. The complex and in-depth theories presented make it nearly impossible for anyone other than a fellow philosopher to fully grasp. Likewise, the implications that an in-depth look at free will creates are very sensitive. As mentioned earlier, it is simple human nature that an analysis on something as fundamental as free will may create fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of not having control over your own life are perhaps the two greatest fears that we have. You cannot come right out and force a group of people to consider the philosophy of their existence. Yelling out from a rooftop “do you have free will,” will not cause the people below to think about the fundamental question you’re asking them.

Science fiction films have created a pathway into the minds of their viewers which allow them to see and question philosophy without fear. Science fiction film has frequently been a way of portraying sensitive social and political issues, while also illustrating the particular concerns of the period in which they were produced. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, sci-fi films shifted from the alien and space-travel films of the 20s, to a focus on human drama, spurring such movies as Things to Come, and Just Imagine. During the 1950s, when anxieties and paranoia of the emerging cold war were prominent, a monster movie trend developed with films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Thing (Menville 15-19). Skipping forward into the 1990s, we again see sci-fi films reflecting social issues. The films made during this period reflect the development of the World Wide Web and the advancement of genetic science. Virtuosity and Total Recall both dealt with threats based on the advanced capability of computers, and films such as Gattaca and Jurassic Park warned of the potential consequences of genetic science.

Because of the unique nature of science fiction to be seen as just that—fiction—filmmakers are able to explore difficult and disturbing issues that run the risk of turning away audiences if portrayed in other genres. The use of a future setting serves as yet another unique tool sci-fi films have at their disposal. The future setting creates an altered context where the audience can safely reflect upon and deeply examine the ideas presented. This trend is certainly true of the sci-fi films that have been released over the last five years.

The rapid development of technology and increased scientific knowledge over the last decade has reintroduced the age-old debate over free will. It has created a fear that science can explain human behavior with the same accuracy as the boiling of water. If our behavior can be explained by a chain of causes, the potential to choose our own actions evaporates (Blessing244). We are left with little choice than to believe that perhaps the determinists had it right all along. These ideas have, in turn, spawned a new wave of sci-fi films.

The first sci-fi exploration of these concepts emerged in 1999, with the immediate blockbuster hit The Matrix. The Matrix, which was written as a trilogy and concluded in 2003 with Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, revolves around the central characters of Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity. Neo is contacted in the first film by Morpheus, who offers to tell Neo the truth about his existence so long as he trusts him. He accepts this offer, and is freed from the virtual world known as ‘the Matrix,’ into the real world. These characters are now among the few humans who have escaped the matrix, and are fighting against the machines which control and enslave them. This is perhaps the first movie that we can safely infer was made to spawn true philosophical discussions on the concept of free will. Like the audience who is watching the film, Neo struggles to understand the concepts being thrown at him. This is clearly shown in a scene where Neo meets with a character known as the Oracle. They engage in the following dialogue, beginning with the Oracle speaking:

“I’d ask you to sit down, but you’re not going to anyway…and don’t worry about the vase.”

“What vase?” [Neo turns and breaks the vase]

“That vase”

“I’m sorry”

“I said don’t worry about it”

“How did you know”

“Oh, what’s really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?” (The Matrix)

The virtual world of the matrix has often been compared by both scholar’s and film critics to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, written in book seven of the Republic (Gilmore 141). Morpheus describes the matrix much like Plato describes his cave, telling Neo that those hooked up to it are “slaves, kept inside a prison that [they] cannot smell, taste, or touch” (Irwin 87). Also reminiscent to the cave Plato described, the matrix is a world void of free will. However, it is by his free will that he finds in the real world, that Neo finally defeats the machines in Matrix Revolutions.

Neo fights Agent Smith in Matrix Revolutions

Because Neo is human, he has what the machines cannot understand or control: free will. This is best demonstrated during the final battle scene in Revolutions when Neo fights his greatest enemy, Agent Smith. Because Smith is a machine, and therefore has no free will, he cannot fathom it in Neo. Everything for Smith is predestined—he’s foreseen defeating Neo, so he is sure it will happen. That, however, becomes his greatest weakness, and the one which Neo eventually defeats him with. Neo prevails not because of the trademark kung fu fighting we see, but with his will to change his future.

In 2002, a year before the final two Matrix movies hit theatres, big name director Steven Spielberg came out with Minority Report. The film uses the concept of a “pre-crime” division as a way of presenting questions regarding free will. It takes place in the year 2054, during a time when scientific knowledge has advanced to the point where we can prevent the act of murder from ever occurring. This is made possible through the use of advanced technology with the capability of viewing images of future murders. These images are output by three brain-damaged humans referred to as “precogs,” who then transmit the image of the murder, the name of the future victim, the perpetrator, and the time of the future offense. As the first fast-paced scene comes to an end, we watch as pre-crime officer John Anderton stops a potential murder just seconds before it’s predicted to take place.

