More on Vanilla Sky

I got to thinking about the post that I wrote about Vanilla Sky the other day, and I realized that I wanted to add a few points.  In particular, I want to discuss the issue of David's guilt as well as the meaning of the dream sequence that opens the film.  (Please note: I wrote the original post under the assumption that I was addressing people who hadn't seen the film.  I provided a brief synopsis of the plot points I would be dealing with.  This post goes into more detail, and I guess it's written more for people who have seen the film.  Trying to cover all the plot points I deal with here would be nearly impossible and would definitely make a ridiculously long post even longer.)  Anyway:   

DAVID'S GUILT OVER JULIE'S SUICIDE

                                                                     

As an anticipation of possible objections, I think that maybe I need to establish more definite proof of David's guilt since my concept of David's dream as a wish fulfillment rests almost entirely on this point.  The movie never explicitly confirms this fact.  McCabe's statement that David "treated Julie carelessly" is the only real acknowledgement that David might have anything to feel guilty about.  David responds to this with just a simple nod.  Although he discusses his life and his feelings in great detail with McCabe, he never directly expresses any real remorse or responsibility over what happened to Julie.  He's strangely silent on the subject.  A girl commits suicide with him in the car because she's in love with him and he has nothing to say about this?  

Of course, David's silence in and of itself proves nothing; quite the contrary.  However, there are a few subtle moments that provide a clue to his feelings.  One of these moments occurs the morning of the accident.  Julie's statement that he's never there for his friends until they've given up on him, causes him to hesitate and finally to agree to get into the car with her.  This shows that he's not completely cold to the way he's treated her, even though, to other people, he's referred to her as a "stalker" and made light of their relationship.  He projects a certain image of himself and his emotions that seems to cover up his deeper feelings.  We'll return to this point below.

Another, and more significant clue to his guilt occurs during his second dream sequence where he meets up with Sophia in the park.  Notice the look on his face when Sophia reminds him of the party and repeats the line about "the saddest girl to ever hold a martini."  The memory that this all brings back clearly disturbs him.  Note as well that it's this memory of Julie that disrupts his happy dream of Sophia.  This theme is repeated in a broader and more expanded way in his third dream, his Lucid Dream experience with Life Extension.  Finally, note that he repeats this dialogue about the martini to Sophia at the dance club as if he's oblivious to the fact that it might be inappropriate given the circumstances of what's happened.  Yet, we've seen in the park dream that the memory of this conversation does disturb him.  Again we have a pattern of him making light of something to mask his inner feelings.

His conversation with Brian outside the dance club provides a third clue.  He confronts Brian about the fact that he told Julie that David referred to her as his "fuck buddy."  This is a defensive reaction.  He's trying to shift some of the blame for what happened to Julie to Brian, especially since he knows it was Brian who actually referred to her that way.  In a way he's trying to discuss his guilt with Brian at that moment, but it ends up coming out all wrong.  One of the reasons throughout the film that he doesn't talk about the way he feels about what happened to Julie is that he hasn't quite come to terms with it.  The story itself is really the process of him coming to terms with it.  As far as Brian, notice that in the Lucid dream he's cast in the role of a betrayer, in league with "The Board".  This reflects the guilt David tried to project onto him outside the dance club.  It's yet another piece of wish-fulfillment from the Lucid dream.  If he can prove that Brian is a back-stabber, then he can absolve himself of his guilt over Julie's death.

Now this all may seem like rather thin evidence, but we're dealing with a story where a man is in denial about his own guilt.  So of course it's not really going to be acknowledged openly.  I think the evidence above is compelling enough to draw the conclusion that he does feel guilty.  The whole narrative of the Lucid dream involves him trying to recover the life that he lost because of the accident...Sophia, his face, ect.  He just didn't fully consider what an integral part Julie was of that equation.  He lost something else because of her death; something he hadn't come to terms with; something that might be impossible to recover. 

The simplest way to look at it would be this: David is given a virtual world where he can have anything and any life he imagines.  Yet it all gets ruined as though he were being punished for his sins, as though Karma had returned in the form of Julie Gianni to haunt him.  It all seems to have a certain poetic justice about it.  But then you have to ask yourself: In David's mind...in David's dream...who's the one doing the punishing?  And why?

