SILENT RUNNING (1971; d. Douglas Trumbull, w. Steve Bochco, Mike Cimino + Deric Washburn)

Bruce Dern Overdrive.

1st shot intense closeup of flora, last one of celestial vastness (Blake’s "heaven in a wildflower"), hero Freeman Lowell (name cross-referencing real-life scientist Freeman Dyson + actor/producer Dyson Lovell?) swimming in pond (as universe) among fauna Nature Boy, camera revealing all inside spacebound geodesic dome (protected place of innocence + fecundity w/i civilized man, Paradise meaning literally "walled" or "enclosed space"); co-crewmen Barker, Wolf + Keenan (1st two suggesting lupine animal nature, last lamentation) go-kart thru facility (anticipating dir’s 2001 collaborator Stanley Kubrick’s Shining kid’s race thru Overlook hallways) + Lowell’s gardens (destructive other side of boyish personality, Lowell’s nature peaceful as long as controlled, artificial), all 1/2way thru yearlong expedition (as life, crew also 1/2way to maturity, self 1/2way asleep, film drift twd self-obliviation).

Lowell in monastic robes (distancing spiritual self from corrupt world), others uniform (caftan-hippie vs Establishment, screenwriters’ informal "Steve" + "Mike" soon to become "Steven" + "Michael" on deeper association w/ similarly staid studios; Lowell’s getup unique only because not in monastery), L flashes back to President-type (unseen superego in whose deep-space unconscious dream unravels) "humbly begging forgiveness" for blasting earth’s last greenery into space (looking back on own lost youth/nature, still adrift in far-flung psyche) as camera w/draws out window to take in station (Self become functional, "iron" adult); at poker table, crew awaits transmission (inner directive, à la reading of "will"), L hoping previous communication "about to bear fruit" (à la prayer, he hopeful part of psyche petitioning Self for revitalization) + he’ll be Director of Parks + Forests (special-effects Trumbull yearning for real eventual directorship; Lowell’s 8 yrs in space Christ in Wilderness), others figuring cutbacks + apathy will squelch program (realists in real world as in self, outnumbering visionary 3 [scrws?] to 1 [dir]) confirmed when commander Anderson orders forests jettisoned (entering maturity) + ships returned to commercial service (getting a job; tyro scrws also determining own career courses), bummed-out L wandering garden to dated Joan Baez song (that statement alone self-incrimination).

Back on Earth (consciousness), 75 degrees everywhere, no poverty or disease (steady + "normal," vs aberrant Lowell-subconscious; never actually seen: fantasy/idealization, turning "realists" on ear + balancing idealist L’s nature-reality) + nobody cares about "beauty, imagination, frontiers" (products of unmet needs, consumer culture not negating these qualities, just antithetical); Lowell fixes Barker’s wounded hand (as later drone Huey, latter his fault: Jesus-type healing both "guilty" + just) while Wolf + Keenan plant nukes (disengaging greenhouses amputation: mind's piecemeal separation from not-the-earth/body already isolated from in beginning), L finally losing it + throttling Wolf w/ shovel (1st whole elimination of animal self) himself bashed in leg w/ (as later drone Louie loses leg: latter ½ of film reiterating 1st, as dream/real life) then disconnects Barker + Keenan pod + watches them blow (Prez’s earlier penitence foreshadowing L’s actions, whole film roundelay of separations + remorse whose only survivor double-amputee-in-a-box drone; jettisoning also director Trumbull sending 3 scrws on way as he takes over film from there).

