| Synopsis: An advertisement extols the
virtues of Delos, a vacation resort where, for $1000 a day, guests can experience
Medievalworld, Romanworld or Westworld, recreations of historical periods precise to the
smallest detail and peopled by robots almost indistinguishable from human beings. As Peter
Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) travel towards Delos, an
orientation film promises them that Westworld is a place of lawless violence, a society of
guns and actions. Once arrived, Peter and John receive directions from a woman. Nervously,
Peter wonders whether their guide was a robot. John tells him that the only way of telling
the Delos robots from humans is their hands, which have not yet been perfected. After
being correctly outfitted for the American west of the 1880s, Peter and John are taken to
Westworld in a Wells Fargo stagecoach. At the hotel, the two are shown to their room by a
man whom Peter cannot believe is a robot, until John offers him a tip in order to give
Peter a look at his hands. Peter is at first unimpressed with their surroundings. John
tells him that Westworld is about authenticity, not comfort. The two visit the saloon,
where Peter unthinkingly orders a martini. John interrupts, changing the order to whiskey,
telling his friend that he must get into the spirit of the place. At that moment a
Gunslinger (Yul Brynner) dressed all in black approaches, speaking insultingly to Peter.
As Peter hesitates, John goads him into action, and a moment later, the other occupants of
the saloon scatter as Peter and the Gunslinger go for their guns. Peter shoots first,
blasting a bloody hole through his adversary. After a stunned moment, he fires twice more,
and the Gunslinger falls, apparently dead. As two men drag the body away, John must
reassure Peter that the "dead" man was only a robot. Later, back in their room,
Peter asks John how he can be sure that an opponent is a robot. John explains that the
guns in Westworld have a heat sensor, and will only fire at things with no body
temperature. Over dinner, the men hear of another saloon run by a woman called Miss Carrie
(Majel Barrett). There, John pushes Peter into the company of a girl called Arlette (Linda
Scott). Peter is extremely nervous, but allows himself to be led to an upstairs room,
where he and Arlette have sex. That night, as the guests sleep, technicians enter the
streets of Westworld, collecting the "dead" bodies and putting the town back
together. Damaged robots are taken to a huge repair centre, where electronics experts work
through the night to restore their functions. The centre’s supervisor (Alan
Oppenheimer) is disturbed to hear that one robot has a central malfunction. Reporting to
his superiors, the supervisor points out the recent sharp increase in serious robot
malfunctions, a phenomenon that seems to be spreading through the resort. He recommends
shutting Delos down for a time, and finally it is agreed that no more guests will be taken
in until the problem is overcome. The next morning, while Peter is down the hall in the
bath, John hears a knock at the bedroom door. He opens it to be confronted by the
Gunslinger, who holds him at gunpoint. In the corridor, Peter hears voices. He bursts into
the room, gun at the ready, and blasts the Gunslinger, who falls through the window and
into the street, "dead" again. To Peter’s dismay, he soon finds himself in
jail, set to stand trial before a hanging judge. Peter’s incarceration does not last
long, however, as John organises an explosive jailbreak, "killing" the
town’s sheriff in the process. The two men ride into the hills surrounding the town,
laughing delightedly at being "desperadoes". As they discuss what to do next, a
rattlesnake glides towards them. John shoots at it, but misses. The next moment, the snake
launches itself towards him, biting him on the arm. Although the robot snake is soon
"killed", John is left staring at his bleeding arm, repeating numbly that such
things are not supposed to happen…. Comments: I love Westworld. I want to state
that quite plainly at the outset because, while I do love it, I also have a lot of
very serious reservations about it. This was the first film directed by Michael Crichton,
made back in the early days of his career, before he was seduced by The Dark Side; and as
with most of his early work, Westworld is a warning about the perils of mankind
placing too much faith in technology. However, the film fails as a message picture because
its central premise is utterly untenable. Now, it may be argued that in contrast to The
Andromeda Strain, which was successfully filmed as a taut science fiction thriller, Westworld
was intended as a satire; and unquestionably, parts of the story are intentionally
funny. However, there is also the sense that we are supposed to be wowed by the technology
on display here, and disturbed by the notion of that very technology taking on a life of
its own and turning on its creators. In other words, Westworld tries to be too many
different things at once, and ends up afflicted by a distinct uncertainty of tone. Given
the screentime granted to the behind-the-scenes running of Delos, and the reaction of the
resort’s staff to the disaster confronting them, I think that in spite of the humour
in the early scenes, we are supposed to take the film seriously, and that is
precisely what’s wrong with it. No matter from which angle you choose to look at it,
the whole concept of the Delos resort is farcical. First of all, who could afford to build
a place like this, let alone run it, even if they were charging their guests a thousand
dollars a day? Consider the staff required to keep things running smoothly –
supervisors who must monitor each and every robot every second the resort is operational,
