Vanilla Sky is a great film. A lot of people said it was pants, and I remember when I left the cinema, I wasn’t that impressed I had a feeling it was trying to be a bit too clever.
However, I have it on DVD and have now watched it a few times. It is definitely one you need to watch more than once, and I’d say 5 times is about right. It’s a real thinker of a film, with many excellent philosophical ideas in there.
The philosophy of the film encompasses many key ideas.
1) Time, mortality and our “lifelines”
A previous blog post was an email I sent to the author of “The Philosophy Gym” (Stephen Law). I spoke to him about the different strands of time (check out the comments of the post to see his reply).
Anyway, the intriguing question about Vanilla Sky is (and it’s another question begged by The Matrix) – who is alive? Are we alive? Are we all mindless zombies? Are we being grown for our energy? Or are we all individuals with our thoughts, opinions, judgements… our own fates?
In Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise lives a Lucid Dream – the virtual reality of his dream. Living a successful life with the woman of his dreams. It is the realisation of his ultimate hopes and dreams. But it is not real. It is a simulation.
This to me begs the question: are we able to determine our happiness? Do we need a simulation or can we achieve our goals ourself?
Are our eyes open?
What is happiness to you?
Is there such a thing as destiny? Fate?
“Every minute that passes is another opportunity to turn things around”.
2) Which part of the film was his Lucid Dream?
OK, the way they wrote it, his Lucid Dream was the bit after he “woke up” on the pavement after the night out at the club. But surely, the entire film could have been the Lucid Dream. In fact the ending of the film, his discover of LE, his “killing himself” to escape and wake up… what’s to say all that wasn’t part of a bigger encompassing Lucid Dream. And there might be another Lucid Dream encompassing that one. And so on.
Are our lives simpley Lucid Dreams? Or are we awake?
3) What is happiness?
Money? A fast car? Love?
Why are we alive? What is the point of life even in spite of happiness? Even if we are able to say “I am totally happy because I have x” – what is the point? So what? What is the difference in living a happy life and living an “unfulfilled” life?
How do we know that we are happy?
What is happiness?
These sorts of questions are the ones that will eternally fuck with the minds of philosophers and individuals who are able to question life. If I was being critical, it could be said that films like Vanilla Sky are dangerous – they needlessly make people look critically at themselves, at their lives, their goals and ambitions and serve only to posit doubt in minds, something that the vast majority of humans don’t need. It is of course possible that the underpinnings of the films like Vanilla Sky and The Matrix will simply fly way above the heads of most people – if it’s a good film then people are happy. I hope that’s the case because I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and films of that ilk since it makes me think.
Self evaluation is not a bad thing, either since if we lose sight of our goals, irrespective of the “reason” (whatever that might be) that we are here, life simply is pointless.
You’re so right, people do need to open their eyes and get a grip. People in this society are the most narrow minded and it’s so difficult to find people that will think about things in a different way. People hate change and they follow a crowd because that’s what their peers do. I find it really upsetting and frustrating that they find it ridiculous to consider new ways of thinking or living and to look at what’s actually happening in the world, the big picture as it were. Thank you for your insight, your site is great.