| Dark City | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Alex Proyas |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by | Alex Proyas |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Dariusz Wolski |
| Edited by | Dov Hoenig |
| Music by | Trevor Jones |
Production company | Mystery Clock Cinema |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes[1] |
| Countries |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $27 million[2] |
| Box office | $27.2 million[3] |
Dark City is a 1998neo-noirscience fiction film directed, co-written, and co-produced byAlex Proyas. It starsRufus Sewell,William Hurt,Kiefer Sutherland,Jennifer Connelly,Richard O'Brien, andIan Richardson. The screenplay was written by Proyas,Lem Dobbs, andDavid S. Goyer. In the film, Sewell plays anamnesiac man who, finding himself suspected of murder, attempts to discover his true identity and clear his name while on the run from the police and a mysterious group known as the "Strangers".[4]
Primarily shot atFox Studios Australia, the film was jointly produced byNew Line Cinema and Proyas's production company Mystery Clock Cinema, and distributed by the former for theatrical release. It premiered in the United States on 27 February 1998 and received generally positive critiques.Roger Ebert, in particular, supported the film, appreciating its art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects, and imagination, and even recorded anaudio commentary for the film's home video release.
The film was nominated for theHugo Award forBest Dramatic Presentation and sixSaturn Awards. Some critics later notedDark City's similarities to and influence on theMatrix film series, whosefirst installment came out a year later,[5][6][7] and the film is now widely considered a sci-ficult classic.[8][9][10][11]
Concerned that audiences would not understand the film, New Line asked Proyas to add an explanatory voice-over to the introduction, and he complied. When adirector's cut of the film was released in 2008, among the changes was the removal of the opening narration.
John Murdoch awakens in a hotel bathtub with amnesia. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber, who urges him to flee the hotel to evade a group of men who are after him. In the room, Murdoch discovers the corpse of a ritualistically murdered woman and a bloody knife. He flees the scene, just as a group of pale men in trenchcoats ("the Strangers") arrive.
Police Inspector Frank Bumstead, who is investigating murdered prostitutes, identifies Murdoch as a suspect. Following clues, Murdoch learns his name and finds out he has a wife named Emma. When the Strangers corner him, Murdoch instinctivelyalters reality (an ability the Strangers share and refer to astuning) to create an escape path for himself.
Murdoch wanders the streets of the city where it is perpetually nighttime but no one seems to notice. When the clock strikes twelve, Murdoch witnesses everyone else fall asleep and the Strangers usetuning to physically rearrange the city's architecture. Afterwards, assisted by Schreber, the Strangers change the inhabitants' memories using an injection containing the new memories. Murdoch learns that he came from a coastal town called Shell Beach, which everyone knows, though no one remembers how to get there and Murdoch's attempts to visit fail. The Strangers inject a copy of the memories given to Murdoch into one of their men, Mr. Hand, hoping it will help them predict Murdoch's movements and track him down.
Inspector Bumstead catches Murdoch, though he acknowledges that Murdoch is most likely innocent, as he has misgivings about the city's nature. They confront Schreber, who explains the Strangers' nature. They areextra-terrestrials residing in human corpses who share ahive mind, and are experimenting with humans to analyze individuality in hopes of making a discovery that will help their race to survive. Murdoch, as Schreber reveals, is an anomaly who inadvertently awoke before Schreber could implant his latest identity as a murderer.
Murdoch and Bumstead take Schreber and attempt to reach Shell Beach but instead end up at a poster for the town on a wall at the edge of the city. Frustrated, Murdoch and Bumstead break through the wall, revealing outer space, just before some of the Strangers, including Mr. Hand, arrive with Emma as a hostage. In the ensuing fight, Bumstead and one of the Strangers fall through the hole and drift out into space, and the city is shown to be a deep space habitat surrounded by aforce field.