However, to return to the point of my previous post, the object of the dream is not punishment but wish-fulfillment.  Punishment is more like...a side effect.  The emotional conflicts of the mind lead to conflicts between our different wishes and desires and this in turn manifests itself as dis-harmony and discord in the dream state.  Part of David wants his happy life with Sophia, but buried beneath that, another part of him wants to engineer a scenario where he doesn't have to feel bad about Julie's death.  Part of him wants to take it all back and make it right again, but it can't be undone.  He wants to have his cake but he also wants to be forgiven for preferring it over another cake that drove itself off a bridge.

                                                                      DAVID'S FIRST DREAM

The film opens with a strange but simple dream sequence.  David "wakes up" in the morning, and leaves his apartment and finds that the streets of New York are completely deserted.  He stops his car in the middle of the empty street in Times Square.  He takes off running as he's bombarded with flashing advertisements from the billboards.  Finally, he ends up spinning in the middle of the square with arms outstretched as he lets out a cry of either terror or triumph, and then with a gasp he awakes.  This opening scene and its relation to the rest of the story has perplexed me for quite some time, but I think I have an idea about what it means. 

In one sense, the nature of the dream itself implies that the city belongs to him, that it's all there for him.  Imagine the self-absorption and self-importance involved in the dream of being the only man in all of New York City.  All of the towering buildings are there just for him.  All of the enticing ads are for his eyes alone to see.  Again, it's a wish-fulfillment, and an incredibly ego-driven one.

And yet, it's a double edged sword.  With this feeling of power and importance comes a terrifying feeling of loneliness and isolation.  The piercing cry he lets out at the end of the dream captures this dichotomy perfectly.  On the one hand, it's an expression of power.  His voice echoes through the empty silent streets.  It's the sort of spontaneous impulse that makes someone yell at the top of their lungs when they look out over the vast expanse of The Grand Canyon.  On the other hand, it's an expression of terrifying loneliness.  It's an attempt to make contact.  It's a wordless way of crying out, "Does anyone out there hear me?"  The ambiguousness of this cry captures both sides of the dream.

I think this dream tells a lot about where David is in his life as the story opens.  It also helps to establish a running theme that will develop through-out the movie, the idea that our desires come with a psychological price, that all our wishes and fantasies have another side to them.  At David's birthday party Brian makes his "Sweet & Sour" speech.  By the end of the film, David has learned this lesson for himself.  He has come to see that having a perfect life isn't as simple as it might seem.  Our sorrows and disappointments are just as essential to the full experience of life as our successes and our joys and accomplishments.  Consequences...the little things...there's nothing bigger.  

(Final note: I noticed during a recent viewing of this movie that the car he drives in this opening dream sequence is different from the Mustang he drives in the real-life scene that follows.  If anyone has any guesses about the significance of this, or even knows what kind of car that was in the dream, feel free to leave a comment below.)

Vanilla Sky: An Exploration of Wish-Fulfillment

In his groundbreaking work The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud put forward the idea that "Every dream represents the fulfillment of a wish."  For many dreams, this idea seems rather self-evident.  However, it's Freud's assertion that all dreams represent the fulfillment of a wish that many people have a hard time grasping.  They have trouble accepting that even their nightmares are manifestations of their deepest desires.  On the surface the idea appears contradictory and the implications seems appalling, but the mind is far more complicated than they imagine.

The idea is simple enough, if you think about it.  A dream is an experience created by you mind.  Every situation, every event, every detail no matter how small is deliberately orchestrated.  There is nothing accidental.  There is nothing that happens to you in a dream that runs contrary to your will, no matter how much it might appear that way.  You might not be aware or feel a conscious connection to the forces creating and controlling your dreams.  Nevertheless, it is your mind at work behind it all.  It's your mind making it all happen.  Deep down there's some part of you that wants it to happen, that needs it to happen, even if the conscious experience of it is one of overwhelming terror.  

