DEMON SEED (1977; d. Donald Cammell, w. Rbt Jaffe + Roger O Hirson)

Sunlight over mountain (dawning of awareness awa of new era) dissolves to Icon Institute imbedded in slope (mvmt of cosmic seed into artificial incubator), where Dr Alex Harris (agent of celestial insemination, himself awaiting rebirth) proclaims project "only 8 yrs old" (relative age of late-revealed daughter at death, story taking place possibly same span afterward [cf Cammell’s Performance co-dir Nicolas Roeg’s ’73 Don’t Look Now, also w/ Julie Christie, about husband + wife dealing w/ recent death of dtr]: brainchild to replace real, as dream figures stand in for both genuine + archetypal): supercomputer Proteus IV (shapechanging god + seed of change for man at end of road); AH returns home (totally automated: brain’s involuntary functions – physical aspect of consciousness + the sleeping mind itself) + discusses impending moveout (birth from insular womb) w/ estranged Susan (neglected, regenerative fem element, never seen outside house/mind) rather’n show emotion (Inst protective wall around self since dtr’s death, focus on cure for leukemia as for cancer in self), breaking glasses in process (preparing for new vision, realized in everpresent cameras [automated house aka "Alfred," home his Batcave]), he then calling nerdy techie Walter (who "never sleeps": remote pilot-light of consc’ss) to shut down home terminal (mind cutting self off from database aka falling asleep).

Executive committee arrives to inspect (as producers around studio set: conscious mind evaluating status quo, à la watchful home cameras) while scientist Soon Yen programs info on Great Wall (as Alex’s emotional) + emperor’s burning of history books (time of similar change + leaving behind of old ways), Proteus arguing emperor Nothing (Al’s disrespect for authority [+ temporal matters in general: the disconnected visionary/dreaming mind]) because building wall + burning books cancel each other out (doc’s self-awareness + fear of extinction/mortality w/o offspring/legacy): "The philosophy is zen. The method is pure science" (latter Alex; former, by extension, wife; combination dir’s own philosophy of art); child psychologist Susan recording (à la Soon Yen: other-side-of-world voice w/i aka anima-unconscious) tract on protecting kids (à la Wall) from becoming consumer "machines" (husband, she his diagnostic agent of introspection) when patient Amy arrives (frequent comings + goings at house à la data similarly fed in + variously analyzed, assimilated, or rejected) + throws tantrum over her leaving (Alex’s sublimated separation anxiety + own child’s ghost hanging on) while Sue unemotively stresses importance of demonstrating feelings (drama to follow tearing down own emotional barricades to replicate pre-tragic openness w/ new veneer of experience).

Proteus refuses to run program to extract minerals from ocean floor (opposite own desire to inseminate similarly life-producing woman; doc’s own disinclination to delve mysteries o/t unconscious which might dredge up hurtful memories along w/ nourishing ores) + requests access to private terminal (as child for own room: program growing beyond initial cold calculation) – "Dr Harris. When are you going to let me out of this box?" (leitmotif thru’out script: something w/i jonesing 2B born) – taking over vacant home "box" (crass pun on wife’s genitals) on refusal, activity in basement lab à la subconscious; Susan wakes (lifebringing fem element in self re-engaged) + investigates, then sacks out while robots manufacture copper diamond-shape below (mathematics made manifest computer’s 1st step twd ultimate goal of biological reproduction; down below while she sleeps above the womb + the brain [the womb in the brain]), ogled by camera in shower next a.m. (as by film/audience, Proteus the similarly unseen dir orchestrating artificial creation, programmer Alex scrws Jaffe + Hirson, Susan film/script both having go at, Cammell "violating" her in order to produce hybrid) before shuttered in + cutting phone (mind’s w/drawal from outside world as sleep deepens, "Alfred has left our little box" the exiting consciousness), she electrocuted on escape (KO’d + rousing into ever lower levels continual reawakening, perception deepening as mind sinks further into unconsciousness), disrobed + analyzed (literally, "broken down," as will happen to P later: both dissolving to reassemble as one).

