A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)
Title:
A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)
Year:
2001
Running
time: 2h 26 min.
Director:
Steven Spielberg
Screen
story: Ian Watson
Screenplay:
Steven Spielberg
Lead
actors: Haley Joel Osment (David), Frances O’Connor (Monica
Swinton), Sam Robards (Henry Swinton), Jake Thomas (Martin Swinton), Jude Law
(Gigolo Joe), William Hurt (Prof. Hobby).
Review of the film
A.I. is set in a futuristic society
where robots are part of everyday life. Prof. Hobby creates a robot child named
David, who has the capacity to love. However, his existence raises the
question: what is the responsibility humans have for a robot child like him?
David is introduced to the Swinton family whose real child is in a coma. David
“imprints” on the mother, Monica. The movie takes an unexpected turn when the
son, Martin, wakes up miraculously from his coma and David is kicked out of the
house for being a danger toward Martin. Monica eventually abandons David in a
forest with his mecha teddy bear, Teddy, to live among other robots as
fugitives from humans. Not only can David love, but he is also capable of
dreaming and wishing just as human would do. After listening to Monica tell the
fairy tale about Pinocchio, David leaves the forest and goes on a journey to
find the Blue Fairy and become a real boy so that he could come back to his
beloved mother, Monica.
Film Techniques
Framing
A first example of framing is when
professor Hobby was speaking during his meeting, he was portrayed at a higher
angle than everyone else in the room, which depicts his important to them, and
the power he holds over the rest of the staff at Cybertronics. Secondly, when
Monica recited the random list of words to David, a long shot of the scene was
chosen to show that David’s character changed, and to show him hugging Monica
because it is the beginning of his attachment towards her. another example of a
long shot is when the parents rescue Martin after being pulled into the water
by David, however, as he was being rescued,
David stayed at the bottom of the pool. In that scene we see that Teddy
is by the side of the pool. As the camera zooms out, there is a a long shot of
David surrounded by water, it shows how helpless
and lonely David is now that Martin is back into Monica’s life.Thirdly, when
Gigolo Joe was on top of his first client, the one who who was initially crying,
the close-up of his overpowering position (him being on top and the woman being
on the bottom) is to show his overpowering manipulative/persuasive character
into getting women into following his ideas or his orders.
Lighting
When Martin is in the frozen cubicle
as he unconscious or unresponsive, the lighting on him is light which portrays
that he is dying because the light causes him to look like an angel,
representing that he is near death. Secondly, when Henry decides to change
David into his pyjamas, Monica waits in the hallway. However, the hallway that
she is standing in, the lighting is dim and dark which can represent her
negative feelings towards the robotic child and her fear of him. The lighting
in David’s room, specifically on David, is high-key and light which can
represent that he’s the light to her darkness - that he can bring happiness
back into her life. Thirdly, when Martin is manipulating David into making him
go on a secret mission to get a piece of
Monica’s hair, half of Martin’s face is under dim lighting and the other
half is high-key lighting. These two sides of lighting can represent the two
sides that he possesses - the good and evil.
Editing
Firstly, Cross-cutting was used to
show that David and Joe are both, in some way being unjustly betrayed by people
they are portrayed to have “affection” towards. It was also a foreshadow of
their encounter. When Monica was reading Pinocchio to Martin in his bed, it
kept on cutting back and forth from them to David’s face to display his facial
expressions for he is incredibly intrigued by the story of Pinocchio. David is
captivated by Pinocchio turning into a human by Pinocchio by asking the Blue
Fairy, and feels a connection to Pinocchio because they are both characters
that wish to be real. Lastly, in the first scene, when the screen dissolves
from the ocean waves to the status in Professor Hobby’s lab to demonstrate that
advanced technology and artificial intelligence is becoming as part of nature.
Sound
On David’s first night in the
forest, he wanders around until he finds a dumpster filled with robot pieces.
He then sees abandoned robots try to search for pieces that can replace their
broken pieces. In this scene, we hear a
non-diegetic sound of suspenseful music right before a moon-shaped hot air
balloon starts changing all the robots around. The suspenseful music was
announcing that danger was arising. Another example of of diegetic sound was
when Monica and David were crying and screaming when she is abandoning him in
the forest. Their cries display the pain that letting each other go is causing
them, also displaying their attachment to each other.
