Product Description

The Matrix (1999) was a true end-of-the-millennium movie, a statement of the American Zeitgeist, and a prognosis for the future of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking. Starring Keanu Reeves as Neo, a computer programmer transformed into a messianic freedom fighter, The Matrix blends science fiction with conspiracy thriller conventions and outlandish martial arts created with groundbreaking digital techniques. A box-office triumph, the film was no populist confection: its blatant allusions to highbrow contemporary philosophy added to its appeal as a mystery to be decoded. Joshua Clover undertakes the task of decoding the film. Examining The Matrix's digital effects and how they were achieved, he shows how the film represents a melding of cinema and video games (the greatest commercial threat to have faced Hollywood since the advent of television) and achieves a hybrid kind of immersive entertainment. He also unpacks the movie's references to philosophy, showing how The Matrix ultimately expresses the crisis American culture faced at the end of the 1990s.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50497 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Joshua Clover, author of award-winning book of poetry Madonna anno domini (1996) and many other works, is Associate Professor of Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, Davis. He writes on art and politics for the Village Voice.

Customer Reviews

The Matrix - BFI Modern Classics
Contrary to expectations, Joshua Clover's analysis of this modern masterpiece is rather excellent. Where other authors have fallen into the trap of focussing on the (pop) philosophy mumblings within the films design (a trap posed by the Wachowskis themselves), Clover rightly sidesteps this and takes it as merely a feature of a clever film concerned with much more than being pointlessly verbose.

By taking this tack, Clover risks offending those who see the Matrix as little more than a philosophical sideshow (a brilliant sideshow in their eyes), which is a brave stance to take and is the reason why this book is worth buying - it offers a reasoned, intellectual analysis of The Matrix as a film about the real world, a modern metaphor, rather than pandering to the fans. Whilst certain philosophical references are focussed on (like the digital disc inside 'Simulacra & Simulation'), the point of these is not only to unravel what they might say about the story, but what they say about the film itself relevant to its 1999 context.

The result is a text that offers up some interesting new angles on a film that has been covered by many, many people already. I personally liked the dissection of Keanu Reaves/Neo as something of a Baudrillardian cipher, or the chapter focussing on the film as a spectacle. Whilst this is an intellectual work, Clover maintains a light, entertaining writing style throughout. The only reason this doesn't get 5 stars is that in some areas I would have loved to have read more, and would have liked perhaps closer more detailed reference to certain shots, or more background information - something, for comparison, that Dana Polan's guide to Pulp Fiction did.

But if the only complaint is that I wanted more, I guess that's no bad thing!