I’m a little bit in love with Brit Marling, so I’ve taken to
watching all her movies and those of her mates from Georgetown. They seem like
an interesting bunch. I’m going to review each of them one by one and then all
of them together, starting now with ‘I,
origins’. Some Spoilers to come, but I will keep them to a minimum as this
is good practice and will also allow me to be very brief.
‘I, Origins’ is an
exploration of science vs. spiritualism. It masterfully (credit where it’s due)
utilises the motif of the human eye to navigate its theme. Reincarnation is
also a major motif, hence ‘eye’, + ‘origins’ + ‘spirituality’ = ‘I, origins’.
Aside from one or two romantic jumps early on which can be
forgiven as artistic license, the film is very tightly scripted. Everything
follows reasonably. The pacing is excellent; slowing down to flesh out
characters and accentuate the weightiness of certain periods in their lives, and
then jumping dramatically at times to move the plot along at a brisk pace. I
wasn't bored for a second.
The plot itself is smart and creative. It follows research
into the eye that first appears to throw another stone at the edifice of God
but then, after some twists, actually points to the existence of the soul. I
have some serious qualms with the allegory (see below), but the plot itself is
very good.
The acting is also first rate. Michael Pitt, who plays the
protagonist, is superb. It helps, I suspect, that his character of Ian is well
written (as are all the characters). He is a serious individual who doesn’t
take himself too seriously. He has projects and values and ethics which are all
introduced in sufficient detail to make him a very expansive character. He is thoughtful
and sensitive without being soft or whimpish or emasculated—quite a nice model
for what Anais Nin called ‘the sensitive man’. Even his aesthetic is well
crafted—young and academic without succumbing to hipster styling.
The acting by Astrid Berges-Frisbey, who plays Sofi, Ian’s
first love interest, is a little shallow at times, but this is perhaps ideally
suited to the character. She is supposed to be ephemeral, and to (I suspect)
mistake aloofness with mystery.
The other substantial character in the text is Karen, played
by Brit Marling. Her acting is good, particularly in the scene where she
catches Ian masturbating (such good scripting) but as is often the case with
Marling, the casting is a bit off. Karen is presented as plain, intelligent in
a diligent way, and consumed by her research. Marling is, to put it simply, a
bit too beautiful to play the character. She gives the character too much
grace. This is managed well in those scenes where Karen is very conscientious,
but is generally a bit off. It might have worked if they’d cut her hair
differently, at the very least, but just throwing on a pair of glasses isn’t
enough. The same thing happens in ‘The
East’, but let’s cross that bridge another time.
The Georgetown kids, as I will call them, write characters
for themselves to play in their own films. Marling has explained in several
interviews that this was the most effective way to access female roles that
were interesting and dignified (i.e. not victim #3 in some horror flick). There
is something deeply admirable about this. The existentialists argued that the
route to human flourishing was via affirmation. This strikes me as one of the
clearest cases of affirmation I have ever come across. So I am willing to
forgive some improper casting. But perhaps as the kids, and Marling in
particular, get more kudos for their works, they can move to either writing
characters more appropriate for themselves or else spending most of their time
behind the camera. I am a bit worried about who Marling is going to play in the
rumoured ‘Boar’, which explores
S&M. I cannot imagine her as dominatrix, but I’m open to being convinced.
My only qualm with ‘I,
origins’ is with the allegory. Ian’s scientific attitude and approach to
knowledge is well articulated early on. Its introduction is brief and direct
but communicates all the important aspects of this mentality—a respect for data
and testable hypotheses in particular. The challenge to his views is
outstandingly foreshadowed about two-thirds of the way through the film in the
following exchange:
Priya Varma: You know a scientist once asked the Dalai Lama
“what would you do if something scientific disproved your beliefs?” and he
said, after much thought “I would look at all the papers. I’d take a look at
all the research and really to understand things. And in the end, if it was
clear that the scientific evidence disproved my spiritual beliefs, I would
change my beliefs”.
Ian: that’s a good answer
Priya: Ian…what would you do if something spiritual
disproved your scientific beliefs?
In the final scene of the movie, something spiritual does
challenge Ian’s scientific beliefs and It is implied that Ian changes those
scientific beliefs as a result. This is in accordance with comments I have read
from the Georgetown kids, who seem amenable to spirituality at times.
My concern is that what is implied is that Ian changes his
fundamental belief in science itself. I don’t think this can be correct.
Someone with as strong a grounding in the scientific approach to knowledge as
Ian could only change the beliefs he has as a result of scientific progress to
date, not his more fundamental belief in
science itself. That is to say, he will not change his need for tested
hypotheses. Whether or not he comes to hypothesise a soul is independent from
whether he accepts ‘spiritual experience’ as a valid form of evidence, for
example.
As I have said on many occasions, science works by
proffering testable hypothesis. If they pass tests then they are treated as
facts until some future test refutes them. At that point, they are abandoned
and replaced by a new theory. If there is no new theory that passes tests then
scientists must exist in ignorance until such time as a theory does pass tests.
At this time there is typically what Kuhn calls a paradigm shift. The most famous
example of a paradigm shift is Einstein’s theory of relativity. Newtonian
physics was failing a lot of tests, but it was not abandoned until the weight
against it was substantial and the weight in favour of quantum physics was
equally substantial.
A contemporary example of scientists acknowledging ignorance
is consciousness. We have various theories about the origins and nature of
consciousness but none of them are yet verifiable through tests. As such, we
treat nothing as fact, merely as theory.
A scientist like Ian would not abandon his belief in
scientific method following his spiritual experience. He would only abandon his
previous beliefs about the existence of the soul. Or perhaps not even that. Ian
does not believe in the soul because he has no reason to—no such hypothesis has
ever been proven and we have no good reason to even suggest the hypothesis.
With his new experiences he now has a reason to investigate the hypothesis that
a soul exists, but he has no reason to suddenly abandon scientific method.
He now has a single data point that suggests something like
a soul. As a scientist, he would now begin crafting theories and attempting to
test them. He might form a hypothesis, but he would be very unscientific to
treat the soul as fact or even to form a ‘belief’ based on this one observation
(science puts a lot of emphasis on replication, as you may know).
Science is a process and those who subscribe to scientific
method subscribe to an attitude to knowledge. Scientists speculate, hypothesise
and suspect. Spirituality, on the other hand, is a willingness to ‘believe’
when knowledge is absent. It typically involves a willingness to jump from a
small piece of evidence to a much bigger claim. For example, several theists in
the United States feel there is adequate historical evidence to regard the
resurrection as fact and jump from this to the view that the Bible is all true.
Yet claims in the bible do not follow from the resurrection. Jesus may well
have been a necromancer. Rising from the dead does not imply that someone is
the son of God, or that God dislikes homosexual marriage, for example.
Perhaps I have misinterpreted the allegory and it is
actually something softer. I think the movie offers quite a nice cautionary
note against hubris in science. There is a great deal out there that is not
presently accessible to science. Indeed, some things, like ethics, may never be
accessible. In this context, we should be amenable to ‘spiritualism’ as a
collection of hypotheses awaiting verification. After all, ‘mind’ as a distinct
‘substance’ in the metaphysical sense is still one of the foremost theories of
consciousness, and this is not a far cry from a ‘soul’. This, I think, is a
good message. Suggesting that scientific method can be invalidated by a religious
experience is not. I would like to hear Mike Cahill’s thoughts in this regard.
‘I, origins’ gets four and
half stars from me.
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