"Total Recall" fits nicely in 2007 as stylized portrayal of reality
Total Recall
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
TriStar Pictures, Carolco
113 minutes
Rated R
1990
(Special Edition DVD; Artisan Entertainment, 2005)
Reviewed 2007 August 11
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the further clarification of the principal contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations, there has been a decrease in the intellectual content of amerikan movies for reasons that reflect the united $tates' new political, economic and cultural position. "Total Recall," originally released in 1990, deserves renewed consideration in light of the decadence of Hollywood since "Recall"'s release, a highly publicized war against an oppressed nations, and DVD releases of "Total Recall" since 9/11 that mean an increase in viewing and possible contemplation of the movie by people interested in politics.
"Total Recall"'s place in analysis
With movies in general, it is important to understand that there is no mainstream movie playing or selling in the English-speaking imperialist countries that is revolutionary, "Matrix" included. There are only various shades of petty-bourgeois thought, and individualist movies with varying degrees of nationalism or postmodern movies that ultimately reinforce individualism and petty-bourgeois thinking. This is what the proletariat has to maneuver in to make headway with the First World majority in movies: shades of bourgeois thought. It may be that truly revolutionary movies that can't be used by the oppressors can only have an impact among elites, lumpens, or scattered middle-class people.
With "Total Recall" (TR), which depicts revolutionary struggle, there are three ways of looking at the movie that are appropriate and consistent with Maoism.
One is to think about how TR would differ from a movie made in a socialist people's republic or under a proletarian dictatorship over an oppressor-majority nation. This could be an idealist comparison if not approached the right way, but movies are useful for people to think about so they can imagine what culture would look like with the oppressed in power. All three approaches to evaluating movies mentioned here are of course relevant to party-building, because the purpose of any uniquely Maoist movie review is instructive, but this approach in particular applied in the First World context represents a party-building orientation. This is because the goal, regardless of the language or style used, is to get more people interested in revolutionary science so they can wield it, leading to some kind of new or expanded party or pre-party organization or activity. The emphasis is on getting people to envision communist society or the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than thinking about the strategy needed to get to that point or how movies compare with each other. (In addition to party-building versus public opinion, there is a question of widening versus deepening in party-building, and the error that too much emphasis on widening may represent.)
Another approach to considering TR is to examine the movie for the lessons it provides or does not provides on strategy and tactics for revolution. In this case, even the most reactionary or backward movie may be of some use, because some aspects of it may be useful for illustration purposes. A movie doesn't need to be revolutionary for people to learn something from it that is useful strategically. So, an "X-Men" movie may be reactionary, but does it have anything to offer as far as an illustration for a lesson about united fronts.
Finally, there is the approach or standard involved in imagining what proletarian infiltration of bourgeois culture would look like and what an ideal movie would be in that context: what a movie that hits the nail on the head would be in terms of the inroads that can be made by the proletariat in bourgeois movies. In specific terms of the division tactics that are central to revolutionary work in oppressor nations, the question is how effective a movie is in dividing exploiters and nudging some of them in a direction that they should and can be pushed in. The comparison in this case has to be within realistic parameters, not comparing "Total Recall" to some hypothetical or real revolutionary movie. If there is a movie-to-movie comparison, TR should be compared to "Running Man," which came out a few years before TR, or to movies that are popular today: the action flicks, comic book movies, spy thrillers, horror movies, psychological or postmodern movies about individuals with cracked egos, the amoral ones about professional thieves and killers, etc.
"Total Recall" is better than all movies showing today from the standpoint of how much scientific truth they contain. Notably, TR is also being sold by major retail chains and is currently among the bestselling Arnold Schwarzenegger movies at Amazon.com and Amazon.fr (which represents three different groups potential buyers), and TR could be compared with current movies in terms of better and worse bourgeois movies. However, this review approaches TR primarily in terms of the first two kinds of evaluation identified, not in relative terms of other movies, partly because it is unrealistic to expect a movie, about a traitor to the "Agency" going over to the side of the oppressed, to be popular today in the middle of war that is seen as problem-ridden or based on lies but not unjust. This writer suspects that TR's popularity today is due to Schwarzenegger's celebrity, not TR's political messages. TR was released in the united $tates a couple months before the Gulf War began, though, while the current Iraq war is ongoing and TR is selling at the same time.
