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I guess my point is that the 'form' of The Matrix affects its content. This is because the film begins 'philosophically' and is engaging with an audience on a level of 'what if', ontological speculation and man and machine (add your own). This is based around a set of moral judgements; that the Matrix is bad because it oppresses humans. That's made very clear and not just because we are both told it is bad, and make an moral judgement that oppression is bad, but because of the way we see the trapped humans: body horror and slime. The form of the imprisonment thus affect the content of the empirical fact 'humans are imprisoned'. This moral structure is then completely undermined as Neo and the audience (because the special effects are so damn cool) begin to enjoy the matrix. This again is because of the form that the action is presented in - Bullet Time -, the pounding music and fast edits. The form of the movie makes us enjoy the very thing that it told us we should hate. It is not even a sense of 'working within the system' which the rebels must of course do, and real life revolutionaries and reformers must acknowledge. But a Marxist will probably not revel in consumersim, or if they do they will be aware of it and admit their contradicitons. The Matrix does not admit that it is a contradiction - mostly because it can't a Product but probably because the Wachowski's donm't realise its contradictory either. The Matrix does contain truth, but this truth is blurred into falsity due to the way in which the form affects one's judgement of the content. Yes, these issues can be raised outside the film in themselves, but in examining the film itself we have to see that the 'philosophy' in it is half-baked and only there to give an intellectual-esque thrill, as well as a specutacular one. >So clearly, they are not properly evaluated when they are only interpreted as integrally linked to - in this case - the film methods we see in The Matrix. But as you say they can be looked at outisde the film - I guess it depends whether you see films as simply 'raising questions' that must then be judged separated from the film, or include the film as part of a philosophical debate - and while The Matrix is included in this debate, it does not stand up to philosophical interrorgation because it is incoherent, due to its form which confuses the meaning of the content. -----Original Message----- From: Film-Philosophy Salon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of james lomax Sent: 29 March 2003 01:32 To: Matt Crowder Subject: matrix reply 3 <<<There is no real divide between form and content>>> Those ideas existed before they were intersected with technological symbolism. And they could still be expressed in other ways. So clearly, they are not properly evaluated when they are only interpreted as integrally linked to - in this case - the film methods we see in The Matrix. If the ideas existed before the film ever existed, they are not wholly subject to a form or Matrix-specific analysis. Therefore, for analytic purposes you cannot merge the two things. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com