Submitted by: Submitted by Stp0683
Views: 139
Words: 1342
Pages: 6
Category: English Composition
Date Submitted: 11/08/2014 03:02 PM
Is It Time Travel, Insanity or Love?
The film, 12 Monkeys (1995), directed by Terry Gilliam, plays with the viewers psyche. The director toys with the ideas of time travel between future and past, sanity versus insanity, love and immortality.
The movie’s main character James Cole, played by Bruce Willis, is to return to the year 1996 to gather information on the creation of a virus and bring a pure sample of it back to his year of 2035 (Maslin) for the scientists to study. The virus is the cause for wiping out five billion people in the year 1997, which left the animals to rule the surface of the earth and forcing the remaining one percent of the survivors to live underground. The scientists believe James can accomplish the mission because he is “a very good observer” (1) who can help return the human race back to their rightful place. His assignment does not begin in the intended year, but rather in 1990, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, played by Madeleine Stowe, and Jeffery Goines, a lunatic and leader of the 12 Monkeys, played by Brad Pitt. As James and Kathryn question their mental state, there is an awareness that their lives are somehow connected.
To fully understand this motion picture, it would be best to review it at least two or three times. Unfortunately, some scenes are just too confusing to understand. There is a scene when the security guard at the mental institution changes from the nasty guard from the underworld, back to the security guard. There are also three scenes in which a man with a raspy voice calls James “Bob.” (2) The only clue given to the audience about this voice and a possible identity is a homeless man with the raspy voice talking to James and Kathryn. This man claims “You can’t hide from them Bob. Don’t even try. They hear everything. They got that tracking device on ‘ya. They can find you anywhere, anytime. It’s in the tooth.” (3) There is no explanation in the film as to why James is being...