Interesting techniques
For interesting techniques, firstly,
when David cut Monica’s hair, a lock of her hair fell down in slow motion. The
effect of the slow motion created an impact for Teddy was the only one who saw
the hair that David cut off, which later plays a bigger role in the movie for
that scene foreshadows its importance. As a second interesting technique,
framing and camera movement was combined when the camera was zooming for a
close-up of David’s face as Monica was reciting the code words to show how he
immediately changed characters. Lastly, an interesting effect was when David
was speaking to the Blue Fairy, however, the whole room was dark and the only
light that was seeping through was from behind her, causing her to appear
God-like. This effect made her seem powerful and magical.
Themes
A.I. questions whether or not
Artificial intelligence are able to perfectly resemble and mimic human in order
for us to be consentent to live with them without any fear or prejudice. Are we
really ready for them as we seem to believe we are? Are they ready for us? What
kind of consequences await us if we were to live with them? The movie tends to
a negative answer. In the movie, The
swinton seemed to have a hard time living with David since they decided to
abandon the robot child in the forest. David was pictured as being dangerous
for other humans like Martin.
The movie Artificial Intelligence
also explores mortality and immortality using time as a device. The author
implies that a relationship between an A.I and a Human can never be possible
since the human is destined to die and the AI destined to live forever. In the
beginning of the movie, David asked Monica whether or not she was going to be
with him forever or die. Monica answered that she was going to die but that it
wasn’t any time soon, she was going to live fifty years. David then proceeded
to ask Teddy if fifty years was a long time but Teddy killed David’s hope by
giving a negative answer to the little AI question. This part demonstrates that
human and AI perceive time differently. The time issue is again brought up
towards the end of the movie. After being frozen for two thousand years, David
is found by extraterrestrial beings that bring Monica back to live for him. But
as we all know, Monica isn’t able to live more than one day. Which proves the
point of human being weaker and in need of replacement.
Finally,
AI addresses the use of sex robots in a near future society. In this movie, we
were introduced to Gigolo Joe, an AI who has many client willing to be loved.
Throughout the movie, this character makes so many sexual jokes that we have no
other choice than to sexualize him. He is portrayed as a friendly and very funny being. It is a way to defend sex
robots and try to break the taboo surrounding their use in a near future.
Word counts: 1330
Comments on the movie
A.I is one of those movie you want
to innocently enjoy with your family and your friends because it’s a story high
in emotions and tenderness- a child robot willing to take any measure in order
to fulfill its only dream: being loved by its adoptive mother. The little
robot, David, is overfilled with determination and faith that brings nothing
but empathy for him. despite the fact that he is physically a man-made object,
he still carries out human abilities such as patience, will, which are value
that parents would like to teach their children. That is exactly what is
interesting with this movie: it appeal to all ages.
The film is not only for
entertainment purposes for it enables individuals to analyze and make
observations such as David’s behaviour and to what extent can we consider a
robot as a human? The film allows the audience to go in great depths of
thinking and spark subjects that relate to actuality. For example Gigolo Joe’s
character can be mistaken as a mere supporting role through a basic
perspective. However, through a more analytical point of view, he can easily
make a link with sex robots, erupting such as what are the consequences of such
androids on human moral values? Did the young lady toward the middle of the
movie die because of her use of for Joe’s
services?
Furthermore, Haley Joel Osment’s
acting was very impressive, despite the fact that he was only 13, he understood
what he had to show to the viewers and found the right way to show it. He had a realistic way of walking that made
us forget that he was actually a robot while keeping some rigidness to his
movement making it a little robot-like. He was able to make the viewers feel
and live with him; we were really touched by his acting. The film was admirable
due to David’s human-like appearance. While watching the film, it was easy to
forget that David was a robot due to the emotions he was experiencing that he
was self-aware. David knew that he was a robot and knew the difference between
living as a robot and living as an actual human. It was enjoyable to see the
existence of many different types of Mecha robots created to accomplish
different human needs. David’s character displayed incredible innocence that
made us sympathize with him and be able to feel distress that he felt being
neglected by the only person that he wanted love from. His innocence made the
viewers want to protect him at all cost. We often asked ourselves if it would
have been better to have a stereotypical “happy-ending” just like the fairytale
that David dreamed about, although the
plot twist ending grants more meaning to his quest. The ending may melancholy,
it implements a more powerful impact on the audience for it moves away from a
cliched ending of “Monica and David living a happily ever after”.
