| Brainstorm | |
|---|---|
Film poster |
|
| Directed by | Douglas Trumbull |
| Produced by | Douglas Trumbull |
| Written by | Philip Frank Messina Robert Stitzel from a story by Bruce Joel Rubin |
| Starring | Christopher Walken Natalie Wood Louise Fletcher Cliff Robertson |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Cinematography | Richard Yuricich |
| Editing by | Dennis Freeman Edward Warschilka |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | September 30, 1983 |
| Running time | 106 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18 million |
| Box office | $10,219,460 |
Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood (in her last film appearance). Louise Fletcher and Cliff Robertson are also featured in the cast.
Contents |
A team of scientists invents "The Hat," a helmet that allows sensations to be recorded from a person's brain and converted to tape so that others can experience them. The team includes estranged husband and wife Michael and Karen Brace (Walken and Wood), as well as Michael's colleague Lillian Reynolds (Fletcher). At CEO Alex Terson's (Robertston) instruction, the team demonstrates the device to gain financing for more development.
One team member, Gordo (Jordan Christopher), has sexual intercourse while wearing the recorder, and shares the tape with other colleagues, including Hal Abramson (Joe Dorsey). Hal splices one section of the tape into a continuous orgasm, which results in sensory overload that nearly kills him - leading to his forced retirement. Tensions increase as the possibilities for abuse become clear.
Karen dons the recorder while working with Michael and Lillian. When Michael plays the tape back, the group realizes that emotional experiences are also recorded. Michael makes a tape of his memories which he shares with Karen, leading to their reconciliation.
Lillian is pressured by backers to admit a former colleague, Landon Marks (Donald Hotton), whom she sees as part of the military industrial complex. She refuses to have the invention taken over for military use. This stress, coupled with the cumulative effects of her lifestyle, causes Lillian to suffer a heart attack while working alone. She dons the helmet and records her death experience.
Following her funeral, Michael decides to experience Lillian's final recording, but nearly dies when the playback causes his body to experience the sensations of a heart attack. Michael modifies his playback console to disconnect his heart and respiration from the tape.
A team of military scientists wanting to discover the machine's capabilities monitors the equipment, discovering Michael's attempt to replay Lillian's death tape. Gordo experiences the playback at the same time as Michael, but with his heart and respiration connected to the simulation - leading to Gordo's death. As a safety measure, Terson orders that the central playback facility be shut down.
Michael's experiment is cut short, but his near death experience makes him curious to see the entire tape. The recording is locked away and Michael is told he will never be allowed to view it. Michael protests, but Terson removes him and Karen from the team.
Michael makes several attempts to hack into the lab's computers. Hal advises him to look under Project Brainstorm, which Michael learns the military has created a program to develop the device for torture and brainwashing. Chris Brace, Michael and Karen's son, is inadvertently exposed to one such "toxic" tape, causing him to have a psychotic experience which results in his hospitalization - where the Braces have a confrontation with Terson over Project Brainstorm.
Michael vows to destroy the Brainstorm project and enlists the help of Karen and Hal. Michael and Karen head to a hotel and, realizing they are under surveillance, stage a fight that results in Karen leaving for Hal's house. While the two feign reconciliation over the phone, Michael accesses the Brainstorm computer via another phone line, while Karen hacks into the system and reprograms the factory robots that manufacture The Hat. The machines go berserk, creating havoc.
Michael shuts down the security system, trapping the staff inside, allowing him to remotely load Lillian's death tape and experience it without interruption. Brainstorm's leaders order his arrest. Michael flees the hotel, heading for a phone booth at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. He hacks into the computers again and accesses the final part of the death tape.
While viewing Lillian's death experience, he sees "memory bubbles." Michael experiences Lillian's memories of a humorous meeting with Michael and an early robot, a surprise birthday party, and being devastated when Terson tells her that an earlier project was cancelled.
Karen arrives at the Wright Brothers Memorial while the tape is still playing. Reynolds experiences a brief vision of Hell, then travels away from Earth and through the universe, even after the tape ends, ultimately witnessing visions of angels flying into a great cosmic light. Michael then collapses in an apparent coma. Karen sobs, pleading for Michael to come back. Awakening from the experience, he weeps with joy.
The film was nearly scuttled by the death of Natalie Wood during a break in production. In September and October 1981, Wood completed location work in North Carolina, then spent most of November in California shooting interior scenes with Walken and other cast members on the MGM lot in Culver City.[1]
The film carries the dedication credit "To Natalie."
The film was conceived as an introduction to Trumbull's Showscan 60 frame/s 70mm process. "In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image," Trumbull recalled, "And I wanted to do just the opposite, which was to make the material of the mind even more real and high-impact than 'reality'".
However, MGM backed out of plans to release the experimental picture in the new format. Trumbull instead shot the virtual reality sequences in 24 frame/s Super Panavision 70 with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1. The rest of the film was shot in conventional 35mm with an aspect ratio of approximately 1.7 to 1.[2]
The score to Brainstorm was composed and conducted by James Horner. The Varèse Sarabande album/CD release is a re-recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, produced shortly before the original theatrical release.[3]
Eventually released on a small number of screens and with little publicity (despite being trumpeted unofficially as "Natalie Wood's last movie"), Brainstorm was well received critically — Janet Maslin of the New York Times gave particular credit to Louise Fletcher's "superb performance"[4] — but was a failure at the box office: the $18 million movie[5] only brought in $10 million in ticket sales.[6]
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 64% of 14 critics have given the film a positive review. [7]
The technology depicted in the film has been partially developed as of September 2011. The same technological institute depicted as developing the technology in the film has made some progress in doing so in reality (UC Berkeley).[8]