“Mr. Marks, by mandate of the District of Columbia Precrime Division, I'm placing you under arrest for the future murder of Sarah Marks and Donald Dubin that was to take place today, April 22 at 0800 hours and four minutes.” (Minority Report)

After the dust settles and Marks is taken away, we are left questioning the validity of his arrest. The very system of pre-crime poses the obvious question of whether or not the person would have actually committed the crime if they hadn’t been stopped. In one of the most thought-provoking scenes of the film, Anderton attempts to provide proof for why pre-crime works. To do so, he rolls a ball towards Danny Witwer, a critic of the pre-crime system. Just as the ball is about to fall off of a table, Witwer catches it.

“Why did you catch that?”

“Because it was going to fall.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“But it didn’t fall. You caught it…The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen.” (Minority Report)

Based on the implications of this future crime system, the film suggests that we would sacrifice our inherent free will in exchange for a land free of murder. The pre-crime unit proclaims itself

John Anderton uses advanced science to view future murders in Minority Report

flawless—a perfect system. Yet this “perfect” system implies that humans lack the free will to change their fate. With the creation of something like pre-crime, a person’s life becomes automatically predestined. However, this is not the philosophical approach the movie advocates. Instead, these aftereffects serve as evidence for the potential dangers we face if we let science go too far. Just as the audience begins to fear its own future, the pivotal moment occurs. John Anderton—the leading advocate for the system—is named the perpetrator of a murder set to occur within 24 hours. But how could this be? Anderton has never even met or heard of the man the precogs say he is going to kill, yet it is fated to occur. Parallel to Neo’s defeat of Agent Smith in Matrix Revolutions, Anderton defeats the pre-crime machine with his will. With gun in hand, staring at the man he is led to believe kidnapped and murdered his

Jennings has his memory erased after completing his assignment in Paycheck

son six years ago. As one of the precogs stands behind him telling him “you still have a choice,” Anderton does in fact chooses not to pull the trigger (Huiskcamp 404). With the proof of an error in the system, pre-crime is permanently shut down, and free will is restored to the people.

The following year another sci-fi thriller made its way to the big screen. Paycheck contained two main similarities to Minority Report; both films were based on short stories written by distinguished science fiction author Philip K. Dick, and like Minority Report, the film formulates its storyline as a way to cause the audience to question the concept of free will. Keeping true to the trend we’ve seen in The Matrix trilogy and Minority Report, Paycheck utilizes a machine to present its philosophical issues. The machine in this film is manmade and built by reverse-engineer Michael Jennings. Jennings, the protagonist of the film, agrees to spend three years working on this top secret project. The problem, however, is that every memory he creates in those three years, including all knowledge of what he has created, will be erased from his mind the moment he finishes. His machine possesses the ability to look into the future—much like the pre-crime system in Minority Report—except that now science has advanced even further; this machine is not limited to seeing only murders. We see, however, that even Jennings himself must have realized the destructive power of his machine. In order to destroy it, he sends himself an envelope of clues to use after his memory is wiped.

It is with this movie that an interesting trend begins to rise out of this new wave of sci-fi films. How many of us at some point in our lives have wished we knew the end result of a decision before we had to make it...after all, “hindsight is foresight,” right? Yet the consequences of science advancing to the point where we are granted this wish are shown in these films to be catastrophic. The unbelievable power that would go along with the ability to tell the future could destroy the world. Of course one can argue that if you know your future, you then have the power to avoid it. As logical as this may sound, it has not proven true in either history, or film. Take the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus for example. An oracle (parallel to the Oracle seen in The Matrix) prophesizes that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. After hearing this, his father leaves Oedipus at the top of a hill for dead. But what happens to Oedipus? He is rescued by one of his father’s servants and to a far off land. Despite the effort to change fate, Oedipus still ends up killing his father and marrying his mother (Wikipedia, “Oedipus”). Likewise, the characters in The Matrix are aware of the Oracle’s predictions (Neo is prophesized to be The One, Trinity is said to fall in love with The One, and they are both fated to die fighting against the machines) yet despite their knowledge of the prophecies, these events all still occur.

Perhaps what is actually being said in these films is not as much the risk of knowing your future, but that by believing you know it, you actually shape it. These prophecies are all self-fulfilling; they help bring about their own truths. These ideas are prominently seen in Paycheck. Tension rapidly rises in the film when Jennings discovers microfiche newspaper headlines hidden in his envelope of clues. “WWIII BREAKS OUT!” followed by an image of what appears to be a massive atomic explosion suddenly fills the screen. We learn that Jennings discovered that predicting the future, destroyed the future. If the machine predicts war, countries preemptively struck and ended up causing war in an effort to prevent it. The same evidence can be found in The Matrix—Neo broke the vase because the Oracle’s mentioning it caused him to suddenly turn and knock it over. Had she not told him it was going to happen, it probably wouldn’t have happened at all. Furthermore, the machine in Paycheck destroyed hope—if people saw they were going to fail, their hope to overcome obstacles vanished. Therefore by the machine extinguishing hope, it sealed its viewer’s fate.

In 2004, Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber wrote and directed The Butterfly Effect, a film that offered an alternative perspective regarding free will. It is with its release that we start to see opposing viewpoints in film surrounding the concept of free will, just as we did earlier in the writings of different philosophers.