The Strangers bring Murdoch to their home beneath the city and force Schreber to imprint Murdoch with theircollective memory, believing Murdoch to be the culmination of their experiments. Against their order, Schreber instead injects Murdoch with memories of decades of training about the Strangers, their machines, andtuning. Murdoch awakens with his powers fully realized. He frees himself and battles the Strangers, eventually defeating their leader Mr. Book in a psychokinetic fight high above the city.
After learning from Schreber that Emma has been re-imprinted and cannot be restored, Murdoch employs his powers, amplified by the Strangers' machines, to create a real Shell Beach within the habitat. On his way home, Murdoch encounters a dying Mr. Hand and informs him that the Strangers searched in the wrong place—the mind—to understand humanity. He rotates the habitat toward the star it had been turned away from and the city experiences sunlight for the first time.
Opening a door leading out of the city, Murdoch steps out to view the sunrise. On the pier in front of him is the woman he knew as Emma, who now has new memories and a new identity as Anna. Murdoch reintroduces himself and they walk to Shell Beach, beginning their relationship anew.
Anita Kelsey provided the singing voice of Emma Murdoch.
ForDark City, Proyas was influenced byfilm noir of the 1940s and the 1950s, such asThe Maltese Falcon (1941),[12] but also elements from the 60s and 70s were included in the movie.[13] The film has been described asKafkaesque, and Proyas cited the TV seriesThe Twilight Zone as an influence.[14] Proyas wanted the film, though nominally science fiction, to have an element of horror to unsettle the audience.[15]
Proyas conceived a story about a 1940s detective who is obsessed with facts and cannot solve a case where the facts do not make sense, saying, "He slowly starts to go insane through the story. He can't put the facts together because they don't add up to anything rational".[16] In the process of creating the fictional world for the character of the detective, Proyas created other characters and shifted the focus of the film from the detective (Bumstead) to the person pursued by the detective (Murdoch). Proyas envisioned a robust narrative where the audience could examine the film from the perspective of several characters and focus on the plot.[12]
After writing the first draft of the screenplay by himself, Proyas worked withLem Dobbs andDavid S. Goyer to create the final script. Goyer had writtenThe Crow: City of Angels (1996), the sequel to Proyas's 1994 filmThe Crow, and Proyas invited Goyer to co-writeDark City after reading Goyer's screenplay forBlade, which had yet to be released. TheWriters Guild of America initially protested against the crediting of more than two screenwriters for a film but relented and credited all three writers.[17]
When Proyas finished his preceding film,The Crow, in 1994, he approached production designerPatrick Tatopoulos to draw concepts for the world in whichDark City takes place.[18] The city was built on a set, and no practical locations were used in the film.[16] Describing the city, Tatopoulos said,
The movie takes place everywhere, and it takes place nowhere. It's a city built of pieces of cities. A corner from one place, another from some place else. So, you don't really know where you are. A piece will look like a street in London, but a portion of the architecture looks like New York, but the bottom of the architecture looks again like a European city. You're there, but you don't know where you are. It's like every time you travel, you'll be lost.[19]
The production design included themes of darkness, spirals and clocks. There appears to be no sun in the city's world and spiral designs that shrink when approached were used. The Strangers' large clock does not have any numbers and Tatopoulos said "But in a magical moment it becomes something more than just a clock".[19] The production designer created the city architecture to have an organic presence alongside the structural elements.[20]
The Strangers' lair is a large underground amphitheater, in which a sculpture of a human face hides a large clock and a spiralling device changes the layout of the city above. The set for the lair was fifty ft (15 m) in height, while an average set is thirty-six ft (11 m), and was built on a fairground in Sydney, Australia. The film's budget was approximately $27 million, so the crew used inexpensive techniques to build the set, such as stretching canvas onto welded metal frames.[21] The lair also had a rail conveyance that appeared expensive. Tatopoulos said "We had, obviously, a car built, but we had just one built. We laid some rail for it to ride on. We made a section of corridor that we kept driving through all the time and you end up believing this thing is running along forever". Proyas wanted the rail car to pass various rooms, which was not feasible given the budget, so Tatopoulos and the crew used "replaceable elements and strong design textures" to give the impression it was passing different rooms.[22]
