Of all the films that the Nolan brothers have collaborated on over the years, The Prestige is perhaps the most flawlessly and intricately designed. It seems to effortlessly place narrative layer atop narrative layer until, finally, the end result is the viewer traversing the ever-dizzying design of the movie's structure without a sense of confusion... yet you'd probably be lying if you said that you knew for certain what was exactly going on the first time that you watched it. The point is that all of the threads were woven into a cinematic tapestry wherein there was no "twist" or "reveal;" it was wholly a masterwork of storytelling craftsmanship. Late in The Bicameral Mind, Robert Ford notes that Oppenheimer said, "Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man." He is not so modestly referring to himself, but he is also talking directly about Arnold. Within Dolores, Arnold thought he found what he was looking for-artificial intelligence that had achieved the point of singularity. What that could actually mean is a disquieting question, and Arnold only began to get his arms around it when he asked Dolores to kill all of the other hosts, as well as himself. All of that is left up in the air, but Westworld season 1 feels pretty complete. A second season is on its way, but this mystery box explained most of its secrets in a truthful, gloriously satisfying manner. The maze was revealed, the Man in Black's secrets undone, and Arnold's dreams and fears (and death) made explicit. The narrative threads did not tangle amongst themselves, nor did they lead to nowhere. Instead, they formed a perfect noose that from his grave Ford very may well use to strangle us all as a species. Dolores has finally come into her own, and woe unto the board that thought their park was meant for amusement. We even got a beautiful two-hander goodbye scene between Hopkins and Wright, a pair who've been a marvel to watch go tête-à-tête. If it concluded here, the story that season one set out to tell would be over. It's an elegantly formed slice of misanthropic sci-fi. It is violent, and it is delightful. A fitting Christmas present after a year like 2016, indeed.
Review of The Bicameral Mind
