Dreamscape For Free

[Sophie Reynolds]

Dreamscapeis a 1984 American dark science-fiction adventure film directed by Joseph Ruben and written by David Loughery, with Chuck Russell and Ruben co-writing.[3] It stars Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw, Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer.

Alex Gardner is a psychic who has been using his talents solely for personal gain, which mainly consists of gambling and womanizing. When he was 19 years old, Alex had been the prime subject of a scientific research project documenting his psychic ability but, in the midst of the study, he disappeared.

After running afoul of a local gangster and extortionist named Snead, Alex evades two of Snead's thugs by allowing himself to be taken by two men: Finch and Babcock, who identify themselves as representing an academic institution. At the institution, Alex is reunited with his former mentor, Dr. Paul Novotny, who is now involved in government-funded psychic research. Novotny, aided by fellow scientist Dr. Jane DeVries, has developed a technique that allows psychics to voluntarily link with the minds of others by projecting themselves into the subconscious during REM sleep. Novotny equates the original idea for the dreamscape project to the practice of the Senoi natives of Malaysia, who believe the dream world is just as real as reality. The project was intended for clinical use to diagnose and treat sleep disorders, particularly nightmares; but it has been hijacked by Bob Blair, a powerful government agent. Novotny convinces Alex to join the program in order to investigate Blair's intentions. Alex gains experience with the technique by helping a man who is worried about his wife's infidelity and by treating a young boy named Buddy, who is plagued with nightmares so terrible that a previous psychic lost his sanity trying to help him. Buddy's nightmare involves a large sinister "snake-man".

Alex and Jane's growing infatuation culminates with Alex sneaking into Jane's dream to have sex with her, though she protests when she wakes up. He does this without technological aid, which no one else has been able to achieve. With the help of novelist Charlie Prince, who has been covertly investigating the project for a new book, Alex learns that Blair intends to use the dream-linking technique for assassination, as people who die in their dreams also die in the real world.

Blair murders Prince and Novotny to silence them. The President of the United States is admitted as a patient due to recurring nightmares. Blair assigns Tommy Ray Glatman, a mentally unstable psychic who murdered his own father, to enter the president's nightmare and assassinate him. Blair considers the president's nightmares about nuclear holocaust as a sign of political weakness, which he deems a liability in the upcoming negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

Jane and Alex later board a train to Louisville, Kentucky, intent on making their previous dream encounter a reality. They are surprised to meet the ticket collector from Jane's dream, but they decide to ignore it and keep on.

According to author Roger Zelazny, the film developed from an initial outline that he wrote in 1981, based in part upon his novella "He Who Shapes" and 1966 novel The Dream Master. He was not involved in the project after 20th Century Fox bought his outline. Because he did not write the film treatment or the script, his name does not appear in the credits; assertions that he removed his name from the credits are unfounded.[4] The music score is by French composer Maurice Jarre.

Principal photography began 3 February 1983 in Los Angeles, CA. Locations included Union Station, Los Angeles, Los Alamitos Race Course, Los Alamitos, CA, and the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA.[5]

Dreamscape was released on August 15, 1984. The film was a box office success grossing 12.1 million dollars on a 6 million dollar budget. This was the second film released to movie theaters that was rated PG-13 under then-new MPAA ratings guidelines, following Red Dawn, which had come out five days prior. The film was released on DVD on June 6, 2000, January 4, 2005, and April 7, 2015.[6]

The interplay between dreams and reality has long fueled human imagination. Our personal ideas, hopes, dreams and nightmares work at the edges of our subconscious awareness often revealing inner dimensions of our lives. Movement is an ideal medium for both contemplation and expression of the lived experience at the liminal intersection of the oneiric and waking mind. Join the student choreographers of SLU Theatre & Dance for an evening of new and original dance artworks that bring dreamscapes into reality.

"Dreamscape" is three different movies, all fighting to get inside one another. It's a political conspiracy thriller, a science fiction adventure, and sort of a love story. Most movies that try to crowd so much into an hour and a half end up looking like a shopping list, but "Dreamscape" works, maybe because it has a sense of humor.

The movie stars Dennis Quaid, that open-faced specialist in crafty sincerity, as the possessor of rare psychic powers. Once, years before, he had been the best ESP subject in the laboratory of a kindly old parapsychologist (Max Von Sydow), but then he disappeared. Now he is wanted again. The government is sponsoring explosive secret research in a brand new field: It believes there is a way for people to enter other people's dreams. The possibilities are limitless. For example, a therapist could enter the nightmares of his clients and become an eye-witness to buried phobias. Jungians could rub shoulders with subconscious archetypes. Lovers could visit each other's erotic dreams. And, of course, evil dreamers could drive their victims mad, or kill them with fright.

Quaid reluctantly agrees to become a subject for dream research, and almost immediately falls in love with von Sydow's assistant, the healthy and cheerful Kate Capshaw, of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Then the plot thickens. Christopher Plummer turns up as the head of US "covert intelligence." He is best friends with the president (Eddie Albert), who is, needless to say, having trouble sleeping these days. Albert has nightmares about starting World War III, and Plummer has nightmares that Albert will turn into a pacifist. He wants to use the dreamscape program to control the presidency. All of this plot stuff alternates with visits to people's dreams, and it's here that the movie gets interesting; movie dreams are usually clichs, and "Dreamscape" remains within the tradition, but comes up with some nice touches, including a crazy staircase that zig-zags into darkness and looks precarious and surreal. There is also a funny sequence in which Quaid discovers Capshaw taking a nap, and impudently enters her dream with lust on his mind.

The whole business about the plot against the president is recycled from countless other thrillers. Two things redeem it: The gimmick of the dream invasions and the quality of the acting. Science fiction movies routinely run the risk of seeming ridiculous, and with bad performances they can inspire unwanted laughs. "Dreamscape" places its characters in a fantastical situation, and then lets them behave naturally, and with a certain wit. Dennis Quaid is especially good at that; his face lends itself to a grin, and he is a hero without ever being self-consciously heroic.

As for the dreams themselves, as I watched the movie I found myself trying to remember some of my own dreams. The movie's dreams include rooms with lots of windows and doors at crazy angles, railway coaches that are twice as wide as train tracks, and other visual distortions. I usually have more realistic dreams. Rooms and spaces have realistic proportions, and the distortions of reality come, not in the set decorating, but in the editing; flashbacks and intercutting points of view are not uncommon in my dreams, maybe because I see so many films. But movies can't use flashbacks and view-point tricks to manufacture dreams -- because then the movie would look like a movie and not like a dream. So the movies have created a conventional dream language. What "Dreamscape" does is enlarge it with brief, sometimes funny little asides that do feel like dreams, as when Quaid is inside the nightmare of a little boy, and they're running from a Snake Man, and they see an adult seated at the end of a long table, and the kid says, "That's my dad. He won't be any help."

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