"Prometheus": A Movie Review. Part I.

[Friedrich]

"Prometheus" (2012): Produced and directed by Ridley Scott; Colin
Wilson receives a screen credit as an Executive Producer; script by
John Speights and Damon Lindelof; director of photography, Darius
Wolski; edited by Pietro Scalia (no relation to Justice Scalia?);
music by Marc Streintenheld; STARRING: Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw);
Michael Fassbender (Dave); Guy Pearce (Weyland); Idris Elba (Janek);
Logan Marshall-Green (Halloway); Charlize Theron (Meredith Vickers);
Rafe Spall (Millburn); and Sean Harris (Fifield).

Alternative Reviews:

A.O. Scott, "Once More Into the Galactic Void," in "The New York
Times," June 8, 2012, at p. C1. (Inadequate.)

David Denby, "Prometheus," (Movie Review in CURRENT CINEMA), in "The
New Yorker," June 18, 2012, at p. 86. (Shameful, not by David Denby.)

Introduction.

Ages ago, near a waterfall on earth, a being from another galaxy
wanders through a desolate landscape under the shadow of a spaceship.
The "alien" makes the ultimate sacrifice to weave his DNA into the
waters giving "birth" to all life on earth.

We cut to a near-future discovery by archeologist Shaw (Noomi Rapace
in a stellar performance) and her boyfriend, Halloway (Logan Marshall-
Green), of cave paintings (Sistine Chapel?) pointing to our origins
among the stars. This is not about Von Daniken's "Chariots of the
Stars," but about universal religious/mythological "origin stories"
dramatizing metaphysical and scientific mysteries concerning human
nature.

An eccentric and dying billionaire -- someone like Rupert Murdoch/
Ridley Scott -- sets up the corporate project of finding our unearthly
progeniturs by means of the spaceship "Prometheus."

"Prometheus" is a vessel created for this specific purpose of stealing
the mysteries from the gods. It is piloted by Janek (Mr. Elba doing
his version of an "all-American midwestern accent"). The mission is
headed by Meredith (Theron) and Dave (Fassbender), neither of whom is
very "human" although for very different reasons.

"Prometheus," the movie experience, poses important questions about
human arrogance, scientific pretension, the relevance of religion in a
scientific age, the human capacity for aggression or self-destruction
and the redeeming power of genius and love. Unlike most popular films
in the Hollywood tradition, this is not a cheerful or "happy ending"
film. Nonetheless, the film does offer hope by concluding with a small
measure of faith in humanity's ambiguous curiosity and heroism.

"Prometheus" offers an essentially Christian vision of fallen humanity
in a post-Christian age. Science is seen as both blessing and curse,
but then, so is institutionalized religion.

The film's preoccupation with death hints at Mr. Scott's final
summation of a lifetime's reflections on ultimate issues of meaning
and creativity as expressed in cinema. I do not know and cannot say
whether Mr. Scott is or has been ill. I hope that he is very well and
that we will enjoy many more fine films made by this talented
Australian director. One cannot avoid the feeling, however, that Mr.
Scott was compelled to offer what might have been his final statement
in this disturbing work.

"Prometheus," accordingly, is a powerful reflection on mortality by a
man facing and coming to terms with his own death. An Executive
Producer of this movie is Colin Wilson, whose novel "The Philosopher's
Stone" is certainly an important influence on this cinematic text:

Wilson's subject is "original sin, the capacity for man's self-
destruction, which grows out of his self-loathing, which grows
inevitably out of the very psychological and philosophical revolutions
that once freed him from even more stifling bonds. The Darwinian,
Freudian, and behaviorist assumptions about man's slavery to his
'lower nature,' his helplessness in the hands of natural forces,
merge, tragically enough, with the science of economics by Adam Smith,
Ricardo, and Malthus ... and against this sense of oppression, of a
total denial of 'freedom,' the poet [or filmaker?] must rebel, if he
is to live. And rebelling, he must hate; he finds himself HATING. And
in the words of that arch-ironist and hater, Robert Musil, 'One can't
be angry with one's own time without damage to oneself.' ..."

Joyce Carol Oates, "Introduction," in Colin Wilson, "The Philosopher's
Stone" (New York: Warner, 1974), pp. 7-8. Please compare Colin Wilson,
"The Strange Story of Modern Philosophy," in "The Essential Colin
Wilson" (Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1986), pp. 91-111 with Jeremy
Rifkin & Ted Howard, "Entropy: A New World View" (New York: Bantam,
1981), pp. 248-257. ("The Heat Death of the Universe.")

Mr. Scott has been angry at his own century for some time. It is
difficult not to share his anger. To be angry at one's time is to be
skeptical about science's ability to describe or define all of human
nature; it is to find room for religious wisdom and the arts in a
technological age that trivializes both endeavors; it is to protest
against evil and greed in their depersonalized and administrative
forms, while loving humanity and life. These are the lessons of
"Prometheus" and of Mr. Scott's life-work.

I will focus in my review on three symbols and their interactions: 1).
the ring, signaling finality and completion, ending by means of a new
beginning; 2). the crucifix, indicating religion's continuing
importance amidst the powerful forces of industry, commerce, and
science; and 3). a severed head, the archetype of contemporary
scientism or inhumanity as the death of man.