There’s a red pill that takes you to the truth and there’s a blue pill that leaves you in illusion. The problem as he sees it is that the distinction between what is real and what is illusion is far too clear cut. It is this distinction between the problems of simulation and illusion that Baudrillard, in the 2004 interview, claims the Matrix movies missed entirely. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible.” “The impossibility of rediscovering an absolute level of the real is of the same order as the impossibility of staging illusion. We only have a simulated reality that Baudrillard calls the ‘hyperreal’ in which reality and illusion have imploded into each other. We can no longer speak of the real, it is no longer attainable. With the emergence of the age of simulation, the real has become inaccessible. The difference between reality and illusion becomes meaningless. The bottom line is that with the emergence of simulation in the postmodern age we have entered, this distinction between the real and the illusory, to use Baudrillard’s term, ‘implodes’. For a deeper exploration check out the previous instalment where you can read my futile attempts to wrap my brain around the nuances of Baudrillard’s brilliant simulation hypothesis. Morpheus: “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” The Simulation Hypothesisīaudrillard’s simulation hypothesis is a tough idea to fully grasp.
We see this problem being directly referenced by Morpheus in the first movie: With the problem of illusion there is a clear and absolute distinction between reality and illusion. For Descartes this sitting here beside the fire is reality while dreaming is an illusion. This is the classical problem of illusion. “How often my sleep at night has convinced me of all these familiar things-that I was here, wrapped in my gown, sitting by the fire-when in fact I was lying naked under the bedclothes.” He begins to question how he knows whether what he is experiencing is real. The philosopher is the one who leaves the cave and emerges into the real light of the sun.Ī more condensed version of this classical problem is found in Descartes’ work Meditations on First Philosophy where in a line of investigation that culminates in his famous conclusion “I think there I am”, Descartes embarks on a quest for the foundations of knowledge. Plato’s version comes from his dialogue The Republic where we find his allegory of the cave in which the mass of humanity lives in an illusory state where they mistake the shadows cast by a fire on the cave wall for reality. The classical formulations of the problem of illusion were given by Plato and Descartes. His first criticism is the rather damning claim that the movies completely miss the point of his work and that it confuses the classical Platonic problem of illusion with the postmodern problem of simulation. It was well known by now that his work was the main inspiration behind the movies but he had never spoken publicly about them until now. In 2004, a year after the release of the third Matrix movie, Baudrillard finally broke his silence on the Wachowskis’ cinematic adaptation of his work. The Matrix fails to represent his overall theoretical position.Īnd following that we are going to look at why Baudrillard is wrong.It misrepresents Simulacra and Simulation,.In this article we are going to look at the three reasons he gives for this disdain:
Matrix sentinel movie movie#
After the release of the first movie the Wachowskis reached out to Baudrillard inviting him to work on the sequels but he turned down the offer and in this interview we learn why.Īs it turns out Baudrillard – the “high priest of postmodernism” – hated the movies. His 1981 book Simulacra and Simulation was not merely a prop in The Matrix but was the main inspiration for the movies and was required reading for the whole cast. Baudrillard’s idea of simulation - which we explored in-depth in a previous instalment - was the primary inspiration behind the Wachowski siblings’ movie series. These were the infamous words that Jean Baudrillard used to break his silence on The Matrix movies in a 2004 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur.
“The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce.”
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