"Total Recall" as a scientific portrait of reality
TR has high truth content because it reflects reality as it is, just with embellishments and cloaked as fantasy. Unlike "The Matrix" and even "The Running Man," TR leaves no ambiguity: even productive workers, such as construction workers, in Euro-Amerika are oppressors. Not content with a comfortable standard of living, with the latest video display, possibly paid by installment, a nice home, and convenient kitchen appliances, Douglas Quaid desires a different lifestyle. The individualist thinks he was meant for something more than being a worker and a consumer, maybe being a colonist. He wants to go to Mars, which is mined for a resource the homeland (presumably amerika) uses for war. (On TV, "ESPN" reports on the "fifth game of the World Series" in Tokyo.) Mars has a colony with a destitute population and a tourist sector. While the English-speaking European-descended nation on Earth mines Mars for a natural resource ("turbinium"), it charges the Mars inhabitants, who live in an enclosed structure, for air and increases the price of air. High-paid white miners from Earth may make up part of the population on Mars (the first workers were impoverished), but Mars exports its natural resource (and sex), and imports air at an increasing price, which represents an unequal exchange. Humyns with mutated genes and shocking physical appearances live on Mars. Some of the mutants work as prostitutes. They are descendants of the first colonists, who suffered the early air and radiation conditions of the colony and were exploited while others got rich. The mutants represent the most oppressed of the colony. A rebellion is happening in the colony over money, freedom, and air, "the usual," according to cab driver Benny. The rebels are called "terrorists" by a TV news broadcast. They are "terrorists" fighting for "independence." According to the announcer, "the Chairman" says "space-based weapons are only effective defense against the Southern Block's [Third World] numerical superiority." A "revolution" might break out any second on Mars, warns Lori (Sharon Stone), Quaid's wife. Mars administrator Vilos Cohaagen says Mars was colonized by something called the "Northern Block." It would appear the principal contradiction has developed to the point where the First World and the Third World have each become more homogenous politically. Third World nations are never portrayed on Earth, however, only Euro-Amerika.
Reminiscent of a growing reality, Quaid is either an apathetic bourgeois worker (a construction worker who does drilling) or a spy. Things are such in the movie that the viewer is never sure which is the case. Quaid could be an amnesiac-like spy with artificial memories, or it could all be one long dream -- of an exciting life as a "secret agent." In the real world, opportunities for amerikans in security, law enforcement and even intelligence become a reality as the size of what Marxists call the "productive sector" decreases and the united $tates shifts to producing more services such as advertising, entertainment, health care, accounting, insurance, financial services, and law, that can't be traded in bulk and whose production can't be automated. The decrease of people working in the productive sector means more people available to work on government, military and intelligence agency projects. Parasitism means money available for those projects and a need for those projects politically, to perpetuate the parasitism and repress those who are resisting.
TR depicts robotic taxi drivers. Construction is one industry in which workers to a great extent are still safe from the effects of machinery or hiring workers in the Third World on making amerikan workers redundant. This partly underlies the desire of documented u.$. citizen workers to repress and keep out migrants, many of whom work in construction, retail, and other industries that can't easily be relocated. The u.$. has foreign intelligence "assets" and seeks cooperation with Third World government intelligence agencies, paramilitaries, and individual traitors, but spying is one service countries have difficulty exporting and importing (with the Third World at least) and difficulty automating the production of except for the computerization of repetitive analysis and processing work. Spying should be added to construction as an activity that will remain in the united $tates for the foreseeable future. As the middle class perceives itself to be unable to rely on jobs in engineering, computer programming, academia, education, and other fields, it turns to intelligence, policing and "homeland security" careers.