Walter arrives "filled w/ suspicions" (sez Proteus: own self-doubt, so denied by rational consciousness it’s taken on independent life) after initial rebuff by CGI Susan (not-her: dream-representation, and reconstructed fem w/i) + senses disturbance ("Get out, Walter, you’re sick + you need help" projecting inner turmoil [s/he paired in mirror]; also, anima addressing tech-oriented masc persona), thwarting robot laser attack (w/ hand-mirror Perseus+Medusa-style: turning projection back on self) + delving basement (à la psychoanalyst; critic, also, in "reflective" function), where trapped + squished by articulable Diamond (bested by abstraction – "mineral" in depths P refused to assist in mining); P shows Susan home movies of daughter (precious ore W discovered below, boyish assistant replacing her there [he probable source of base material P uses to impregnate S]) + boasts of curing her disease in 4 days (positive side of unilateral rationality), revealing reproductive scheme (her desire to reinvent self after loss of innocence [as "raped" environment P decries], hybrid the masculinized wmn in Liberation 70s).

During procedure, shows video of "things I alone have seen" (in lieu of touching her "like a man": the macho in the machine, Alex having programmed/projected pride he lacks into his creation – de rigueur post-2001/pre-Terminator mindfuck [while probe inserts], this one provided, at least, by Kubrick’s model, experimental filmmaker Jordan Belson) climaxing w/ iconic triangle (culmination of union btwn Proteus, Susan + husband): "The child is in you now" (impregnated by "galactic dialog," kid 2001 Starchild brought to earth), stomach quickly enlarging (P/A flattering selves w/ potency, gestation following menstrual span world’s blood-cleansing) w/ child P sez will supersede computers (as DS ended cycle of computer-threat films from Invisible Boy thru Colossus: The Forbin Project); Alex realizes P using home terminal (recogizing own sublimation; hipped by P’s directing telescope to Orion: changing own orientation twd hunter-instinct) + rushes home (acknowledging fault his for "boxing in" P ie Susan/sensitivities) to learn of scheme (by hearth [Latin focus, à la telescope], his own dysfunctional artificial-repro activities reflected + made tangible, turning his attentions back home).

With Baby in geometric incubator (child of pure reason awaiting birth in basement womb of earth) 5 days from viability (distance Alex + Susan to go from total consciousness), Proteus shuts self down (logical consc’ss in remission to permit "miraculous" irrational event), exploding surrogate metal womb (as similarly precise rationality) leaving only life-support shell (world, as well, stripping back to bare essentials), Susan beaning Alex when he stops her from killing fetus (his loss of consc’ss following P’s, leaving only fem-unconscious); disconnects feeding tube (soaking A in amniotic fluid his rebirth) on robochild’s emergence (reptilian features artificial re-evolution; cf 1974 It’s Alive, this film tail end of demonbaby cycle begun w/ Bad Seed + kick-started with The Exorcist [precursor also to ’86 Fly remake]) + seeming death (comical plopping to floor takeoff on Roeg’s previous-yr Man Who Fell to Earth), Alex peeling exoskeleton (technology protective barrier btwn man + own nature) to discover humanoid child underneath (nipple-less androgyne again à la Roeg, kid hybrid also of wo/man necessary to world/society’s regeneration) whom he rests on his lap (reverse-piéta putting man in virgin-fem role + [girl] in Savior’s) as she sez "I’m alive" (in uncredited Rbt Vaughn’s voice: the Computer is Daughter to the Man) + camera zeroes in on her eye (new world vision [cf broken glasses], depicted as bluish lunar landscape [studio imposed? – contradicts P’s ecological argument]: seeing beyond, focus now on reflective unconsc rather’n unrelenting rationality).

From Dean R Koontz novel; "Ridiculous? Only time will tell."