Brainstorm (1983 film)
Encyclopedia
Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film
directed by Douglas Trumbull
and starring Christopher Walken
and Natalie Wood
(in her last film appearance). Louise Fletcher
and Cliff Robertson
are also featured in the cast.
One team member, Gordo (Jordan Christopher), has sexual intercourse while wearing the recorder, and shares the tape with other colleagues, including Hal Abramson (Joe Dorsey). Hal splices one section of the tape into a continuous orgasm, which results in sensory overload that nearly kills him - leading to his forced retirement. Tensions increase as the possibilities for abuse become clear.
Karen dons the recorder while working with Michael and Lillian. When Michael plays the tape back, the group realizes that emotional experiences are also recorded. Michael makes a tape of his memories which he shares with Karen, leading to their reconciliation.
Lillian is pressured by backers to admit a former colleague, Landon Marks (Donald Hotton), whom she sees as part of the military industrial complex. She refuses to have the invention taken over for military use. This stress, coupled with the cumulative effects of her lifestyle, causes Lillian to suffer a heart attack while working alone. She dons the helmet and records her death experience.
Following her funeral, Michael decides to experience Lillian's final recording, but nearly dies when the playback causes his body to experience the sensations of a heart attack. Michael modifies his playback console to disconnect his heart and respiration from the tape.
A team of military scientists wanting to discover the machine's capabilities monitors the equipment, discovering Michael's attempt to replay Lillian's death tape. Gordo experiences the playback at the same time as Michael, but with his heart and respiration connected to the simulation - leading to Gordo's death. As a safety measure, Terson orders that the central playback facility be shut down.
Michael's experiment is cut short, but his near death experience
makes him curious to see the entire tape. The recording is locked away and Michael is told he will never be allowed to view it. Michael protests, but Terson removes him and Karen from the team.
Michael makes several attempts to hack into the lab's computers. Hal advises him to look under Project Brainstorm, which Michael learns the military has created a program to develop the device for torture and brainwashing. Chris Brace, Michael and Karen's son, is inadvertently exposed to one such "toxic" tape, causing him to have a psychotic experience which results in his hospitalization - where the Braces have a confrontation with Terson over Project Brainstorm.
Michael vows to destroy the Brainstorm project and enlists the help of Karen and Hal. Michael and Karen head to a hotel and, realizing they are under surveillance, stage a fight that results in Karen leaving for Hal's house. While the two feign reconciliation over the phone, Michael accesses the Brainstorm computer via another phone line, while Karen hacks into the system and reprograms the factory robots that manufacture The Hat. The machines go berserk, creating havoc.
Michael shuts down the security system, trapping the staff inside, allowing him to remotely load Lillian's death tape and experience it without interruption. Brainstorm's leaders order his arrest. Michael flees the hotel, heading for a phone booth at the Wright Brothers National Memorial
, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. He hacks into the computers again and accesses the final part of the death tape.
While viewing Lillian's death experience, he sees "memory bubbles." Michael experiences Lillian's memories of a humorous meeting with Michael and an early robot, a surprise birthday party, and being devastated when Terson tells her that an earlier project was cancelled.
Karen arrives at the Wright Brothers Memorial while the tape is still playing. Reynolds experiences a brief vision of Hell
, then travels away from Earth and through the universe, even after the tape ends, ultimately witnessing visions of angels flying into a great cosmic light. Michael then collapses in an apparent coma. Karen sobs, pleading for Michael to come back. Awakening from the experience, he weeps with joy.
during a break in production. In September and October 1981, Wood completed location work in North Carolina
, then spent most of November in California shooting interior scenes with Walken and other cast members on the MGM lot in Culver City.
The film carries the dedication credit "To Natalie."
60 frame/s 70mm process. "In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image," Trumbull recalled, "And I wanted to do just the opposite, which was to make the material of the mind even more real and high-impact than 'reality'".
However, MGM backed out of plans to release the experimental picture in the new format. Trumbull instead shot the virtual reality sequences in 24 frame/s Super Panavision 70
with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1. The rest of the film was shot in conventional 35mm with an aspect ratio of approximately 1.7 to 1.
