Medium Cool: The Matrix Reloaded

Klawans, Stuart. "Medium Cool: THE MATRIX RELOADED." Rev. The Nation 276.22 (9 June 2003): 43-45.

Good analysis for THE MATRIX and "The Matrix Condition" (Erlich's formulation): the Matrix world as "a deadly boring dream," contained within "a nightmarish reality"—"the industrial horror of the real world"—with "a third, winning possibility: being cool," which SK sees defined in The Matrix as "a matter of this crossing over, shucking both the agonies of creatural life and the time-killing day-dreams of social routine." SK misleads somewhat in describing the "stereoscopic freeze" effect as "a 180-degree pan around [… moving characters] stopped motionless in midair": the effect is most impressive as what appears to be (but is not literally) an arc-shot, or crane-shot, swinging around the characters for less—as may be the case in the Gap's "Khaki Swings" commercial—or more than 180 degrees, up to a complete circle (43); the effect may also include slow motion. SK is right on, however, in interpreting the significance of the effect as "a computer simulation of utterly free movement, achieved within the fiction of a neurodigital prison. Like the characters' leather-clad, sunglass-guarded detachment, the stereoscopic freeze boldly dramatized the state of being neither inside nor outside a situation—more specifically, of being able to employ a technology while owing nothing to its principal controllers." SK finds this "an untenable fantasy," not examined until Matrix Reloaded, where the examination yields impressive claustrophobic images but not very useful results. For a description of the stereoscopic freeze process, and illustrations, see [http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/Htm/Features/space_and_time_separated.htm.

(RDE, 31/05/03. 3Jan15)