Her has a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has been nominated for an Academy Award for best picture. How, I don’t know. It was a thematic mess. Science fiction has a convention of comparing humans and robots to explore the essence of humanity. Human to robot relationships are often involved. It seems formulaic, so formulaic that a movie with a premise like Her is (well, I thought it would be) pretty predictable. And yet, the formula works. You want to stick to the basic formula, because the philosophical issues raised are so interesting. Her did a terrible job at sticking to this formula. In an attempt to be original, she shot herself in the foot.
So, what is the formula? Take a robot of comparable intelligence to a human, like a cylon (Battlestar Galactica treats this formula with particular brilliance.) or a replicant, and put them around humans. See what happens. What happens is reassessment. Robots like this are, for practical purposes, humanity expressed in purely materialistic terms; the plot device of humans versus robots is not necessary to imagine the possibility of or think of the implications of materialism, but it puts these questions in a narrative form that makes them more compelling. Robots make us rethink all the things we hold dear, the things that we attribute mystical qualities to, like consciousness and love. At once the hallowed and romantic is brought down, and the material and vulgar is elevated. Any rationale we have for distrusting robots is a reflection of why we distrust each other. How can you trust something with hardware, without a soul? Well, if there’s no reason to suspect that humans have souls, then it merits wondering why we trust each other. The extreme end of this issue begs the question: is the universe solipsistic? Have the people that Blogger says have visited my blog actually done so? Or is this a projection of a mind in a tank? More reasonably, can we trust the sincerity of anyone? It is a sign of misinterpretation if you think evolutionary-psychological explanations of social behaviors that speak in terms of acts in accordance with cost/benefit analyses (e.g. people do each other favors in order to increase their social capital) are literal and not metaphorical. Then again, we can never be sure what others are thinking. And certainly - though they may be in the minority - some people act consciously in a tit-for-tat manner. On the other hand, the knowledge that we act with sincerity, even if a logical analysis would tell us otherwise, suggests that biology does not impose iron-clad limits upon us. The beauty of a prefrontal cortex is that it allows us to transcend our instinctual impulses. Those impulses are not always bad, either. Experiencing the use of skills that we cannot seemingly account for - the automatic ability that comes with experience - makes it hard to denigrate the subconscious fruits that a battery of 200 billion interconnected neurons makes possible.
What do robots tell us about love? They tell us that love is no more than engorged sexual organs, and the instinct to pass on our genes, among other things. And yet they tell us that it is so much more than this. Physical contact augments emotional connection; the two are intertwined. One complements the other, to form an exalted unity. But this is a bit glib, and ignores the interesting contradictions and cognitive dissonances that arise from something that can only be more than material, and yet is consummated with a singularly material union. The feeling that love cannot be material is in fact what makes its material nature so incredible. As misleading as it is to say that materialism in no way implies vulgarity, and so can be embraced without hesitation is as misleading as the romantic notion that love does not require, and is in fact enhanced by, the complete lack of physicality.
Her made the mistake of buying into the latter conception of love, the Hallmark conception. I think every problem in the movie is exemplified by one scene, where the protagonist Twombly “has sex” with his operating system girlfriend. This scene holds the honorable distinction of being the worst sex scene I’ve ever “seen.” (Whether I can say I saw this scene is a question that must be asked for reasons that will become clear.) Yes, even worse than the pony-tail sex scene from Avatar. Anyway, this was supposed to be the climax of a blossoming relationship, and would’ve been completely justified had Samantha been in possession of a physical body. But since she doesn’t, and just to drive home the point that love is not in thrall to petty physicality, they have phone sex. What else can you call it? They talk and moan and then Twombly comes. Conveniently, as their conversation gets more intense, the screen fades to black, simultaneously enhancing the “beauty” of this scene for the average viewer, and covering up the decidedly unromantic image of a middle aged man masturbating to a voice in his bed. Sorry, but I don’t think you can fall in love with a voice, just as much as you can’t fall in love with a real doll. It would have been interesting to have something patently ridiculous spun into love from the other end of the spectrum. I’m sure audiences wouldn’t have responded as well to a movie about a guy who, after a routine session of having sex with his real doll, decides to have a stimulating conversation with “her,” discussing the physical and spiritual aspects of love while having tea and scones. If there’s anything edifying about this scene, it’s the prevalence of the Hallmark school of thought when it comes to love. In a land known for its repression of sexuality, I suppose this shouldn’t be a surprise.
The end result was an unbelievable movie, which asked none of the questions a movie of this type should’ve asked. There was no questioning of their love. The movie made it clear, this is love and you’re gonna believe it or else. Spike Jonze was so confident in the unalloyed beauty of their love that he made clear to emphasize it in every scene by packing as many excruciatingly slow panning shots across stereotypically beautiful landscapes (beaches) as he could into the movie, turning a half an hour plot into a two hour audio/visual tranquilizer. This movie might be more boring than Ender’s Game and that movie with George Clooney where they smoke and play jazz while talking about how great being liberal is for two hours. I could not accept this, and I could not sympathize with any of the characters as a consequence. How could a character, a supposedly well-adjusted man that had a long term relationship with a woman without any major physical or psychological defects become a Manti Te’o, and still be realistic? Actually, the point where Samantha temporarily “dies” (which, by the way, was an extremely lazy way to elicit an emotional response from the audience) had me jumping with joy. If a movie makes one happy at the deaths of the characters, something must be wrong with it.
As a much better example of human and robot love, Blade Runner is a must see. Although the love of Deckard and Rachael is basically initiated by rape, this movie sticks to the science fiction formula (actually based on a piece of science fiction canon that pioneered this sub genre, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), and addresses it with verve. It addresses the questions that humans and robots relations elicit, with an aesthetic that would make this movie worth watching if it were a silent film with no plot. Since it does have a plot, what you get is analogous to Tron, at least if Tron had a compelling story to boot. The movie combines film noir with science fiction dystopia, in visual and audio, with a haunting soundtrack by Vangelis that deserves to be called a piece of art itself. Vangelis has a knack for exploiting the suffusive drone of synthesizers, exemplified by “Blade Runner Blues.” Of special mention is the combination of his aloof but beautiful synth textures with the raw, filthy, and Barry White-esque sensuality of the saxophone in Blade Runner’s “Love Theme.” The unique aesthetic of Blade Runner make it the best rain movie I’ve seen, hands down.
Love and robots can also be found in the Buggles song, “I Love You Miss Robot.” As well as Vangelis, the Buggles tap the potential of synth to express aloofness in a way that complements the melancholy theme of the song quite nicely. The song describes the perfection of robotic love, ruefully tempered by the lack of trust engendered by a synthetic being, and its conditional aspect. This melancholy of this song also serves to contrast it with the rest of the album, The Plastic Age, which is relatively upbeat. The songs definitely deserve to be experienced sequentially, as the album is fantastic.
Passing mention should go to Kraftwerk’s song, “Computer Love.” Though spare in lyrics and consequently in interpretations, this song is quite good. Kraftwerk’s pioneering sound, expressive yet sterile and minimalistic, deserves its own post.
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