The Strangers are energy beings who reside in dead human bodies. At the beginning of the design process, the filmmakers considered having the Strangers resemble insects, but they decided the bug appearance was overused. Tatopoulos said one day Proyas "called me and said he wanted something like an energy that kept re-powering itself, re-creating itself, re-shaping itself, sitting inside a dry piece of human shape".[23]
About the character of Mr Hand, Proyas said: "I had Richard in mind physically when I wrote the character, because I had these strange, bald-looking men with an ethereal, androgynous quality", and O'Brien had famously played a similar character (Riff Raff) inThe Rocky Horror Show. When Proyas visited London to cast the film, he met with O'Brien and found him suitable for the role.[15]
Daniel P. Schreber, the character portrayed byKiefer Sutherland, was named afterDaniel Paul Schreber, a German judge with narcissistic, paranoidpsychosis, and possiblyschizophrenia, whose autobiographicalMemoirs of My Nervous Illness (Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken) (1903) inspired some elements of the film's plot.[24][25][26]William Hurt was originally asked to play Dr Schreber before eventually being cast as Inspector Bumstead.[15] Proyas said thatBen Kingsley was one of the original choices to portray Dr Schreber.[27] When Sutherland received the script he didn't understand why it was sent to him, thinking it was a mistake and that they wanted his fatherDonald.[28]
The film'ssoundtrack was released on 24 February 1998 byTVT Records.[29] It features music from the originalscore byTrevor Jones, and versions of the songs "Sway" and "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" performed by singerAnita Kelsey. It also includes music by Hughes Hall from thetrailer[30] a song byEcho & the Bunnymen that played over the final credits, as well as songs byGary Numan andCourse of Empire that did not appear in the film. The music for the film was edited by Simon Leadley and Jim Harrison.[31]
New Line Cinema wanted the filmmakers to consider retitling the filmDark World orDark Empire to help differentiate it from the recently releasedMad City, butDark City was kept as the title.[12] The film was originally scheduled to be released in theaters on 17 October 1997,[17] then 9 January 1998,[12] and finally 27 February 1998, when it debuted in 1,754 theaters in the United States.[3]
ARegion 1widescreenDVD of the film was released in the United States on 29 July 1998. Special features on the DVD included two audio commentary tracks (one with film critic Roger Ebert, and one with director Alex Proyas, writers Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer, and production designer Patrick Tatopoulos), cast and crew biographies and filmographies, comparisons to Fritz Lang'sMetropolis, set design drawings, and the theatrical trailer.[32] The film was released onlaserdisc in the United States on 12 August 1998. Special features were an audio commentary track by writer/director Alex Proyas, screenwriters Lem Dobbs & David Goyer, production designer Patrick Tatopoulos and director of photography Dariusz Wolski on the left analogue track and a Theatrical Trailer on chapter 19. The right analogue track contained a Dolby Digital / AC3 5.1 soundtrack. The film was also released onVHS on March 2, 1999.[33]
A director's cut ofDark City was officially released onDVD andBlu-ray disc on 29 July 2008. The director's cut removes the opening narration, which Proyas felt explained too much of the plot, and includes approximately eleven minutes of additional footage, most of which extend scenes already present in the theatrical release with additional establishing shots and dialogue.[34] The DVD and Blu-ray feature expanded audio commentaries by Ebert, Proyas, and Dobbs and Goyer, along with several new documentaries. The Blu-ray also includes the original theatrical cut of the film and the special features from the 1998 DVD release.
Among mainstream critics in the U.S., the film received generally positive reviews.[35] On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 77% of 90 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Stylishly gloomy, Dark City offers a polarizing whirl of arresting visuals and noirish action."[36] OnMetacritic, the film has aweighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics.[35] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B-“ on an A+ to F scale.
No movie can ever have too much atmosphere, andDark City exudes it from every frame of celluloid. Proyas' world isn't just a playground for his characters to romp in—it's an ominous place where viewers can get lost. We don't just coolly observe the bizarre, ever-changing skyline; we plunge into the city's benighted depths, following the protagonist as he explores the secrets of this grim place where the sun never shines.Dark City has as stunning a visual texture as that of any movie that I've seen.
