Respond to these rapid questions in our Alter Ego quiz and we will tell you which Alter Ego character you are. Play it now.
“Altered States” is a film that is literally out of this world — in a good way. It launches its characters headlong back through billions of years to the moment of creation, where they discover nothing but a wailing “No!” from the life force, which is protesting its moment of birth. “No!” is transformed into “Yes!” by the human ego’s ability to insist on its own will even in the face of the universe’s unwavering indifference, and the play concludes with the most fundamental scene of all drama: the man and woman falling into each other’s arms.
Wait a minute, I’m starting to sound like the movie’s characters, a group of overwrought pseudo-intellectuals who sound like a cross between Werner Erhard, Sigmund Freud, and Tarzan. Please bear with me here. Some of the best dialogue passages in the film are deliberately staged with everyone speaking at the same time: it doesn’t matter what they’re saying, it only matters that they’re extremely serious about what they’re saying. With my intellect, I can tell myself that this film is a fiendishly constructed visual and verbal roller coaster, a film that is deliberately intended to overwhelm its audiences with sensual excess. Despite the fact that I was aware of this, I was overcome by its ferocious energy and became overwhelmed.
Is that a commendable achievement for a motion picture? “Altered States” earns its money by working as hard as “Altered States” does, so I suppose it is legal. This is, at long last, the film that Ken Russell was destined to direct, the same Ken Russell who has previously directed such abominable films as “The Music Lovers,” “The Devils,” and “Lisztomania,” among others. The formula has now become crystal clear. To put it another way, take Russell’s flair for visual pyrotechnics and apocalyptic sexuality and channel it through just enough scientific jargon to give it shape. While the outcome may be completely meaningless, you are unconcerned about it while you are watching it.
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Paddy Chayevsky’s novel, which was in turn inspired by the experiments of Dr. John Lilly, who placed his human subjects in total immersion tanks, allowing their minds to wander off the edge of sanity because they were cut off from all external reality, served as the basis for The Stranger Than Fiction. William Hurt stars as Jessup, a Harvard scientist who goes one step further by ingesting a drug made from the sacred hallucinatory mushrooms of a primitive tribe in the film “Altered States.” Hurt is a fan of the film. Hurt observes in an easily missed line of dialogue in the film that the strange thing about these mushrooms is that they give everyone who consumes them the same hallucinatory vision. We may be recalling our cellular memory of creation: there is chaos, then a ball of light, and then the light turns into a crack, and the crack opens onto Nothing, and this is all that has been and will be, with the exception of life, which has its sole existence in the imagination.
Alter Ego Quiz
Do you understand what I’m saying? It doesn’t really matter. Although it is an awe-inspiring concept, “Altered States” does not slow down to accommodate it. This is by far the most difficult film to categorize. Just as it begins to sound like a psychedelic fantasy from the 1960s, a head trip, it devolves into a farcical farce. The scientist spends too much time in his tank and eventually descends into simian mode, physically changing into some kind of ape who attacks the campus security guards, is chased into a local zoo by a pack of wild dogs, and kills and eats a sheep for dinner before returning to his human form as the kind Professor Jessup, the Intellectual Hulk.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Alter Ego quiz.
Science, special effects, and the professor’s and his wife’s romantic relationship serve as the film’s three main components: science, special effects, and the professor’s and his wife’s romantic relationship. The science is handled delectably in this film. We learn as much as we need to know (which is virtually nothing) about total immersion, genetics, and racial memory during our time here. The special effects are then shown in four long passages and a few short bursts throughout the film. They’re quite good. They may at times remind you of the spectacular light and sound show that took place at the end of 2001, but they are also intended to evoke the creation of the universe in the form of a pulsating celestial ovum. Dr. Jessup is at the center of this vision, his body pulsing in and out of an ape shape, his mouth drawn into an anguished “O” as he protests the hell that he has been forced to live through. In addition to the music, these scenes are clearly intended to further alter the chemically altered consciousness of the next generation of movie cultists.
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But then there’s the issue of the professor’s romantic relationship with his wife (Blair Brown), and it’s in this context that we learn just how powerful the attraction of love can be. After being pulled out of a violent whirlpool of light while screaming on the laboratory floor, the professor’s wife wades into the celestial mists, gets down on her hands and knees in eternity, and reaches into the whirlpool and pulls him back out again. Despite the fact that he has filed for divorce, he continues to behave in this manner. During the final scene, the professor transforms into the very protoplasm of life itself, while his wife transforms into a glowing shell of rock-like flesh, with her inner fires visible through the cracks (the effect is something like an overheated Spiderman). Despite the fact that they’re reliving the First Moment, as the professor bangs on walls and crawls toward her, and she reaches out, and the universe shakes, the Man within him bursts out of ape-protoplasm and the Woman within her bursts back into flesh. All that’s left for the scene is for him to ask, “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” and they collapse into each other’s arms.
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“Altered States” is a superbly silly film, a magnificent piece of entertainment, and a clever and brilliant machine for instilling feelings of awe, fear, and humor in the audience’s hearts and minds. That is sufficient. It’s a pure movie experience with little to no meaning. Was it something I enjoyed? Yes, I suppose I did, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to think about it too much.
For more personality quizzes check this: Julia Quiz.
