SOLDIER

SOLDIER. Paul Anderson, dir. Jerry Weintraub, prod. USA: Impact Productions, Morgan Creek (prod.) / Warner (dist.), 1998. Kurt Russell, star. David L. Snyder (art director for BLADE RUNNER [q.v.]), prod. design.

The mise-en-scene for the Earth-bound opening of the film is the military reservation from hell, with eventually Panopticon, prison-like surveillance. The mise-en-scene on the ironically named planet Arcadia, is a post-modern wasteland: a dump for a spectrum of technology, from parking meters to a carrier to (according to Entertainment Weekly) a spinner car used in BLADE RUNNER. Eventually dumped onto and into this trash heap is Russell's Sgt. Todd, a nearly-mute human Soldier produced only by training from birth on, without genetic manipulation. It is bad that Todd is trapped in a metaphorical military machine, imaged by many literal machines; it is good that Todd accepts parts of his code as a Soldier. Todd ends the film getting revenge for being dumped, and a son who will not be a Soldier—and getting humanized in terms of touch, not words. Discussed by Chuck Wagner in the Cinefantastique article Soldier: Jerry Weintraub's sensitive space Western.

(RDE, Gianluigi Ross 24/X/98)