Writing in theChicago Sun-Times,Roger Ebert called the film a "great visionary achievement", while also exclaiming that it was "a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination likeMetropolis and2001: A Space Odyssey."[38] In theSan Francisco Chronicle, Peter Stack wrote that the film was "among the most memorable cinematic ventures in recent years", and "maybe there's nothing wrong with a movie that is simply sensational to look at." He felt the film's "twisting of reality and its daring look—layered and off-kilter grays, greens and blacks—make it click."[39] In a mixed review, Walter Addiego ofThe San Francisco Examiner thought that "as a story,Dark City doesn't amount to much", its "complicated plot" containing important themes that were "no more than window dressing", but that "what counts here is the show, the creation of a strange world by a filmmaker who clearly knows science fiction and fantasy, past and present, and wants to share his love for it."[40]
Unimpressed by the film, Marc Savlov ofThe Austin Chronicle wrote: "You really have to feel for Alex Proyas. This guy wears bad luck like the grimy trenchcoats of his protagonists, only his zipper's stuck and he can't seem to shake the damn thing off." He felt "Dark City looks like a million bucks (or rather, a million bucks gone to compost), but at its dark heart it's a tedious, bewildering affair, lovely to look at but with all the substance of a dissipating dream."[41] Left equally disappointed was John Anderson of theLos Angeles Times, who said of the directing that "If you had to guess, you might say that Proyas came out of the world of comic art himself, rather than music videos and advertising.Dark City is constructed like panels in aBatman book, each picture striving for maximum dread", and that Proyas was "trying simultaneously to create a pure thriller and sci-fi nightmare along with his tongue-in-cheek critique of artifice. And this doesn't work out quite so well."[42] Author TCh ofTime Out felt that the development of the Murdoch character was "surprisingly engrossing" and thought the "art direction is always striking, and unlike most contemporary sci-fi, the movie does risk a cerebral approach, tapping a vein of postmodern paranoia."[43]
Richard Corliss ofTime said the film was "as cool and distant as the planet the Strangers come from. But, Lord, isDark City a wonder to see."[44]James Berardinelli writing forReelViews, remarked that "Visually, this film isn't just impressive, it's a tour de force." and noted that "Dark City opens by immersing the audience in the midst of a fractured, nightmarish narrative."[37] Berardinelli also said "Dark City appears to be New York during the first half of this century, but, using a style that is part science fiction, part noir thriller, and part gothic horror, [Proyas] has embellished it to create a surreal place unlike no other."[37] Describing some pitfalls, Jeff Vice of theDeseret News said that "when critics talk about films being 'style over substance', they're definitely talking about movies likeDark City, which looks good but leaves an unpleasant aftertaste."[45] He was quick to admit that "The special effects and set designs are dazzling", but ultimately felt "Proyas makes a crucial error in treating the subject even more seriously thanThe Crow, and the dialogue (co-written by Proyas andThe Crow: City of Angels scriptwriter David S. Goyer) is unintentionally funny at times and often just plain dumb."[45]
What they have done is taken a few second-hand ideas from noir and speculative fiction and mixed them in occasionally striking ways, even if, in the end, the result isn't all that much fun.
