Plot
Eddie Jessup, a brilliant psychopathologist with an eccentric personality, uses a sensory deprivation tank to conduct experiments on altered states of consciousness. As the years go by, his experiments, originally aimed at determining the etiology of schizophrenic pathology, increasingly take on metaphysical overtones.
In fact, after personally spending numerous sessions in the tank and experiencing first-hand the effects of the absence of sensory stimulation combined with a particular drug given to him by a Mexican shaman, the young doctor becomes increasingly convinced that a precise psychomatic stimulation would permit one to retrace the phylogenetic tree, reaching that primordial self capable of accessing the most profound meanings of existence (“Memory is energy! It doesn’t disappear! It’s still in there! There’s a physiological pathway to our earlier consciousnesses“).
His frenetic thirst for knowledge, combined with a methodical propensity for recklessness, leads to serious consequences for the doctor’s mind and body, and he will undergo a multitude of aberrant mutations which seriously undermine his psychophysical integrity.
We may be opening a black box that may scrap our whole picture of space-time.
Critique
7Loose adaptation of the novel of the same name by Paddy Chayefsky – in turn inspired by the works of neuroscientist and psychoanalyst John C. Lilly (1915-2001) – “Altered States” is a film that attempts the impossible, built on a pronounced penchant for juxtaposing two antithetical conceptions of the world: one built on the rationality of scientific knowledge, and the other evoked by a spiritualism which is the preserve of the mystic.
The use of specialized medical jargon within a context that, as events proceed, delves ever more into a philosophical-existential dimension (even Henri Bergson’s time-duration dichotomy is alluded to), has decidedly intriguing repercussions on a story imbued with the artistic sensibility of a visionary of Ken Russell’s caliber.
From a figurative point of view, the mix of religious symbolism – mainly Biblical references – and fascinating pseudoscientific hypotheses (“I’m asking you to make a small quantum jump with me to accept one deviant concept that our other states of consciousness are as real as our waking state and that reality can be externalized!“) is well balanced by a succession of dazzling, psychedelic interludes designed to evoke acid trips and ego state dissociation.
William Hurt turns in an excellent performance in his debut here as a young Faust (“You’d sell your soul to find the great Truth!“, whose faith in human capabilities reaches rare pinnacles of arrogance (“Ever since we dispensed with God, we’ve got nothing but ourselves to explain this meaningless horror of life“). It’s best to turn a blind eye to the incongruous ending in the name of salvific love.
Music by John Corigliano, garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.
More Info
- Based on the novel "Altered States: A Novel" (1978) by Paddy Chayefsky
Quotes
- When I was in the tank, I entered another consciousness! I became another self, a more primitive self, and the drug in some way triggered the externalization of that other, more primitive self.
- I think that the true Self, that original Self, that first Self, is a real, mensurate, quantifiable thing, tangible and incarnate, and I'm going to find the fucker.
- We're not dealing with genetics! We're beyond mass and matter here, beyond even energy. What we're back to is the first thought.
- I hallucinated like a son of a bitch. A variety of dream states, mystical states, a lot of religious allegory, mostly out of 'Revelation'.
- We may be opening a black box that may scrap our whole picture of space-time.
- Some of these tank trips can get pretty creepy.
Trivia
- On the literary front, the idea of a phylogenetic regression activated by a particular psychosensorial stimulation recalls the disturbing experiments of the elderly Richard Pride, protagonist of the late Gothic novel “The Dark Chamber” (1927) by Leonard Cline. We can also discern a somewhat similar argument expressed in the fascinating “Bodkin’s Theory of Neuronic Psychology” found in J.G. Ballard’s prescient novel “The Drowned World” (1962). In this case, however, the regression is caused by changes in the Earth’s environment which make it increasingly resemble that of the Triassic Period (“…that as we move back through geophysical time so we re-enter the amnionic corridor and move back through spinal and archaeopsychic time, recollecting in our unconscious minds the landscapes of each epoch […] Except that this is no scenic railway, but a total re-orientation of the personality”).
- One can recognize some strange similarities between Russell’s film and the minor classic “Monster of the Campus” (1958) by Jack Arnold, although this latter film was anything but an ambitious product, aimed at the drive-in audience of the time.
- The theme of sensory deprivation has been exploited several times in film, starting with the interesting “The Mind Benders” (1963) and continuing to the more recent “The Jacket” (2005).
- Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the novel as well as the screenplay, disavowed the film, accusing the director of making changes to various scenes which completely altered the spirit of the story.
Products
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