. The Varèse Sarabande
album/CD release is a re-recording with the London Symphony Orchestra
, produced shortly before the original theatrical release.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
reports that 64% of 14 critics have given the film a positive review.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
directed by Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Huntley Trumbull is an American film director, special effects supervisor, and inventor. He contributed to, or was responsible for, the special photographic effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of...
and starring Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
and Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
(in her last film appearance). Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
and Cliff Robertson
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...
are also featured in the cast.
Plot
A team of scientists invents "The Hat," a helmet that allows sensations to be recorded from a person's brain and converted to tape so that others can experience them. The team includes estranged husband and wife Michael and Karen Brace (Walken and Wood), as well as Michael's colleague Lillian Reynolds (Fletcher). At CEO Alex Terson's (Robertston) instruction, the team demonstrates the device to gain financing for more development.One team member, Gordo (Jordan Christopher), has sexual intercourse while wearing the recorder, and shares the tape with other colleagues, including Hal Abramson (Joe Dorsey). Hal splices one section of the tape into a continuous orgasm, which results in sensory overload that nearly kills him - leading to his forced retirement. Tensions increase as the possibilities for abuse become clear.
Karen dons the recorder while working with Michael and Lillian. When Michael plays the tape back, the group realizes that emotional experiences are also recorded. Michael makes a tape of his memories which he shares with Karen, leading to their reconciliation.
Lillian is pressured by backers to admit a former colleague, Landon Marks (Donald Hotton), whom she sees as part of the military industrial complex. She refuses to have the invention taken over for military use. This stress, coupled with the cumulative effects of her lifestyle, causes Lillian to suffer a heart attack while working alone. She dons the helmet and records her death experience.
Following her funeral, Michael decides to experience Lillian's final recording, but nearly dies when the playback causes his body to experience the sensations of a heart attack. Michael modifies his playback console to disconnect his heart and respiration from the tape.
A team of military scientists wanting to discover the machine's capabilities monitors the equipment, discovering Michael's attempt to replay Lillian's death tape. Gordo experiences the playback at the same time as Michael, but with his heart and respiration connected to the simulation - leading to Gordo's death. As a safety measure, Terson orders that the central playback facility be shut down.
Michael's experiment is cut short, but his near death experience
Near death experience
A near-death experience refers to a broad range of personal experiences associated with impending death, encompassing multiple possible sensations including detachment from the body; feelings of levitation; extreme fear; total serenity, security, or warmth; the experience of absolute dissolution;...
makes him curious to see the entire tape. The recording is locked away and Michael is told he will never be allowed to view it. Michael protests, but Terson removes him and Karen from the team.
Michael makes several attempts to hack into the lab's computers. Hal advises him to look under Project Brainstorm, which Michael learns the military has created a program to develop the device for torture and brainwashing. Chris Brace, Michael and Karen's son, is inadvertently exposed to one such "toxic" tape, causing him to have a psychotic experience which results in his hospitalization - where the Braces have a confrontation with Terson over Project Brainstorm.
Michael vows to destroy the Brainstorm project and enlists the help of Karen and Hal. Michael and Karen head to a hotel and, realizing they are under surveillance, stage a fight that results in Karen leaving for Hal's house. While the two feign reconciliation over the phone, Michael accesses the Brainstorm computer via another phone line, while Karen hacks into the system and reprograms the factory robots that manufacture The Hat. The machines go berserk, creating havoc.
Michael shuts down the security system, trapping the staff inside, allowing him to remotely load Lillian's death tape and experience it without interruption. Brainstorm's leaders order his arrest. Michael flees the hotel, heading for a phone booth at the Wright Brothers National Memorial
Wright Brothers National Memorial
Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, commemorates the first successful, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine. From 1900 to 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright came here from Dayton, Ohio, based on information from the U.S. Weather Bureau...
, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. He hacks into the computers again and accesses the final part of the death tape.
While viewing Lillian's death experience, he sees "memory bubbles." Michael experiences Lillian's memories of a humorous meeting with Michael and an early robot, a surprise birthday party, and being devastated when Terson tells her that an earlier project was cancelled.