Andrea Basora ofNewsweek, stated that director Proyas flooded the screen with "cinematic and literary references ranging fromMurnau andLang toKafka andOrwell, creating a unique yet utterly convincing world".[47] Similarly, David Sterritt wrote inThe Christian Science Monitor that "The story is dark and often violent, but it's told with a remarkable sense of visual energy and imagination."[48] Marshall Fine ofUSA Today found the film to be "Fascinating, visionary filmmaking", and said that "With its amber-tinged palette and its distinctively dystopian view of life, it may be the most unique-looking film we've seen in ages", but said that it "defies logic and makes frightening and unexpected leaps."[49]Stephen Holden ofThe New York Times wrote that the "plot thatDark City builds on John's predicament is a confused affair" and that the film's premise is "unsettling enough to make you wonder if it could actually derail a seriously drug-addled mind."[50]
Steve Biodrowski ofCinefantastique found the production design and the cinematography overwhelming, but he considered the narrative engagement of Sewell's amnesiac character to be ultimately successful, writing: "As the story progresses, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and we gradually realize that the film is not a murky muddle of visuals propping up a weak story. All the questions lead to answers, and the answers make sense within the fantasy framework." He comparedDark City to Proyas's preceding film,The Crow, in style, but foundDark City to introduce new themes and to be a "more thoroughly consistent" film.[51] Biodrowski concluded that "Dark City may not provide profound answers, but it deals seriously with a profound idea, and does it in a way that is cathartic and even uplifting, without being contrived or condescending. As a technical achievement, it is superb, and that technique is put in the service of telling a story that would be difficult to realize any other way."[52]
Its opening weekend in theaters,Dark City grossed $5,576,953, enough to place fourth at the box office;[3]Titanic, which had been released ten weeks earlier, grossed $19,633,056 and was still number one.[53] The following weekend, it earned $2,837,941 (a decrease of 49.1%) and dropped to ninth place, whileTitanic remained in first with grosses totaling $17,605,849.[54]
During its four-week theatrical run, the film earned $14,378,331 domestically. Internationally, it took in an additional $12,821,985, for a combined worldwide box office total of $27,200,316.[3] The film's cumulative gross was the 105th-highest of 1998.[55]
The film won and was nominated for several awards in 1998. Film criticRoger Ebert cited it as the best film of 1998,[56][57] and in 2005 he included it on his "Great Movies" list.[58] Ebert used it in his teaching, and also recorded anaudio commentary for the originalDVD and the 2006 Director's Cut.[58] The film was screened out of competition at the1998 Cannes Film Festival.[59]
| Award | Category | Name | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival | Silver Scream Award | Alex Proyas | Won |
| Bram Stoker Award | Best Screenplay | Alex Proyas,Lem Dobbs, andDavid S. Goyer | Won (tied withGods and Monsters) |
| Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film | Pegasus Audience Award | Alex Proyas | Won |
| Film Critics Circle of Australia | Best Screenplay – Original | Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer | Won (tied withThe Interview) |
| Hugo Award | Best Dramatic Presentation | Nominated | |
| International Horror Guild Award | Best Movie | Nominated | |
| National Board of Review | Special Recognition | Won | |
| Saturn Award | Best Science Fiction Film | Won (tied withArmageddon) | |
| Best Costume | Liz Keogh | Nominated | |
| Best Director | Alex Proyas | Nominated | |
| Best Make-Up | Bob McCarron,Lesley Vanderwalt, and Lynn Wheeler | Nominated | |
| Best Special Effects | Andrew Mason, Mara Bryan, Peter Doyle, and Tom Davies | Nominated | |
| Best Writer | Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer | Nominated |
One of the things that we're exploring in this film, is what it is that makes us who we are. And, when you strip an individual of his identity, is there some spark, some essence there that keeps them being human, gives them some sort of identity?
