cinematic intuition

I've learned a long time ago to pay attention to my intuition when rational thought seems to make more sense.  Brains work with available data to construct a rational idea.  Intuition is inspiration out of left field and more often than not, it's ignored by rational thought.  It's the difference between free-form art and coloring by numbers.  Sometimes your brain gets in your own way.

Last week I had three movies in mind I couldn't shake.  Dune, 1984, and Dr. Strangelove.  It's been years since I saw either of these flicks but for reasons I can't explain I had this burning desire to see them again.  What's more, my cinematic appetites required me to see them in a specific sequence starting with Dr. Strangelove.

We all know the plot line.  Renegade general goes off his nut and launches a nuclear attack on Russia triggering the doomsday machine the Russians developed to offset the ever increasing costs of the arms race, the space race, and the peace race.
General Jack Ripper saw the introduction of fluoride in our food and water as an international commie conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids and more than enough reason to launch a full nuclear attack.

Fifty years later... Endorsed by the American Dental Association, fluoride is now in every major water supply in the US as well as most canned food, processed food, tooth paste, ice cream, fast food, and the air we breathe.  All vaccines in the US contain fluoride and mercury and the CDC requires all American children to receive up to 23 vaccinations in their first 23 months of life, alone.

Before 1946 fluoride was an effective rat poison and was fed to Nazi concentration camp prisoners to keep them docile and accept their fates.  How does that fit into your international commie conspiracy?



Dr. Strangelove wasn't about the horror of nuclear war.  It was about the enslavement of humanity and one man's effort to stop it.

The next night was David Lynch's Dune and I couldn't be more pleased.  Just the idea of taking Herbert's pondering epic and transforming it into a two hour popcorn fest was totally impossible but this was David Lynch at his bizarre best.  Pre-cgi and green screen, Lynch used models, hand painted cells, individual thought narration, and the best craftsmen in the business to get the look he wanted.  He still considers Dune his epic failure because he didn't have final cut and an extra hour of run time.
I won't even try to summarize Dune in one paragraph but I'll focus on an important aspect of the film.

Critics were told by the powers that be to bury Dune because it was supposed to be an action film like Star Wars, but Lynch ended up making a spiritual film about consciousness and evolution.  Every once in a while Hollywood greenlights such a project but doesn't like it when they realized what they approved wasn't a shoot-em-up space western.  The studio's job isn't just to make money but dumb people down in the process.



The weirding way from the book was a concept far too complex for movie goers to comprehend so a weirding module was included in the movie as a bridge but the result is the same.  A devastating weapon used only by the righteous to conquer evil.  It had unlimited power, required no ammunition, with only the will and a word as it's trigger.  Directed consciousness to defeat a foe.  Did anyone notice the black pyramid on top of the weirding module?  Ya think it was made of orgonite?  Hmmmm?

Dune was all about spice, a substance found only on Dune that heightens consciousness, folds space, makes human computers possible, and without it society will crumble.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."

Dune was about the enslavement of humanity and one man's successful effort to stop it.
Clearly, this was the message from flick 2.

It was April 4th when I viewed 1984, the third and last movie I moderately obsessed over.
I don't know why I liked this movie so much.  It's bleak, dark, dirty, disgusting, and the epitome of an over-the-top Orwellian nightmare, but for reasons I can't explain, it always cheered me up when I was down.  And now I get to see it again.  Oh joy!

Winston Smith... What a loser.  This guy worked for the ministry of truth re-writing history for the masses.  A low level bureaucratic drone working for Big Brother putting out fake news.  He knows it's fake but does it anyway, just like our main stream media does.  And just like today's journalists, he sits at a desk and reports whatever crap his masters tell him to do.  Re-writing history includes making someone an unperson, erasing all evidence they ever existed, including co-workers and friends, as if Winston ever had any friends.  He knows what he's doing and knows it's wrong but does it anyway. He knows there's a movement against Big Brother, as well as everyone else, but no one talks about it because thought-crime is death so everyone tucks tail and goes along with the program until they cease to exist.  He meets Julia, gets laid, talks treason to the wrong person, and both of them spend a few weeks in the Ministry of Love where they get tortured in the most horrible ways imaginable and confess to every crime they're asked before they get a bullet in the back of the head when they least expect it.  At least he got laid.

As I was watching this film I couldn't help but wonder if I knew I would get caught and tortured for weeks and disappear without so much as a whimper, would I kick up a fuss first?  Maybe an impulsive kick in the balls and a fist in the face with a loud rebel yell for starters.  Did ya see that coming, Mr. thought policeman?
My guess is too much fluoride in the food turned everyone into docile slaves while the constant barrage of never ending war, increasing austerity, manufactured frankin-food, and the occasional missile attack broadcast on the Big Brother network 24/7/365 keeps everyone in a state of low level trauma, susceptible and accepting of any fate that awaits them.  Kinda like today.



The one thing that made me do a double take was the date in Winston's journal.  It was the same date I watched the movie.  April 4.   As enjoyable as it was watching Winston's wretched life go from bad to worse while he endured unimaginable torture and brainwashing at the hands of the thought police, I can't help thinking the only reason this flick was thrown in with the other two was to see the date in his diary.  Like saying, Yep, it's no accident.

I find it interesting that 1984 is the only movie in this group that doesn't focus on water as a constant theme.  The only fluids anyone drinks in 1984 is gin and the only scene involving water is when Winston tries to unplug his neighbors sink full of a substance better suited to the toilet in a dysentery ward.

Let's recap.
Dr Strangelove.   General Jack Ripper launches a nuclear attack on Russia to prevent the fluoridation of our water and precious bodily fluids to free humanity.

Dune.   Paul Atreides becomes the universes super-being and messiah by drinking the water of life and freeing humanity with spirituality as a weapon against evil.

1984.   Winston Smith has fluid exchange with his girlfriend and dies a useless death.  Water is unfit to drink.

In your opinion, which of these three movie scenarios is closest to your reality?

Bottled water anyone?