12 Monkeys: Mental Divergence

The Path of the Virus

I love a good time travel story.  I have seen all three of the Back to the Future movies more times than I can remember.  I could tell you precisely how the time travel rules change from one Terminator movie to the next.  I even sat through The Time Traveler's Wife, God help me.  But, my all time favorite has to be 12 Monkeys.  It faithfully follows the principle that the past can not be changed and then takes that principle to the point of absurdity as causality circles back on itself like the monkeys chasing each other's tails round and round, representing the twelve hours on the face of a clock.  The funny thing is, though, in a certain sense 12 Monkeys isn't about time travel at all.  It's about mental illness.  It's about the fine line between insanity and what we're willing to believe.

In the late 19th century a man named Daniel Schreber was treated from what was then known as dementia preacox, a illness which we now call schizophrenia.  He believed that God and his psychiatrist were trying to turn him into a woman.  He believed that God was trying to penetrate his skull with "rays of sperm".  At one point, he became convinced that the outside world had ended and that the people and doctors that visited him were only mere facsimiles of the people they represented.  In 12 Monkeys, James Cole is locked in a mental institution in 1990 following a violent outburst.  He believes he is from the future.  He believes that billions will die in 1996 from a deadly virus.  He believes that he has been sent to the past to collect information, and that the people around him are already dead from his perspective, ghosts of the past living in a world that has long since been abandoned and reclaimed by the animals.  He believes that there is a transmitter in his tooth that transmits his location to the people in the future.  He often hears a disembodied voice when calls him "Bob."  Much like Schreber's doctors, Cole's doctors consider him to be insane.  The difference in 12 Monkeys is that it's all treated as if it's completely true.

There's a statement at the beginning of the film that suggests that Cole's story is based on a real patient's delusion.  The issue the film raises is how do we know what's true and what isn't?  How do we know if a man who claims to be from the future is insane or telling the truth?  We hear all the time from people who claim to have been abducted by aliens, people who claim to be channeling the dead souls of Egyptian pharaohs, and yes, even people who claim to be from the future.  It's easy to be dismissive and declare that these people are either "crazy" or lying to get attention.  But how can we really be sure?  Maybe aliens really are secretly communicating with certain chosen people via their television sets.  When it comes to committing someone to an institution where do you draw the line between someone who needs help and someone who claims something that you "know" is impossible?

Having seen a few cases of schizophrenia for myself, I believe that the defining feature of the illness is the lack of internal logic.  It's one thing to have someone tell you that they've seen a UFO.  It's another thing to have someone show you a jar of chunky peanut butter as proof that Jesus controlled an army of robot spiders.  If you've ever been there, you know the difference.  I'm not saying that you necessarily believe every person that tells you they've seen a UFO.  I'm just saying that don't just dismiss them as insane because you don't believe in UFO's.  If it sounds like it makes sense if you granted the premise that it was true, then you can at least give them the benefit of the doubt, and agree to disagree and remain skeptical until you see some proof for yourself.  

Following the recent shooting in Tuscon, one of my cousins in Arizona posted links to some Youtube videos that this Jared Loughner kid had made a few months earlier.  Most of them feature little blocks of text talking about "conscience dreaming" and "a new currency".  I've watched these videos, and I really don't see the slightest possibility of making any kind of sense out of anything he's saying.  Obviously, I don't need to tell you that I'm not a doctor, and I don't know the kid.  It's hard to make a determination based on a few words taken out of context in an online video.  Is it possible that he has some valid theories about the true nature of reality?  I suppose.  But strictly on the basis of what I've seen, and with my extremely limited qualifications, I think there are definite signs of metal illness.  In any case, I can't quite imagine any insight into the nature of reality that he might have had that would justify the actions he took.

12 Monkeys presents a very extreme case.  True though it is, Cole's story sounds every bit as much like dementia as any story could.  Is the movie simply trying to present a concrete dramatization of a schizoid delusion, or is it just doing everything it can to push the boundary between the possible and the insane?  It's hard to say.  At one point he vanishes from a tiny locked room where he was sedated and restrained to the floor.  One of the doctors speculates that Cole must have slipped the restraints, climbed the high, smooth walls, and escaped through an extremely small vent in the ceiling.  Given what he believes, this is the only logical explanation that he can come up with...and it's just as crazy as anything else in the movie.

(This post is also available in extra cheesy version.)