Aside from what we admired, we did
not like how, after 2,000 years has passed by, the new species that exist on
earth did not explain who or what they are. They have great depths of knowledge
and supernatural abilities, but did not share the information of the present
world that David was in. The species were exceedingly intriguing but it caused
a spike of curiosity of how they became what they are, for it is known that
they are robots far in the future, but if they do not have any history of
humanity itself, how were they created? Did robots create them? How were they
born? Where were these futuristic robotic species born?
★★★☆☆
Connections to the course material
1) Firstly, “A.I” focuses on the
reaction human beings might have towards David, a robot with the capacity of
loving. This problem of human-robot relationships is establish in the
definition of “uncanny valley”, where the human like appearance of a robot
increases the positive and emphatic response from a human towards it. As David
seeks the love of Monica through the entire movie, he also gains the approval
of a crowd that resents robots; his human like appearance makes it possible for
them to spare David’s life whereas it would not be likely to happen with other
robots in the movie.
2) Furthermore, we could also put
into perspective David’s sentience. Sentience is subjective perceptual experience. It is to perceive, to
know and to become aware of ourselves and our surrounding using our thinkings
and senses. He is capable of feeling jealous and frustrated when he
realizes he is not special after all. He is aware of other people and himself
as an individual, therefore we could assume he has a consciousness. He has a
pain defense mechanism for he claims to love Monica and he is capable of
daydreaming and pursuing his dreams. Throughout the movie we seem to experience
David’s journey from his point of view, thus we could assume he is sentient,
but how can we be sure? Certainly his brain is not the same as humans, but he
raises the hard problems of consciousness. We cannot beyond doubt classify him
as completely robot because we are not experiencing what he itself can
experience.
3) Lastly, at the beginning of the
film, during the meeting about making robotic children that can love, Professor
Allen was asked by a staff member if it was possible to get a human to love those
Mechas back, but then later added on “If a robot genuinely loves a person, what
responsibility does that person hold toward that Mecha in return?” The concept
of Ethics is implemented into these questions for they question morality as a
whole. If we love them as they love us, do we treat them as humans? Questions
arise about having the same responsibilities over them as we would have over
another being who loved us as we loved them, for example, we would care for
them, do what we can to make them happy, be there for them, etc.
Questions
●
Are David’s actions really out of
feelings or are they instead fruits of sophisticated programming? Explain.
●
Should sex robots be sexual
workers? Do you think we should morally accept them?
●
Would you be willing to adopt a
child robot thinking that you will without any doubt die and live it behind?
Links
ELLIQ
is a social robot designed to keep company to the elderly. It delivers
information via text message or on social media, about close family members and
allows the owner to respond and react in a short time. It also acts as a
reminder for the owner, other than keeping them company on the every day
routine.
Jibo
is a social robot designed to interact with adults on the everyday life. It can
recognize different voices and acquire knowledge about the subjects in order to
make the owner’s experience more pleasant. Jibo listens and respond according
to the subject's personality, it is able to inform the owners about the news,
the weather, practical information and reminders set by the subject.
Works Cited
3 Out of 5 Star Rating System. Digital Image. The News Wheel. 8 July, 2015. Web. April
15,
2018.
“A.I. Artificial Intelligence”. IMDb. IMDb.com. 29 June
2001.
A.I.
Artificial Intelligence. Directed by Steven Spielberg,
performance by Haley Joel Osment, Frances
O’Connor, Sam Robards, William Hurt,
Jude Law. Warner Bros, Picture and Dreamworks Pictures. 2001
Kelly Mckinney. ‘‘Study Guide on Consciousness” Knowing the inner self, 345-101 MQ
Accessed 14 April 2018.
Wikipedia. "A.I.
Artificial Intelligence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence#Cast
Accessed 10 March
2018.
