Altered States Movie Blog
Title: Altered States
Year: 1980
Director: Ken Russell
Screen Writer: Paddy Chayefsky
Lead Actors: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban
Running Time: one hour and forty-two minutes
Link for the movie’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyBE_aKg858
An eccentric, crazy Harvard Professor, Eddie Jessup, conducts a series of experiments to test different states of consciousness and schizophrenia. He uses a sensory deprivation tank and strong hallucinatory drugs to create an altered state of consciousness, where one loses the sense of their body and mind. His hallucinations often revolve around religion despite being a secular man. When Eddie’s experiments have multiple effects over his social and sex life, his colleagues and his wife Emily start to worry about the damage that he is causing himself. He, however, proceeds in testing his consciousness and succeeds in creating a mystical energy from an altered state of consciousness. Consequently, this energy triggers a genetic regression, transforming him into a more primitive version of himself. The results being too fascinating not to share, he decides to repeat the experiment in front of his entourage. When the second trial gets interrupted by a huge explosion, his colleagues prevent him from getting in the isolation tank again and consuming the hallucinatory drug. In the end, Eddie realizes that his transformation reflects the terror and the real living horror growing within in him, and the only person that can cease it from devouring him completely is Emily.
In the making of a movie, there are numerous techniques used in order to keep the audience’s attention and to enhance the story-telling and messages in the film.
EDITING- When Eddie's not hallucinating, There are a lot less cuts involved; the frames are of much longer duration (happening in real time) to contrast with his altered state hallucinations, where time and duration is not a known notion due to an overload of cuts.
LIGHTING- When he is in bed with a woman and gets up feeling odd, you can observe a very low-key lighting with dark shadows in order to set the scene to feel eerie and like a nightmare, which insinuates the arrival of another hallucination.
COSTUMES AND MAKEUP- The costume of the ape used to portray Eddie’s regressed form was so bad it was good. The actor who played this ape (as we are uncertain whether or not it is in fact William Hurt) was so overdramatic that it ended up making the obvious contacts, the glued on facial hair and the dirt coloured skin work, it was so fake it was creepy to look at.
CAMERA ANGLE TRANSITION- There was an eye-level shot on Eddie when his ape form was attacking the dogs with a stick in order to protect itself. This angle has a significant effect on the audience because it puts them in the situation: as if they were the character being chased by dogs. You can almost feel your heart beating faster and feeling like you are trapped.
SOUND- In the cave when Eddie goes to Mexico to find a concoction to even further his experiments, the diegetic sound of the horns being played are very creepy and accent well with the scene; the sounds is very intense with a lot of drums being banged and violins playing high pitched notes. The sound pulled the scene together to make a creepy and sombre ambience.
SHOTS- As Eddie gets out of the tank, the camera moves closer to his hairy hands as he has transformed. By doing this close-up, the way he opened the door, it showed the viewer’s their first look at how the drugs transformed him. By doing this, the viewers see the effects of the drug and the aggression of that is to follow.
The movie’s central theme is that human love is the truth of existence. His hallucinations set him into a quick downward spiral into insanity, after experiencing such regressing and seeing the beginning of life he realizes that it’s his love for Emily that can keep him at bay and not dissipate from all the knowledge he gathered. But at what cost is it worth pursuing the “ultimate truth”?
Another big theme in the movie is when Eddie demonstrated: “There is no Buddhist God, per se. It is the self, the individual mind that contains immortality and ultimate truth.”(Altered States, 1980, 17 seconds) Such declaration reveals his rationality and his persistence of learning the truth about his existence.
Words: 702
This movie was made almost 40 years ago and the technology surrounding movies has significantly improved since then. We were impressed by the general hypothesis of Altered States: there are undiscovered states in the human brain that can reveal metaphysical truths. It was so well demonstrated and explained that it felt as though it could occur in real life. However, the central part of the film, the hallucinations, created in order to portray the altering of the mind, could have been so amazing, but we felt as though they were drowned in drama. The intent was to overwhelm the audience’s senses (eyes and ears) and although the hallucinations did engulf the audience, it was extremely unpleasant. The hallucinations were too long and the many editing techniques used at once (cross-cutting, fades and dissolves) left us feeling dizzy and unfocused. If you’re epileptic, do not watch this movie. We felt as though it pushed the envelope just a little bit too far; there are ways to create better and diverse psychedelic experiences. We also felt as though the rape scene was completely inappropriate and unnecessary. It could be argued that it is to show your inner dark thoughts; however, we saw it more as a degrading gesture to a woman, especially considering it was with Emily. Although she is an educated doctor, she gives off the vibe of being helpless without Eddie, stands by your man no matter what. It felt very misogynistic. On a more positive note, however, the colors used in the hallucinations were extremely well done. They used a lot of red which evokes fear and hatred but also used a lot of contrast colors to make the eyes wander all over the screen. It was very creepy and trippy. There are so many colors and props that we can guarantee you will find a new element in the hallucinations no matter how many times you watch the movie.