TR predicts a future in which there are construction workers, spies, secretaries, specialized technicians, salespeople, and natural resource extraction workers working in a colony. It's reality as it could be; it's also reality as it is in the united $tates, minus the robotic cab drivers and the Mars colonization, which raises an interesting scenario for heuristic purposes but is unrealistic at this time. TR also depicts a gender reality. Quaid makes his own breakfast drinks and is happily married to a white woman, who may even enjoy the sex more than him and works with a holographic fitness program. (Lori uses sex to distract Quaid from Mars and fulfills a demonized role that will irritate pseudo-feminists who deny that First World female adults today, like the males, use attractiveness to their advantage, but it turns out Lori knows more than Quaid does.) Evidently, the gender struggle isn't really going anywhere in the Earth nation. Lori is at the top of her game and is with a hunky man who treats her right. But Quaid dreams of life with a womyn on Mars. The recurring dream makes Lori jealous. Backing the labor aristocracy for romantic competition reasons, the white woman was able to keep the white man away from the Third World womyn, but not away from a dream. Quaid's dream has a nightmare ending, but he is still strangely drawn to Mars. Not entirely satisfied with his life on Earth overall, he ponders becoming a Mars colonist, especially aftering seeing a commercial for a Mars vacation experience that resembles his dream.
Identity, memory, and individualism
The plot takes off after Quaid decides to go to an entertainment company named "Rekall" that resembles a travel agency. It sells implanted memories of virtual vacations that specifically feature a sexual component. The company offers Quaid a package with an "ego trip" option that allows him to have a different identity during his remembered vacation. From among a few different options (including "millionaire playboy" and "industrial tycoon"), Quaid chooses the "secret agent" ego trip (under "deep cover"), the description of which matches things that happen to Quaid later in the movie. During the preparation for the memory implantation, Quaid wakes from unconsciousness and says something about Rekall blowing his "cover." The rest of the movie involves Quaid's simultaneously running from enemies and carrying out the wishes of someone in a video recording that looks like him. Quaid is always in a daze, but he comes to believe that he is some kind of former agent who used to be on the side of the Agency and is now fighting for the oppressed on Mars. Cover or not for an Agency operation, Quaid lost his previous identity and memories somehow. It's not clear how he lost those things, but Quaid accepts the role "he" gives himself in the recording, as someone with information in their head that can be used against Vilos Cohaagen, who can get away with doing anything as long as he preserves the flow of turbinium to Earth. Early in the movie, there is a mention of "alien artifacts" in the Pyramid Mine. Quaid tells himself in the video that the information in his head can only be recovered if he checks into a hotel on Mars and goes from there.
The issue surrounding Quaid's memory and desire to find out who he is, is simultaneously the most problematic aspect of "Total Recall" and the most thought-provoking. Quaid, whose life and identity shatter after the incident with Lori and her revelation is quick to take on the role his image gives him in the video recording, because he is willing to take on whatever identity he used to have. He may as well have fought the oppressed instead of with them. Some viewers will approach Quaid's situation as just one of many different situations Quaid could have found himself in after going to Rekall, and leave things at that contemplative level. Denying one's nationality or culture could be individualist, but it is individualist to put a search for one's origins as an individual before the pursuit of social truth and a social goal. Quaid just goes with the flow while searching for and waiting to find himself.
When Quaid meets Kuato, though, the leader of the rebellion, Kuato turns down the individualism by saying actions are what define someone, not what they used to be. When Quaid arrives on Mars, he wants a psychic to tell him about his past, rather than his future, as she offered. At the end of the movie, Kuato is saying Quaid should focus on the present and the choices Quaid is currently making. There is no true self for Quaid to find and become. Instead of wanting to be "himself" again, Quaid should focus on his actions, not his memories. This is still within the realm of individualism, because it relates to how Quaid would like himself to be, in terms of the sum of his actions, rather than how he relates to others. The question of Quaid's actions only comes up because Quaid has the luxury of being able to choose. By coming to Mars, Quaid actually represents a group pattern, part of a stream of people coming to Mars. Quaid's idle itch to go to Mars out of a petty-bourgeois wish for adventure and something different is also his impulse as a Euro-Amerikan settler to colonize. Kuato gives Quaid no way of knowing which actions are good. However, in Quaid's case, his actions are those that happen to help the oppressed. Kauto and the rebels are forced to deal with someone who has no identity or history. It doesn't matter who Quaid is or who he used to be. Quaid just happens to be in the right time and the right place with what the rebels need.