in order to ensure their appropriate interaction with the guests; electronics experts who
can fix any problem within a couple of hours – all of whom must presumably be fed,
clothed and housed on site (not to mention their families – where do they
live?). Then there are the robots themselves. Granted, the idea of a confrontation between
humans and almost humans remains an intellectually exciting one, but Westworld
takes it well beyond the realm of the credible. We are asked to believe in robots that can
talk, act, react with perfect spontaneity; that never sustain irreparable damage
despite being repeatedly blasted with bullets; that cannot be distinguished from the real
humans by anything other than a tiny design flaw; and that - at least in the case of the
"female" robots – are physiologically perfect as well. And as if all
this is not quite enough for the audience to swallow, on top of it we are then asked to
accept the "rules" of Delos, despite their being violated every time the story
requires it. For instance, the script harps continuously on the "authenticity"
of the three worlds, then presents us with an immaculately clean 13th century
Europe populated by individuals with impeccable personal hygiene. John Blane tells Peter
Martin that the guns in Westworld won’t fire at anything with a body temperature, yet
when the men have sex with the prostitute robots, we are led to infer that the experience
is, ah, authentic. And speaking of those guns – what faith the owners of Delos
must have in the prowess of their guests! Sure, perhaps the guns won’t fire when
pointed at the guests, but doesn’t anyone ever miss? Don’t bullets
ricochet in Westworld? And what happens when they pass through a robot, as happens
when Peter shoots the Gunslinger? And while we know how the guns are supposed to be
controlled, what of the swords in Medievalworld? Questions such as these accumulate in the
viewer’s mind until it is simply impossible to take the story seriously. And just to
add insult to injury, the events behind the scenes at Delos are even less credible than
those happening within the resort itself. Would you believe that the creators of Delos
designed a control room with electronically operated, airtight doors? That they
didn’t think to include a manual control (i.e. a door handle)? That when they
cut the power to try and stop the malfunctioning robots (needless to say, it doesn’t
work), they then find themselves trapped in an airlock with no way of escape!? As we watch
these alleged geniuses suffocating to death, we can only wonder how Delos was created in
the first place – certainly, nothing in these scenes impresses us with the
intelligence of the people in charge. In fairness, there is one genuinely interesting plot
thread in this section of the film, and that is Crichton’s prediction (or use?
I’m not sure of my history) of the computer virus, when the Supervisor describes the
increase in robot malfunction as mimicking "the infectious disease process".
(Amusingly, one of his superiors responds, "I find it difficult to believe in a
disease of machinery.") However, even this is undercut by Crichton being unable to
find any credible explanation for the actual transmission of the "disease". It
just happens, and that’s that.
Apart from the technological impossibility of it all, the
other major problem with the Delos concept is – who would really want this
kind of holiday? (Admittedly, I’m probably not the best person to answer that
question. I like my creature comforts too much – hot running water, indoor plumbing,
that sort of thing. Now, if the creators of Delos had included Loungeroomworld, and
furnished it with The World’s Comfiest Armchair, The World’s Best Television,
The World’s Biggest Collection Of Movies, and The World’s Most Bottomless Cup Of
Coffee, well, then we might have done business.) The opening scenes of the film
consist of an advertisement for Delos, in which your standard talking head with a
microphone interviews people returning from the resort. One man, having visited
Medievalworld, reports that "I’ve had a couple of swordfights and three jousts
– and I married a beautiful princess!" "Is that something you always
dreamed of doing?" asks the interviewer gravely. "All my life!" responds
the guest enthusiastically. Hmm….well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve
never numbered "jousting" amongst my unfulfilled dreams. In fact, nothing
on display at Delos appeals to me in the slightest – and that is exactly the problem:
why on earth would any woman want to go there? Now, I’m not saying that a
woman’s life today – or even in 1973 – is perfect, but I can’t think
of a single point in history I’d swap it for. And the more Delos insists on its
"authenticity", the less desirable the whole experience becomes.
In the unjustly little-known western Hellfire,
Marie Windsor plays the female outlaw Doll Brown, who explains her career choice in grim
terms. "This is a man’s country – girl earnin’ a livin’
ain’t got much choice." She further reveals that she was once a "saloon
girl". If we take that expression for the euphemism it undoubtedly was, we put our
finger on one of Westworld’s major flaws. Try as I might, I can’t think
of a single reason why a woman might want to have an "authentic" western
experience – unless she’s always had some bizarre desire to be either a
schoolmarm or a prostitute (and if the latter, why not just do it? – earn a
thousand dollars a day, don’t pay for the privilege!). And yet when Peter and
John are transported to Westworld, we see as many women going there as men. So difficult
is this to believe that it really comes as no surprise when the question of what the
female guests do in Westworld is never even touched upon, let alone answered.
