A.I - The Poster suggests the simplicity of the inclined A gazing on the I for ever and ever and ever.
It has been ten years since the release of “A.I”, a movie so fantastically conceived that it is hard to reconcile the resulting product with its actual master plans. There is so much very right with the movie and I truly believe Spielberg could direct a million “Lolita”‘s and perhaps an “Eyes Wide Shut”, I mean he gets it, the 50′s melodrama, the coyness and the innuendo. But, “A.I” lacks real connection to Kubrick’s other work, there are glimpses, if you squint really hard and the movie easily alludes to characters and moments, yet instead of embracing them it blatantly seems to obfuscate them, as though not even aware of the value of the material it had to go on.
Scenes such as the escape from the Carnival highlight Gigolo Joe’s language, his similarity to Alex Delarge (A Clockwork Orange), even the location itself; the rural night is only featured in “A Clockwork Orange”. Yet, Spielberg only allows a passing reference, as though simply going from an outline and not really recognising the thematic significance. The self referential elements found in most of Kubricks work, whether it be Clare Quilty referencing Spartacus; head bowed and upcast eye stare of Private Pyles, Alex or Jack Torrance. Even the space trip from 2001 can be first seen in “Killer’s Kiss”. There are many, many to be found. It’s just that A.I plays down all these thematic elements, and they are something so essentially Kubrickian. They bring you back time and time again to his work and here they are sadly lacking, underemphasised, and almost, mostly too subtle to even be thought to be there. In Spielberg’s defense the domestic scenes found at the beginning of the film, with David’s mum admirably impersonating the prior Kubrick performances of Shelley Winter’s and Nicole Kidman, bring the right level of iciness, yet reality, to the role. The protected environment/universe where David first finds himself. It’s fantastically realised and hard to fault.
After watching the movie for the first time (ten years ago), the thing that really remained with me, was the aesthetic. No doubts about it , the film is superbly designed. Perhaps one of the films greatest images is that of the female nanny robot turning her head to reveal a lack of anything beyond her face. It’s a fantastic effect, trouble is, effects are distracting, and its strange to have such a spectacle at this particular juncture of the movie. Surely the jeopardy and peril of the moment should be the focus? Design should not distract, and here it does. It also highlights another Kubrickian theme, masks. Having featured them since his earliest productions, be it the fight in the mannequin factory from “Killer’s Kiss”, the disguises in “The Killing”, “A Clockwork Orange” and “Eyes Wide Shut”. They are iconographic within Kubricks body of work. At once grotesque and full of metaphor, but here they seem reduced to moments of pure effects driven spectacle. There is another moment later in the film, where David looks through another mask, one based on his own facial design, the moment is horribly, terribly brief, and where Kubrick would have framed the moment , Spielberg again fumbles the composition, the movement and any deeper significance it might evoke in the viewer. It is not as though Spielberg is incapable of achieving the right match of movement and composition either. The shot of a curled lock of hair falling onto and intersecting a square pattern on the floor is breathtaking in how it calls attention to itself, but its main function is as a plot device allowing the audience to recall the event later when this action later becomes significant to the plot, and not, simply for the poetry of the moment.
Einstein as the computer? Really? There really wasn’t a better thematic reference?
The worst, and to me, unforgivable error, is not that David be granted his wish, as some of the films detractors claim, but that “The Specialists” be able to talk. For me, that goes against the ending of “2001″ (A.I was even released in this most significant of years), a sequence so abstract and mysterious – something so essentially thematically relevant to this movie. Where man and now David (perhaps HAL) finally gets his answers and wishes granted. Not told to him, but shown to him. Simply experienced, the base level of cinema. The ending of A.I could have been sheer poetry if addressed in this manner. It’s metaphysical. As it is, it suffices, but, well, David gets his wishes, why can’t we?
Postscript
Another sad aspect about A.I is that many of its more profound themes were better explored in Toy Story (1995). Ideas of individuality, abandonment, mass production and existentialism were all covered, and arguably with more flair in those films. Perhaps this was also another reason why Kubrick gave the story to Spielberg.