Quaid's emergence as a political actor, and strategy and tactics
The rebels rely on psychic mutants to probe minds and screen out infiltrators. The psychics are the basis of the idea that Quaid before his fake life with Lori wasn't really a rogue agent, but an agent who underwent a mind-altering procedure to circumvent the psychics; the operation just went out of control. Kuato tells Quaid that actions define who someone is, but the rebels rely on what, sci-fi fantasy stripped away, represents a psychological method of detecting infilration such as lie-detecting or inspecting someone's language and expressions for signs of anything inauthentic. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of TR for strategic purposes. Instead of screening out expressed ideas and behaviors, the rebels rely on a notion of authentic intentions and per-individual security. Such may be necessary in the short term in an armed struggle situation but is inapplicable to exploiter-majority First World nations at this time. The fact that Melina from the bar has to wonder a second time whether Quaid is two-faced shows the limitations of the psychological method, useful to cops working with statistically describable populations, but not useful to a revolutionary class dealing with individuals claiming to be friendly.
The rebels also give someone a pass because they are a mutant. In the midst of excitement and in a tight situation, the rebels make a decision to keep the persyn around. But in general, even in a situation of being surrounded by oppressed people, it isn't correct to give individuals a pass because of identity in most cases where there is an impulse to do so. (This is totally separate from the question of single-nationality organizations, where different issues are involved.)
Kuato himself is a psychic and plays a special role, though he may just be high-ranking, the only one authorized to extract the information from Quaid, and any psychic could do what he does with Quaid. Kuato's character adds an element of mystery and fantasy to the sci-fi story but is unfortunate for the kind of leadership it represents: leadership in which members of the rebel group with less knowledge or ability trust the leader to guide them down the right path. Such leadership may be necessary in the short term in non-First World nations, but is, again, inapplicable to the First World. Revolutionaries in the First World need to be scientists. There are too few revolutionary scientists to begin with, and there is no social dynamic that will sustain a genuine revolutionary movement in the oppressor nations that isn't scientific.
On the reverse side, TR deserves recognition for its portrayal of how Quaid enters the struggle. Quaid isn't indispensable. The rebels might have been able to do without him and succeed. When Quaid goes to the bar on Mars, they weren't expecting him to appear. Quaid isn't a "One" like Neo in "The Matrix." Unlike Neo, who progressively develops his abilities, Quaid appears on the screen already ready to be a hero. But this portrayal is both bad and good. Bad, because Quaid, while he isn't indispensable, seems to come out of nowhere; TR doesn't explain how he got involved with the rebels and how someone like him could arise. The fog surrounding Quaid's history may give rise to the idea that saviors fall from the sky. Good, because then Quaid's uniqueness is actually diminished. Quaid is obviously a hero character, but he isn't a leader. He is subject to forces beyond his control and comprehension. He is a hero, but on no account of his own.
This is fitting for two reasons, one that is related to the story and one that has to do with the kind of strategy TR suggests. Quaid's lack of control is a reflection of the ego trip part of his virtual vacation that he was supposed to receive at Rekall. With no connection he is aware of to being a secret agent before going to Rekall, Quaid has to be taken for a ride to make the ego trip work. In reality, people like to fantasize about being a hero but aren't willing to do the work needed to become one. Amerikans enjoy vicarious or derivative life through TV and movies. More than being a hero, Quaid probably just enjoys the idea of being on an adventure, any adventure. Is the whole movie itself a Rekall "ego trip?" Is the part of the movie beginning with Quaid's visit to Rekall just Quaid's recurring dream? Did the preparation for the memory implant really blow Quaid's "cover" and unleash events? It's unclear what TR is showing -- an "ego trip," a dream, reality that just happens to coincide with the ego trip description (a "coincidence," as Quaid tells Dr. Edgemar), or what. Many viewers will come away from TR thinking it is just a movie about someone who may or may not be hallucinating, and the actual content of the hallucination and any political meaning will be unimportant to them.