Indeed, after the arrival scene, we don’t see any of the vacationing women again
until the final sequence of the film, when disaster has struck. This scene takes place in
Romanworld; and the overall inference of the film is that this is the resort that most
women will choose to visit. Why? Well, the orientation spiel describes it as "a lusty
treat for the senses" while the opening ad sequence has a female guest breathlessly
praising Romanworld for "the men!" and further describing it as "a warm,
glowing place to be". (Granted, it’s been some time since I read any Edward
Gibbon, but I don’t recall him describing the Roman Empire like that….)
In other words, women go to Delos for the S-E-X. Frankly, this strikes me as less a
realistic viewpoint (who’d pay a thousand dollars a day to have sex with robots!?),
and more your typical early seventies nervous reaction to the implications of the
burgeoning women’s movement; and indeed, the script is so unsure of itself here that
we spend no time at Romanworld at all.
Westworld is on firmer ground with its
inferences of why men find Delos an attractive destination. In contrast to the "lusty
treat for the senses" of Romanworld, Medievalworld and Westworld – the two
predominantly male destinations – promise, respectively, "chivalry and
combat" and "lawlessness, a society of guns and action". The attraction,
then, is violence – but safe violence, where no-one can really get
hurt, including, most importantly, the perpetrators. (Mysteriously, the sex dichotomy
implied here seems to extend to the robots: when Delos goes berserk, only the male
robots commit acts of violence.) Initially, Delos seems like nothing more than an
elaborate and expensive paintball arena – a place where, as one guest puts it, you
can play "Cowboys and Indians – only for real!" But as the film
progresses, a more sinister feeling begins to emerge, due principally to the swiftness
with which Delos’s guests immerse themselves in a culture of killing. It is
significant that most of Delos’s visitors are what might loosely be described as
"civilised" men – lawyers, bankers, stock brokers. It is possible to see
the relationship between the resort and its guests as a positive one, inasmuch as it
allows these people to rid themselves of any anti-social urges in non-harmful way; or
alternatively, it can be read as an implicit criticism of "the real world", a
society that has no place for such "natural" impulses as fighting and killing.
But a third interpretation is possible, and it is here that Westworld becomes most
intriguing; for after a time, it seems that the real attraction of Delos is not just
violence without danger, but violence without consequences. This theme is present
from the opening scene, where a guest, asked to describe his Delos experience, exults,
"I shot six men!" As the film progresses, the acts of violence perpetrated by
the guests escalate in both frequency and intensity: gun fights, bank robberies, and jail
breaks, all resulting in streets strewn with "bodies". A wild, drunken brawl
breaks out in the saloon, and our "heroes", Peter and John, throw themselves
into it without hesitation. (Another gaping hole in the "authenticity" of Delos:
what we have here is not so much an authentic fight as an authentic movie fight
– after getting punched in the face repeatedly and having chairs and bottles broken
over their heads, Peter and John emerge with nothing worse than hangovers.) Watching how
eagerly these apparently civilised and law-abiding men take to a life of constant
violence, it is hard not to wonder just what their conduct in the "real world"
might be if they were as free from reprisal there as they are at Delos. And there is yet
another, still more disturbing implication lurking within Westworld's scenario, one
conjured up by the repeated insistence that Delos is a place where "all your dreams
can come true" - namely, the rather dismal suggestion that the dreams of your average
man rarely extend past a life spent brawling, fucking and killing.
The manner in which the psyches of Peter Martin and John
Blane are revealed to the viewer is one of Westworld's major strengths. The opening
scenes of the film sketch our protagonists for us with praiseworthy economy. Peter is a
lawyer, a city-dweller, an urbanised individual who has lost contact with his manhood.
John, on the other hand (whose profession we never learn), is a man’s man,
comfortable with guns and hard liquor (Peter chokes on the Westworld whiskey) and scenes
of violence. John has brought his friend to Westworld to help him get back in touch with
his masculine side – and, incidentally, to get over his divorce, in which, modern
wimp that he is, he allowed his ex-wife to "take him for a ride". First
complaining about the standard of the accommodation, then ordering a martini at the
saloon, Peter completes his shame by hesitating when confronted by the Gunslinger.
John, however, has no such qualms: "Kill him!" he hisses, forcing his
friend to take action. Peter finally does, putting three bloody holes in his adversary. He
then celebrates his first "kill" by visiting the local brothel. After this
violence/sex double-header, Peter is clearly a "new man", announcing
triumphantly, "This place is really fun!" Meanwhile, the other male
guests whom the story chooses to follow have also made the most of their opportunities:
one has become the lover of the "queen" of Medievalworld, while the other (seen
removing his wedding-ring while getting outfitted) wakes up in Westworld with a prostitute
in his bed and a smirk on his face. Ahh – real men!