Karen arrives at the Wright Brothers Memorial while the tape is still playing. Reynolds experiences a brief vision of Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, then travels away from Earth and through the universe, even after the tape ends, ultimately witnessing visions of angels flying into a great cosmic light. Michael then collapses in an apparent coma. Karen sobs, pleading for Michael to come back. Awakening from the experience, he weeps with joy.
Cast
- Christopher WalkenChristopher WalkenChristopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
as Michael Brace - Natalie WoodNatalie WoodNatalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
as Karen Brace - Louise FletcherLouise FletcherLouise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
as Lillian Reynolds - Cliff RobertsonCliff RobertsonClifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...
as Alex Terson - Alan FudgeAlan FudgeAlan Fudge , was an American actor known for being part of the cast of four television programs: Man from Atlantis, Eischied, Paper Dolls, and Bodies of Evidence, along with a recurring role on 7th Heaven.Fudge was born in Wichita, Kansas...
as Robert Jenkins - Joe DorseyJoe DorseyJoe Dorsey is an American character actor. This familiar supporting player is probably best known for his portrayals of tough roles in films, even though most of his work in films and in television has been brief....
as Hal Abramson - Jason LivelyJason Lively-Career:Jason Lively started his career by appearing in the pilot episode of The Dukes of Hazzard when he was 10 years old. His first film appearance was four years later in the 1983 film Brainstorm...
as Chris Brace
Natalie Wood's death
The film was nearly scuttled by the death of Natalie WoodNatalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
during a break in production. In September and October 1981, Wood completed location work in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, then spent most of November in California shooting interior scenes with Walken and other cast members on the MGM lot in Culver City.
The film carries the dedication credit "To Natalie."
Effects
The film was conceived as an introduction to Trumbull's ShowscanShowscan
Showscan is a cinematic process developed by Douglas Trumbull. Similar to 70 mm wide-screen processes, it uses 65 mm film, but photographs and projects it at 60 frames per second – 2.5 times faster than standard movie film...
60 frame/s 70mm process. "In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image," Trumbull recalled, "And I wanted to do just the opposite, which was to make the material of the mind even more real and high-impact than 'reality'".
However, MGM backed out of plans to release the experimental picture in the new format. Trumbull instead shot the virtual reality sequences in 24 frame/s Super Panavision 70
Super Panavision 70
Super Panavision 70 was the marketing brand name used to identify movies photographed with Panavision 70 mm spherical optics between 1959 and 1983.-History:...
with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1. The rest of the film was shot in conventional 35mm with an aspect ratio of approximately 1.7 to 1.
Soundtrack
The score to Brainstorm was composed and conducted by James HornerJames Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
. The Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
album/CD release is a re-recording with the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
, produced shortly before the original theatrical release.
Reception
Eventually released on a small number of screens and with little publicity (despite being trumpeted unofficially as "Natalie Wood's last movie"), Brainstorm was well received critically — Janet Maslin of the New York Times gave particular credit to Louise Fletcher's "superb performance" — but was a failure at the box office: the $18 million movie only brought in $10 million in ticket sales.Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 64% of 14 critics have given the film a positive review.
Real-life applications
The technology depicted in the film has been partially developed as of September 2011. The same technological institute depicted as developing the technology in the film has made some progress in doing so in reality (UC Berkeley).See also
- Artificial realityArtificial realityArtificial reality was the term Myron W. Krueger used to describe his interactive immersive environments, based on video recognition techniques, that put a user in full, unencumbered contact with the digital world. He started this work in the late 1960s and is considered to be a key figure in the...
- Augmented realityAugmented realityAugmented reality is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is...
- Flight simulation
- Simulated realitySimulated realitySimulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated—perhaps by computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation....
- Virtual realityVirtual realityVirtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
External links
- Brainstorm at Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
- Brainstorm at Box Office MojoBox Office MojoBox Office Mojo is a website that tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. Brandon Gray started the site in 1999. In 2002, Gray partnered with Sean Saulsbury and they grew the site to nearly two million readers when, in July 2008, the company was purchased by Amazon.com through...