Gattaca

Minority Report is Steven Spielbergâ„-s second cinematic journey and investigation into interior darkness and (after his portrayal of the dark psyche in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence) into the future of humankind. It comes in the form of the atmospheric neo-noir/sci-fi/futuristic thriller which stars an intense Tom Cruise....

Myth, Shadow Politics, and Perennial Philosophy in Minority Report

(Writers: Jon Cohen and Frank Scott; Director: Steven Spielberg. 20th Century Fox and Dream Works Pictures, 2002)

A Film Analysis by Cathleen Rountree, Ph.D.c

While watching the drama,

the spectators become identified with

the mythical happening being portrayed, which allow[s] them to

participate briefly in the archetypal level of reality.

-- The Eternal Drama, Edward F. Edinger

The shadow personifies everything that

the subject refuses to acknowledge

about himself . . . --for instance, inferior

traits of character and other incompatible tendencies.

-- The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, C.G. Jung

The illegal we can do now; the

unconstitutional will take a little

longer.

-- Henry Kissinger, as quoted in The Trial of Henry Kissinger,

Christopher Hitchens

Minority Report is Steven Spielbergâ„-s second cinematic journey and investigation into interior darkness and (after his portrayal of the dark psyche in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence) into the future of humankind. It comes in the form of the atmospheric neo-noir/sci-fi/futuristic thriller which stars an intense Tom Cruise (who--at last--foregoes his boyish charm and artificial smile). This is the third Cruise film, in as many years, to deal with eyes and seeing and vision. First there was Stanley Kubrickâ„-s Eyes Wide Shut, in which Cruise could not see beyond his privileged upper-middle-class existence; then there was Cameron Croweâ„-s Vanilla Sky in which Cruiseâ„-s character, David Ames, could not distinguish between realities of the present, past and future, and the virtual. The metaphor of the necessity for inner sight is again present in Minority Report. Indeed, the film is obsessed with eyes and seeing. Cruise portrays a Pre-Crime fighter who is so blinded by his righteous, one-sided perspective that he eventually has his own pair of eyes exchanged on the blackmarket for a different pair, which has the unanticipated affect of enabling him to Ñ-seeІ more clearly.

For a mythologist, the plucking out of oneâ„-s own eyes by a movie character leads inexorably to a reference of the Oedipus archetype. Jung wrote that Freud Ñ-discovered the first archetype, the Oedipus complex.І The Oedipus complex, he says, Ñ-is a mythological and a psychological motif simultaneously.І And Minority Report is as rife with mythology and psychology, as it is with philosophy, politics, archetypes, and cinematic citations; all of which I will address herein.

Synopsis

But, first, a brief synopsis of the story-line in Minority Report. (Note: this analysis assumes that the reader has already viewed the film and, thus, reveals the plot and resolutions.)

In the cold, glossy national capitol of Washington, D.C., circa 2054, the Justice Department has found a seemingly perfect means to prevent homicide in the D.C. area: a prophylactic pre-detection of criminals. The system uses three mutant psychics (or scientifically engineered prophets)--known as Pre-Cogs--connected to a computer, by which the agents of the Pre-Crime unit can see murders before they take place and arrest the would-be perpetrators. The Pre-Cogs--a holy trinity of precognition--float in a sort of sacred amniotic fluid of vitamins and life-sustaining nutrients that also controls their levels of seretonin--a liquid Prozac, as it were. Considered a 21st-century-style Oracle at Delphi, they are Agatha (Christie?), Dashiell (Hammett?), and Arthur (C. Clark?). Chief John Anderton (Cruise) supervises the unit and reports to its director (and his mentor/father-figure) Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow). Agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) is sent in by the FBI, which is considering nationalizing the system, to observe the process in action and to detect any flaws (Ñ-Theyâ„-re always human,І Witwer taunts as he watches Anderton).

Privately, the divorced Anderton lives a shadowed existence by taking the illegal drugs he buys from a mysterious homeless man in an urban Hades and incessantly watching holographic home movies of his son Sean, who was abducted, while under his fatherâ„-s supervision, from a public swimming pool, six years ago--only one year before the Pre-Crime unit was developed. One day the sole female Pre-Cog, Agatha, reveals a vision of a woman named Anne Lively being murdered, a seeming Ñ-echoІ of an earlier solved crime. Later, the Pre-Cogs name Anderton himself as the next perpetrator who will kill a man--as yet--unknown to him named Leo Crow. Anderton becomes a fugitive hunted by his own organization.

He seeks out geneticist Dr. Iris Hineman, one of the developers of Pre-Crime, who tells him that occasionally one of the Pre-Cogs, usually Agatha, will have a Ñ-minority report,І which provides a different perspective of a crime from the other two. This report allows for the possibility that the identified murderer may have an alternative, innocent future. If Andertonâ„-s foretold murder has a minority report he will only be able to recover it by accessing Agathaâ„-s mind. In order to do this he must have a new transplanted pair of eyes so as to evade the ubiquitous retinal scanners planted throughout the city. After successfully abducting Agatha (Ñ-Can you see?І she repeatedly asks him), he establishes that there is no minority report for his murder.

Anderton and Agatha find their way to the building where Agathaâ„-s vision has shown the murder will take place and frequently she reminds him that because he has the ability to choose, he has the power to change his fate. Leo Crow has been set-up to appear to be Seanâ„-s abductor. As it turns out, Crow wants to die in order to claim insurance benefits for his family