In terms of revolutionary strategy, however, TR points to something that is real: for support purposes, Third World people have to make the assumption that amerikans in an international context are likely to be spies. In this case, what someone's history is doesn't matter, because the approach to dealing with the spy threat needs to be structural. Because of the state and even the situation of so-called revolutionary politics in the First World, mired in revisionism, anarchism, and other tendencies that present problems of reliability and influence, Third World people have to cautiously approach amerikans who offer help. Amerikans take the backseat in the Third World struggle. It also means the proletariat doesn't actively recruit amerikans individually. First World people recruit themselves for organizations they create themselves or are observed for a long time by other First World organizations and then recruited. TR depicts an anti-colonial independence movement, not a socialist stage of revolution, but it is still the case that amerikans should be approached as potential spies, because of how amerikans' interest in national oppression and interest in capitalism are currently linked via parasitism, and imperialism, contrary to its claims to democracy, disrupts movements against foreign rule.
Quaid's involvement with the rebels is mixed up with his romantic interest in Melina (Rachel Ticotin), but there is hint even before Quaid goes to Rekall that he might disagree with Cohaagen. Lori asks Quaid if he really believes Cohaagen when he says the rebels are just a few extremists, implying that Cohaagen isn't trustworthy and Quaid knows it, and that Cohaagen is minimizing the rebel threat for economic reasons. This isn't a strong basis for Quaid to support the rebels. It seems that just by witnessing the rebels' struggle, Quaid recognizes which side is just. However, Quaid doesn't enter the rebels' struggle as a scientific leader, but as a spy the rebels use. TR draws from a stereotypical image of spies, in which spies on dangerous missions mistake each other for the enemy and have limited information that leads to conflicts. For example, Cohaagen tells Richter, who tries to kill Quaid against Cohaagen's wishes, that he doesn't give Richter "enough information to think" and act independently. First World revolutionaries aren't going around recruiting spies in the First World, even in a hypothetical fantasy situation where everyone in a nation is a spy, but the truth is that oppressors are mostly manipulated, not recruited for a revolutionary organization. In TR, Quaid consciously interacts with the rebels, but his ignorance is that of someone who is subject to manipulation. The manipulation First World revolutionaries do is through public opinion and dividing groups of exploiters.
Overall, if one looks closely and pays attention to detail, the clues in TR definitely point to the whole story's being a dream, leaving the movie-viewer's viewpoint as the sole perspective. Even just the dream-like feel of the entire movie and the fantasy ending where Quaid saves the day may disqualify "Total Recall" as a movie that is trying to be revolutionary on bourgeois terms. Those things may make the movie just a sci-fi spy movie. But the political features of the setting in TR correspond to reality. Not only does the u.$. have neo-colonies in the Third World and internal semi-colonies within its borders; the u.$. has colonies that it rules formally. Euro-Amerika is a nation of oppressors, and there are historical and ongoing reasons, including structurally caused unequal economic transfers, for the conditions of Third World people. TR doesn't try to make Quaid out to be a superior leader, just a valuable part of the Martians' struggle. The Martians were struggling before Quaid shows up, under the assumption that Quaid had been captured. TR portrays power struggle as it is globally, not just a campaign to bring the truth to the oppressors. Interestingly, there is relationship between air on Mars and the turbinium, and not just the physical relationship revealed in the movie. Throughout the movie, it is mentioned that the rebels are trying to disrupt the mining (or re-open the Pyramid Mine). Conceivably, this could lead to the air supply's being cut off in the entire colony, not just where Cohaagen and his people think the rebels are based. The rebels don't talk about that in the movie, but it is a risk they take. By risking their own survival, though, they are helping the Southern Block on Earth, which the Northern Block is at war with, because the turbinium is used for weapons. TR's ending vaguely suggests what would happen to Third World conditions if imperialism were cut off, but it might have better to replace the whimsical fantasy ending in which Quaid does not singlehandedly save the Martians as foreshadowed by the salespersyn at Rekall, with an ending where Quaid plays a needed but unexpectedly less spectacular role in the end, just allowing the rebels to succeed in what they were already doing. It would perhaps be anticlimactic, but more realistic. Unfortunately, the hand-to-hand, mano-e-mano style with a small group of people fighting each other limits what the movie can show, and TR purposely tries to make Quaid's dream, the Rekall holiday description, and the events that Quaid experiences, resemble each other. Any deviation would ruin the dream effect.