This film moves away from the high-paced action found in The Matrix trilogies, Minority Report and Paycheck, into a darker realm of science fiction drama. Though it still addresses the consequences associated with certain aspects of the free will debate, the film takes a completely different approach to the subject. It offers a negative counterview regarding attempts to change the future, and uses the concept of time travel, rather than a future setting, to explore the issues of free will and predetermination.

“Change one thing, change everything;” this was the tagline for The Butterfly Effect. The story revolves around Evan Treborn, who suffered from constant blackouts throughout his childhood. As a way to try and stop these constant blackouts, Evan’s mother made him keep a journal. As he grows older, he discovers that by reading these old journal entries, he possesses the ability to retrieve his lost memories by sending himself back in time to the day of their occurrence. The suicide of his childhood love Kayleigh, prompts Evan to use this ability to travel back in time, in an

Evan talks with Kayleigh in The Butterfly Effect

effort to “fix” their troubled past. Yet despite his good intentions, each attempt to change the destiny of himself and those closest to him ends in failure, causing unforeseen and often horrific consequences. It should also be noted that there is an important crucial difference between Evan and the characters discussed in the previous

films. Evan attempts to change his future without knowing it. All he has is the hope that if he can prevent one of the shattering events of his childhood, then maybe he can save Kayleigh. In one scene, Evan travels back to the day he visited his father in the mental institution he was confined to. We learn that Evan’s father also possessed the ability of time travel, and the behavior it caused him to exhibit led him to his institutionalization. Evan chooses to travel to this day so he can ask his father for help. Evan tells his father:

“I need info to make things right again, and you're the only one who can give it to me.

“There is no "right". When you change who people are, you destroy who they were.”

“Who's to say you can't make things better?“

“You can't play God, son. It must end with me. Just by being here, you may be killing your mother.” (The Butterfly Effect)

Just as his father predicted, without a way to know what to change, Evan’s attempts all end in disaster. Even his father’s comment about his mother proved to be right later in the film. After one of Evan’s failed attempts, the after-effects caused his mother to start smoking again, and we see her lying in bed dying of lung cancer. The director’s cut of this film offers a strikingly dark and disturbing ending, especially when compared to the hopeful outcomes presented in Minority Report and Paycheck. Though it may still be argued that he used his free will to save Kayleigh, he discovered that the absolute only way to use his will, without it causing adverse effects, was to prevent himself from ever being born. In the final and most haunting scene of the film, Evan uses a home movie of his birth to send himself back to the event, and strangle himself in his mother’s womb. Since he had exhausted every entry in his journals and still failed to save her, he was left with no other choice than to remove himself from the world completely.

The philosophy of The Butterfly Effect resembles the same ideals found in determinism. B.F. Skinner died in 1990, 14 years before the release of the film, but one can safely assume that based on his writings on the subject, he would have been a strong advocate for the ideas presented. The determinist perspective that every event is determined by an “unbroken chain of prior occurrences,” is certainly shown in this film. When Evan defies time and breaks the chain of occurrences, he consistently ends up with a completely different life, or no life at all.

The nature of these films is not designed to provide their audience with an answer for the philosophical questions they pose. If some of the world’s most remarkable thinkers could not reach an agreement, then naturally the filmmakers that tackle this issue do not present a definitive view either. These films are successful, however, because their topics are presented as science fiction. The filmmakers are able to weave in material designed to make their audiences think, by presenting it in such an altered context. They also provide for us a medium in which complex philosophies are more easily structured and graspable. Despite their sometimes ambiguous quality, the films do fulfill an important purpose; they fuse intellectual plots with the drama and suspense needed to hold the attention of an audience watching a blockbuster movie. One thing is certain, all of these films take on man’s ultimate question: do we possess the free will to decide our own fate, or are we doomed to an unalterable destiny?

Works Cited

Blessing, Kimberly, and Paul Tudico, eds. Movies and the Meaning of Life: Philosophers Take on Hollywood. Chicago: Open Court, 2005.

The Butterfly Effect. Dir. Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber. Perf. Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. 2004. DVD. New Line Cinema, 2004.

“Free Will.” Wikipedia, 10 October 2005.

< >.

Gilmore, Richard. Doing Philosophy at the Movies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Huiskamp, Gerard. “Minority Report on the Bush Doctrine.” New Political Science, Volume 26, Number 3. September 2004, pp. 389-415.

Irwin, William, ed. The Matrix and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court, 2002.

Menville, Douglass, and R. Reginald. Futurevisions. San Berardino: Borgo Press, 1985.

The Matrix. Dir. Andy Wachowski. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie- Ann Moss. 1999. DVD. Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures, 1999.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.10th ed. 1993

Minority Report. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell. 2002. DVD DreamWorks SKG and Twentieth Century Fox, 2002.

“Oedipus.” Wikipedia, 12 October 2005.

< >.

Roush, S. “Alternate Possibilities and their Entertainment”. Philosophy, Volume 73, Number 4. October 1998, pp. 559-571.

    

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