The theologianGerard Loughlin interpretedDark City as a retelling ofPlato'sAllegory of the Cave. For Loughlin, the city dwellers are prisoners who do not realize they are in a prison. John Murdoch's escape from the prison parallels the escape from the cave in the allegory. He is assisted by Dr. Schreber, who explains the city's mechanism as Socrates explains to Glaucon how the shadows in the cave are cast. Murdoch becomes more than Glaucon, "He is a Glaucon who comes to realize that Socrates' tale of an upper, more real world, is itself a shadow, a forgery".[61] Murdoch defeats the Strangers, who control the inhabitants, and remakes the world based on childhood memories, illusions arranged by the Strangers. He casts new shadows for the city inhabitants, who must trust his judgment. Unlike Plato, Murdoch "is disabused of any hope of an outside" and becomes thedemiurge for the cave, the only environment he knows. Of the lack of background provided in the film, Loughlin said "The origin of the city is off-stage, unknown and unknowable".[61]
The city inDark City was described by Sarah L. Higley as a "murky, nightmarishGerman expressionistfilm noir depiction of urban repression and mechanism". It has aWorld War II-era dreariness reminiscent ofEdward Hopper's works, as well as details from different eras and architectures, from the 1940s to the 1960s, that are changed by the Strangers "buildings collapse as others emerge and battle with one another at the end". The round window of Murdoch's hotel room is concave, like a fishbowl and is a frequently seen element throughout the city. The inhabitants do not live at the top of the city; the main characters' homes are dwarfed by thebricolage of buildings.[62]
The film contains motifs fromGreek mythology, in which gods manipulate humans to serve a higher agenda. Proyas said "I do like Greek mythology and have read a little of it, so maybe some of it has crept into the work, though I don't completely agree with that point of view".[63]
The film's style is often compared to that of the works ofTerry Gilliam (especiallyBrazil).[64][65][66][67][68][69] Some stylistic similarities have also been noted toJean-Pierre Jeunet andMarc Caro's 1995 filmThe City of Lost Children,[70][71] another film that was particularly inspired by Gilliam (Gilliam had presented Jeunet's and Caro's previous filmDelicatessen (1991), which was a deliberate homage to Gilliam's style, in North America[72][73]).
The Matrix, which was released one year afterDark City, was also filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney, and it even used some ofDark City's sets.[58] Comparisons of the two films have made note of similarities incinematography, atmosphere, and plot.[74]
Fritz Lang's 1927 filmMetropolis was a major influence on the architecture, concepts about the baseness of humans within a metropolis, and the general tone ofDark City.[75] In one of the documentary shorts included on the director's cut home video releases of the film, the influence of theearly German filmsM andNosferatu are also mentioned.
One of the last scenes of the movie, in which buildings "restore" themselves, is similar to the last panel of theAkiramanga, and Proyas has called the film's final battle an "homage toOtomo'sAkira".[76]Dark City has also drawn comparisons to theanime filmsUrusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984)[77][78] andMegazone 23 (1985),[79] as well as the 1993video gameGadget Invention, Travel, & Adventure.[80]
WhenChristopher Nolan first started thinking about writing the script forInception, he was influenced by "that era of movies where you hadThe Matrix, you hadDark City, you hadThe Thirteenth Floor and, to a certain extent, you hadMemento, too. They were based in the principles that the world around you might not be real".[81]
Mask of the Evil Apparition, a short film written and directed by Proyas, set in theDark City world, was released in 2021. The film was distributed only through Proyas' streaming platformVidiVerse. During a Q&A session after a screening of the short film, Proyas revealed he was in the early stages of developing aDark City series.[82]
And so for me, the love story aspect of this film, the love affair between Murdoch and his wife, that kind of grows and sort of comes to a culmination in this scene, [Scene 12, "Do You Remember?"] is for me exploring that idea, and how, when you take away both of these people, these character's identity, is there something left, something that they acknowledge or recognize within each other, that is expressed as love for each other? For me the question is, if there was a man and a woman who were in love who were married let's say, and who had been together for a very long time, if by some strange procedure they could have their memories erased, and then they would re-meet, would they fall in love again? Is love some kind of a force that rules us beyond our identification with each other and ourselves? My feeling is that's probably the case. I don't think any scientist has fully resolved why two people amongst the many millions of people in the world and the many thousands they might meet, why you find a partner and have this bond with a particular person. So my belief is that it is a very fundamental aspect of the way we function as human beings and that perhaps it's something that rules us, that drugs us in ways we can't explain or understand.
The production design by Jean Rabasse is marvelous. The city is dark and damp, all stairs and walkways. It clearly served as inspiration for DARK CITY three years later—- one scene even features sharply inclined risers filled with members of the cyclops cult just like those used by the cenobites in the later film.
The film is similar in theme and execution to the slightly betterDark City.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). Mystery Clock Forum. Retrieved 29 July 2006.
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