"Come in, Valley Forge – this is Berkshire" (stations named à la country clubs; historical VF cfs Brainstorm’s Kill Devil Hill, Trumbull’s futurism closely tied to history, as his technology to humanism), disembodied radio voice (as all such: increasingly distant, scratchy connection to consciousness) asking what’s up (voice of conscience: knows something’s wrong), Lowell answering "problem w/t main coupling" (disengaging reason [overthetop Dern not calming down till others out of way]; film’s absence of sexuality [as of females] suggesting bigger "coupling" problem, entire issue deriving from men [as much of Western Civilization]'s techno-alienation from fecundating wmn/femininity/anima) then rallying drones to prepare for journey thru Saturn’s rings (pseudo-sex, w/ similarly transcendent effect/intent à la Brainstorm’s onanistic crisis), Berkshire/Anderson warning "you’re entering darkness" (death/deepest sleep, à la Brainstorm, + point of no return for homicidal L); L reprograms drones Huey, Dewey + Louie (= 3 former crewmen Lowell cdn’t control, he taking command à la lucid dreamer) to operate on his leg (medicinal machinery à la Brainstorm’s similar; machines not bad – contra much contempo sci-fi – people bad).

As Lowell heads for rings, Anderson suggests suicide (experiences tantamount; cf Brainstorm’s genuine death-trip, both owing to 2001 "stargate" sequence) + calls him "a hell of an American" (to which he agrees: similarly possessed of noble ideas but willing to use ignoble means); settles in for ring trip ("silent running" non-REM sleep, where mind assimilates info surfaced in 1st half then "hibernates" in preparation for reconfigured reemergence in next dream-phase, L’s frequent snoozes mind heading into successive layers of sleep) during which Louie torn from ship’s hull (leaving only leg recalling near-namesake Lowell’s leg-wound: shirking mechanical body on dream-descent, he become not-Louie in new triumvirate), remembering on waking (as tho inspired by dream of Louie-loss: symbolic of own dismemberment on disengaging crew members + rest of ship) to bury Wolf (animal body reconfigured as pre-programmed drone, mental contrivance to assuage murder-guilt), camera zooming past Huey + Dewey to static screen (aka Louie) segue to Brainstorm’s similar opening (film/dream similarly entering mind of detached droid).

Discovers Louie’s lost leg ("He got careless" foreshadowing Lowell’s own oversights) + go-karts thru installation (while flashing back to disengagements: mind sundering as he reiterates "careless" mates’ behavior) till crashing into soil module (effect of cars on earth/landscape: destruction part of man’s nature, Lowell not the saint he sometimes dresses as), later teaching Huey + Dewey poker (replaying game w/ crew: dream’s mechanical reiteration of daylife, system breaking down into pointless repetition); caught eating space-food he’d earlier derided crew for (straying from nature: hint that rest of planet did same out of similar techno-loneliness), realizes forest become desiccated (1st seen on vidscreen, ie mind: own nature deteriorating) + runs tests (magnified leaf veins own) till finally realizing he shd’ve used sun lamps (!: cf Anderson’s "darkness" warning, void he’s entered own/humanity’s soul).

In meantime, mows down Huey w/ go-kart (self-annihilation, patching up à la Barker’s hand; inadequacy as caretaker entropic subconscious-as-healer reaching dead-end), next sleep broken by Berkshire (consciousness returning after descent into maelstrom) declaring "You made it" (following Lowell’s own admission of defeat: 1 + same, humanity facing own inadequacy [aka humility] key to successful stewardship of Earth – likely only after complete + total humiliation), inspiring L’s sunlamp eureka (consc’ss itself "lightbulb" over head), he proceeding to set Dewey up as caretaker ("I just can’t do it anymore. Things just hvn’t worked out for me") in anticipation of Berkshire docking (their efforts to retrieve Lowell à la Corporation’s interference w/ Brainstorm hero’s mindtrip).

"Take good c/o the forest, Dewey" (childlike speech end of innocence for Nature Boy) Lowell’s benediction, recalling childhood sending message in bottle as he prepares lookalike nukes (likewise sending msg doubts if anyone’ll get), camera w/drawing out window again (soul leaving body + gaining perspective on self) as ship self-destructs (immolation msg to Berkshire: what they shd do, too – + what they are doing, w/o nature), last shot of Ranger Dewey tending forest New Eden free of God’s biggest mistake (module preserved memory of childhood adrift in psychic space on death of manchild Lowell à la similar Brainstorm memory spheres, satellite haunting all earthbound civilized adult humans).