But why would your own mind deliberately put you through a terrifying ordeal like that?  How could a wish-fulfillment fantasy turn into such a twisted and unpleasant experience?  The film Vanilla Sky provides an excellent glimpse of this process at work.  (Spoilers to follow, of course.)

The story of the film follows the emotional journey of David Ames, a young heir to a publishing empire.  He has lived a life of excess and entitlement.  He has money.  He has no trouble picking up women.  Anything he wants, he gets without effort.  Disappointment, disillusionment, and regret are things he's seldom had to deal with in his life.  Then one day it all falls apart.  A girl named Julie that he's had a casual relationship with grows angry over his callous attitude and becomes jealous of a new girl that he's interested in named Sophia.  She drives off a bridge and commits suicide with him in the car.  He wakes up from a coma scarred and disfigured.  Sophia shies away from him.  He begins to see his nice comfortable life slipping away.  All of the things that once came easy to him are now just beyond his reach.  

(At this point in the story, things take a surreal turn.  However, my point would be better served if I followed the events in a chronological rather than narrative order.)  

Faced, for the first time in his life, with the crushing consequences of something he cannot change, David commits suicide.  Before doing so, he signs a contract with a company called Life Extension to have his body placed in cryogenic stasis upon his death.  He purchases a deluxe package from them called "The Lucid Dream."  As the name suggested, this involves placing David's mind in a dream state while his body is frozen and preserved.  This dream is "spliced" into a specifically chosen moment in David's life.  As far as he knows, his life is simply continuing on from that moment.  He has no memory of taking his own life or any other real-world events that happened after the splice.  

Now here is where we get into the issue of dreams.  The point of the Lucid Dream option is the same as the point of all dreams under Freud's theory.  It is sold to David as a limitless experience of fantasy and wish-fulfillment.  Yet, something goes wrong.  The dream turns into a nightmare.  Oh, it all begins well enough.  Sophia no longer pulls away, but instead she accepts him and falls in love with him.  The doctors are able to fix his disfigured face.  His life seems to be getting back on track.  But then things take a turn.  He "wakes up" to find Julie in bed with him, claiming to be Sophia.  Things begin to spin out of control.  Everyone else recognizes Julie as Sophia.  He has paranoid suspicions that he's the victim of some sort of conspiracy.  Sophia and Julie become interchangeable to the point that it finally leads him to a breakdown that drives him to murder Sophia.  In prison a psychologist leads him to remember his contract with Life Extension and the realization that he's in a dream state.

So did the people at Life Extension sell him a faulty product?  Was there a glitch in the Lucid Dream option?  No.  The Lucid Dream delivered exactly what it was supposed to.  David's dream was a wish-fulfillment, just as Freud insisted.  The problem is that there are often wishes in the mind that run counter to one another, causing a traffic jam of impossibility that makes the sub-conscious incapable of projecting a pleasant scenario.  David still had repressed guilt over his involvement in Julie's death.  Part of him wished that he had loved Julie.  Part of him wished that he had been in a deeper relationship with her, that he could have been capable of caring more about her, and that he could have spared her life.  Part of him didn't feel like he deserved this happy life with Sophia and he wished that he could be in a situation that he felt less guilt and regret over.  In the experience of the Lucid Dream his mind expressed these wishes by grafting Julie onto his projection of Sophia.  Naturally, this conflicted with his more conscious wish to have a happy life with Sophia.  This ambivalence is also represented in his worries over whether his re-constructive surgery is real and lasting.

The story of David Ames demonstrates the process of wish-fulfillment by exhibiting it in stark relief.  He begins with a nearly perfect life.  It's a fairly straight-forward fantasy.  But then guilt, regret, and catastrophe disrupt this fantasy as they disrupt all of our fantasies and dreams.  It's not a simple thing, getting what we want.  Only a perfect and unblemished soul could have perfect and unblemished dreams.  For the rest of us, our fears and worries, our doubts and inadequacies shade even our most ambitious desires with touches of beautiful melancholy.  Occasionally, the experience can even take a horrifying turn.  We can only hope that, like David Ames, we can reconcile this turbulence and find peace under these Monet-like skies.