Words: 320
Our rating for the movie:
There was some important connection between the movies and the course material.
1. Firstly, the movie refers to the core and minimal self. “At least I know where the self is. It’s in our own minds. It’s a form of human energy. Our atoms are six billion years old. We’ve got six billion years of memory in our minds. Memory is energy! It doesn’t disappear – it’s still in there.” (Altered States, 1980, 23 m, 20 s) One of the most important scenes that demonstrate this concept is where Eddie alters his genes and transforms into his primitive form. Edward becomes a creature that uses his awareness to guild him towards survivability, however even though he is in a regressed form; he has knowledge of how to do things. To clarify, the ape is using his internal modeling capacity to maintain a basic level of coordination of bodily functions and behaviour and assist his motor planning.
2. Secondly, as evidently stated it the title, altered states are a major topic of discussion in the movie. Whilst in the movie, Eddie achieves an altered state of consciousness through hallucination; it is not the only way.
“We are all aware that our dreams may contain very different kinds of thoughts than those that we have while awake. However, there are also wakeful situations in which we can experience an altered state of consciousness (ASC)— these include hallucination, hypnotic states, trance states, and meditation. In contemporary North American culture, these wakeful ASCs are thought of either as unusual events or pertaining to practices of specialists—hypnotic states induced by therapists or magicians, trances entered into by mediums conducting séances, meditation in yoga classes, or drug-induced hallucinatory experiences. The idea that bodies might be possessed by demons, witches, or spirits also exists as a popular theme in media and in some religious traditions. However, contemporary mainstream North American culture does not embrace these practices in rituals, healing practices, or as part of ordinary life.” (Carolus, Ember, 2017)
Experiencing altered states of consciousness are not uncommon and happen more often than we may even realize. It makes us wonder if Eddie’s theory wasn’t that far off, do altered states of consciousness play a role in allowing you to discover the ultimate truth of life and existence? An article from Yale further points to this: “[…] the ubiquity of these practices across time and space in human history suggests that ASCs play a fundamental role in the maintenance of human social fabric and human social-spiritual linkage.” (Carolus, Ember, 2017)
3. Thirdly, the general epistemology represented in the usage of altered state of consciousness to discover the “truth” of the meaning of existence. Dr. Eddie said “We’re born in doubt. We spend our lives persuading ourselves we’re alive”, and therefore, he decides to conduct altered states experiments with the goal of finding a response to those unanswered questions. He also said:
“I’m a man in search of his self, in general, we’re all trying to fulfill ourselves, understand ourselves, get in touch with ourselves, face the reality of ourselves, explore ourselves and expand ourselves. Ever since we dispensed with God, we've got nothing but ourselves to explain this meaningless horror of life. We think that true self, that original self, that first self is a real menstruate and quantifiable thing, tangible and incarnate"
This monologue is super important is it is literally at the base of this course, Knowing the Inner Self. We talk a lot about what the selfhood, which is the demarcated self and individuality. Our purpose in life is to better and advance our self, which we feel, is Dr. Jessup’s goal as well.
QUESTIONS
1. Would you put yourself through those tests, and try an isolation tank?
2. Have you ever experience an altered state of consciousness by drugs, meditation or even fever? If so, what was it and how was it like for you?
3. Do you think Emily is right to stand by her husband, even though he maltreats her and constantly puts his career and research before her?
ARTICLES
"Altered States of Consciousness." Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained. . Encyclopedia.com. 30 Oct. 2017 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. http://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/other-religious-beliefs-and-general-terms/miscellaneous-religion/altered
The article provided by this link talks about multiple altered states of consciousness and the diverse ways of uncovering them. It explains the significance of these states and the fact that many individuals may go through life without ever knowing the existence of these states of consciousness.
Knipfel, Jim. “Altered States (1980) Review”, published February 9, 2013. Typed, accessed: October 8, 2017.
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/altered-states/58047/altered-states-1980-review
The author of the article is explaining how smart and captivating Chayefsky (author of the book Altered State’s)’s ideas about God, the human brain, man’s past and his place in the universe. He comments on how strange Eddie’s hallucinations were in the movie and how the way they were edited made them seem like a joke, basically insinuating that the movie disrespected the author’s vision.
Works Cited
Carolus, Christina. Ember, Carol. “Altered States of Consciousness” http://hraf.yale.edu/ehc/summaries/altered-states-of-consciousness#what-about-more-recent-cultures-are-ascs-institutionalized-in-other-cultures, Yale University, Published January 10, 2017, Accessed: November 7, 2017.
Golden, John. “Introducing Cinematic and Theatrical Elements in Film”, http://www.teachwithmovies.org/terms-of-use.html, James Frieden, Published (2006), Accessed: October 9, 2017.
