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The Celluloid Christ: the Matrix Church of the Saviour Lenten Study - 2011 (Leader: Lejf E

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The Celluloid Christ: the Matrix Church of the Saviour Lenten Study - 2011 (Leader: Lejf E 3 VIEWING GUIDE: The Matrix (1999 The Wachowski brothers) The Celluloid Christ: The Matrix Church of the Saviour Lenten Study - 2011 (leader: Lejf E. Knutson) 3 Jesus as the “Butt-Kicking Buddha” – The Wachowski Brothers’1 The Matrix (1999) For many of you watching The Matrix in connection with this course, I’m sure you’re thinking “This is a Jesus film?” Certainly The Matrix is unlike all of the other films we’ve watched in that its connection with the Gospel narratives is far from obvious. Most of the other films have been set in some cinematic equivalent of first century Palestine. Even Godspell has clear, strong ties to the Gospel materials so that, even though the film’s set in modern New York, by about the fifth or sixth parable it is clear to everyone in the audience that the film’s characters are stand ins for Jesus and the disciples. So, why do I call The Matrix a Jesus film? Well, The Matrix makes a ton of biblical allusions which, if nothing else, indicate that the Wachowskis consciously used Jesus as a prototype for the film’s hero. The hero’s hacker/alternate name is “Neo” which is an anagram for “One” or “the One,” thereby designating him as the central figure in the history of this particular apocalyptic universe. Of course, the term “neo” is Greek for “new” and by the end of the film Neo is a “new” type of human much as Jesus is the “new Adam” who partakes of humanity, overcomes it and is the key to a new, redeemed life.2 Also, Neo is actually referred to as “Jesus” twice in the film. First, when he’s giving illegal code to some fashionable lowlifes, his customer says: “You’re my savior, man – my own personal Jesus Christ.” Later, as if to make sure we didn’t miss the reference, Cypher (our Judas character) asks Neo if Morpheus has told him about Neo’s mission as “the One.” When Neo says yes, Cypher’s response is literally: “Je- sus! So you’ve come to save the world?” In fact, the name game doesn’t stop with the “Neo” moniker. In the world of the matrix, our hero’s name is Thomas Anderson. The last name “Anderson” literally means “son of Andrew” and the name “Andrew” is etymologically related to the Greek root andr- which means “man.” So, our hero’s last name “Anderson” literally translated means “Son of Man” – Jesus’ favorite self- 1 Actually, they were the Wachowski brothers when they made The Matrix, but one of them subsequently had a sex change and went from Larry Wachowski to Lana Wachowski – no judgments, just info. 2 “And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” (1 Corinthians 15:45). 3 designation in the Gospels.3 In fact, the ship Neo serves on – The Nebuchadnezzar (another biblical reference) – is marked with a name plate reading “Mark III No. 11.” If you look up Mark 3:11, it states: “Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God.’” But wait, there’s more! Not only is Neo’s girlfriend’s named “Trinity” (which should require little explanation), when Neo makes his transition from the world of the matrix to the real world, he is literally flushed out of the system in a primordial ooze – sort of icky, steampunk baptism. When Neo is killed by the Agents, not only does he rise from the dead (and rise after he’s been kissed and called back by “Trinity”- get it?), he’s rises from the dead in Room 303 (another Trinitarian reference) and after being dead for three minutes, a condensed version of Jesus’ three days in the tomb. After Neo’s resurrection, he has a glorified, glowing body in the matrix which is impervious to pain and harm. In fact, in the last shot of the film is Neo flying – he’s literally ascending into heaven. Oh, and The Matrix was released on Easter weekend in 1999.4 Still, while the Jesus references come pretty hard and heavy once you know what to look for, the Gospels are not the only source material for the film. The Matrix takes a “kitchen sink” approach to its source material and, along with the Jesus references, the film makes obvious allusions to Buddhism, French post-structuralism (particularly Jean Baudrillard),5 Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, Westerns, Hong-Kong 3 Interestingly, Agent Smith repeatedly refers to “Neo” as “Mr. Anderson” – in essence “Mr. Son of Man.” Agent Smith is also the character who expresses an overwhelming disgust with the human race and seeks its destruction in order to escape the prison of the world – much like the fallen Lucifer who is trapped in the earthly sphere after his expulsion from Heaven. So, Agent Smith (Satan/fallen angel) keeps hurling the Mr. Anderson (i.e. “Son of Man”) moniker at “Neo” as an insult to deny Neo’s special nature (his “Oneness”) and insist he’s “only human.” So, it appears that the Wachowskis seek the “Son of Man” title as a reference to Jesus’ humble, human nature rather than as a messianic title as it is used in Daniel. (See Daniel 7:13 [“I beheld therefore in the vision of the night, and lo, one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of days: and they presented him before him. And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.”].) 4 I can’t take credit for spotting all of these biblical allusions by myself. See Gregory Bassham “Religion in The Matrix and Problems of Pluralism,” pgs. 111-113 in The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002). 5 Early in the film, when Neo’s giving the computer disk to the fashionable lowlifes, we see that he’s hiding it in a copy of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations which, apparently, argues that in modern society we have moved from a world of “representation” (where a symbol stands for another, existing thing) to a world of “simlulations” filled with images or signs without clear reference to a preexisting, external reality. (See http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/warner/english122tg/ MartixBaudrillard.html). For myself, I’ve never found Baudrillard particularly interesting or even readable, so, I don’t have much to say here. 3 action movies,6 film noir, cyberpunk,7 steampunk8 and comic books. This “kitchen sink” approach usually goes by the descriptive term “postmodern” which, in this context, refers to a view where history is seen as a series of competing, contested narratives or images which can be disassembled and reassembled at will.9 Clearly, this “something for everybody” approach is one of the reasons why the film is so widely discussed – there are so many things to talk about. At the same time, and in my opinion, the Jesus motif is the strongest, sustained series of references in the film. Not that The Matrix is a biblical allegory – rather, The Matrix uses a version of the Jesus story as a structural backbone on which it can hang all of its ideas, allusions and motifs. So, rather than lose ourselves in the postmodern thicket, and assuming Neo is a type of “Jesus figure,” what kind of Jesus is he? Jesus As Enlightenment Figure The first “type” of Jesus we can see in The Matrix is Jesus as figure of enlightenment. Neo starts as a questing figure who is haunted by the nature of his existence which, in this film, is expressed in the question” “What is the Matrix?” Not knowing the answer, Neo is driven into an underground world of computer hacking criminals and away from his respectable, stable day job as a computer programmer. Even when the Agents capture him and offer him a plea bargain where he can return to his normal life, he refuses, is contacted by Morpheus and “takes the red pill” – which turns out to be a one-way ticket out of his previous, normal life. Once outside of the world of the matrix, he learns two major truths: First, that his prior life was part of an elaborate, computer simulations designed to keep him and his entire human race “in bondage” to an intelligent computer system in control the matrix. Second, that he may be the prophesied “One” who is expected to turn the tide in the perennial war and liberate the human race (and, as we’re told, the final “party” will be at “Zion” – the last, true human city). 6 Specifically, The Matrix’s action sequences were developed by Woo-ping Yuen who worked on films like Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master (1978), his own Iron Monkey (1993), Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003-2004). 7 “Cyberpunk” is a sci-fi subgenre focused on issues of artificial intelligence, events in computer networks/ cyberspace and corporate control of information. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk) 8 “Steampunk,” in turn, is a sci-fi subgenre focused on the fantastical use of older technology (usually Victorian-era). (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk). 9 This view of postmodernism is usually associated with Friedrich Jameson, particularly in his work Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1999).
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