Yet surprisingly, having set up this scenario, Westworld
then cuts the ground out from beneath itself, becoming increasingly more interesting with
its examination of what exactly a "real man" is. If I can be permitted another
cinematic digression here, while I was watching Westworld, I kept being put in mind
of another early seventies movie: Deliverance. While at first glance you might
think that there could hardly be two films with less in common, in fact they do have
certain thematic similarities; namely, their investigations into what type of man is best
able to deal with a crisis. Fascinatingly, both Deliverance and Westworld
give the same answer to this question, and it is not at all the one you might expect. Both
films centre around a pair of male protagonists, one of whom is the act first,
think-later-if-at-all type (Burt Reynolds in the former, James Brolin in the latter), the
other the more intellectual type (Jon Voigt, Richard Benjamin), clearly unused to the
outdoors and with no taste for roughing it, and who is - initially at least - appalled by
the prospect of violence. Of course, in both films disaster strikes – and amazingly,
it is not the "rugged individualist" who survives and triumphs, but the thinker
– the one who proves capable not just of resorting to violence once it is
necessary, but who can keep his head under pressure and plan his course of action.
Conversely, it is the "action man" who is the first one taken down in each
story. This implicit celebration of the cerebral man is almost startling when viewed
across nearly three decades of what are generally referred to as "mindless action
movies". I can’t help feeling that if either Deliverance or Westworld
had been made a few years later, or if, God forbid, they were to be re-made today (not
that Deliverance would be made today, but that’s another story), the
reverse situation would be well in evidence, with anyone hesitating over whether or not to
use violence blown away before the opening titles had even finished rolling.
I started out by saying I loved Westworld, and then
I dumped all over it for several paragraphs. Well, I’m going to say it again –
"I love Westworld!" – and now I’m going to tell you why:
because it’s fun! In fact, it’s so much fun that I'm actually able to
shut down that pesky rational side of my brain and just enjoy it – at least
until after the end credits. If the film does go off the rails with its attempt to be a
"warning" picture, there are still enough funny moments and inventive visuals
scattered throughout to keep it thoroughly entertaining. Scenes that stand out include our
introduction to a couple having separate Delos vacations, he in Medievalworld, she in
Romanworld. He reacts to the thought of the various pleasures in store for him with a
leering smile, which is abruptly wiped from his face when he hears what’s in store
for his wife. Another memorable snippet comes when our Medievalworld visitor tries to
seduce one of the castle "wenches". Instead of complying, she slaps his face.
(You go, girl!) Two watching Delos technicians are suitably horrified. "She is
a sex model!" protests one. "She certainly is!" sniggers his
companion. (Given that Delos is entirely staffed by men, I’m tempted to inquire how
the male "sex models" were tested!) Other charmingly absurd moments
include scenes of robots interacting when there are no humans around; the sight of
a deactivated horse lying as stiff as a board in a Delos workroom; and my personal
favourite, half a dozen grim-faced technicians peering with desperate seriousness into the
workings of a mechanical snake. Richard Benjamin and James Brolin are both good as our
supposed identification characters, but of course, the highlight of Westworld, and
the one thing that nobody who sees it ever forgets, is the performance of Yul Brynner as
the Gunslinger; a contribution that, by some cinematic miracle, allowed the actor to
parody and enhance his image all at the same time. The final third of the film consists of
the relentless pursuit of Peter Martin by his black-clad adversary, an extended sequence
that is chilling, funny and suspenseful - and which also functions as an interesting
personality test. Who do you cheer for, when the robots revolt? Whether you
sympathise with the newly terrorised humans or the perpetually put-upon robots may well
depend upon your own life experience. For me, one of the supreme pleasures of Westworld
is watching the human characters learn what, sadly, far too few real life bullies ever do:
that violence is no fun at all when it’s directed at you. Given Westworld's
overall attitude, it comes as no surprise that John Blane is amongst the first of Delos's real
victims, first having a robot rattlesnake strike at him successfully ("That’s
not supposed to happen!"), and then, when he and Peter find themselves facing
the Gunslinger for the third - and in John's case, last - time, choosing precisely
the wrong moment to show off his gun-handling skills. This fatal confrontation is a
beautifully choreographed scene, with time almost standing still as both men stare blankly
at the blood pouring from the hole in John’s body. "I’m shot," John
says, so numb with astonishment that he seems oblivious to his own pain. "I’m shot."
They are the last words he will ever speak. Following hard as it does upon the casual
divvying up of who is going to "kill" the robot this time ("Oh, not you
again." "Let me do it this time."), the Gunslinger’s supreme
act of rebellion is one of those jaw-droppingly wonderful moments that can turn a simple
film watcher into a dedicated cinephile for life.
|
Director: Michael
Crichton