Okay -small confession, I wrote the thread really really late at night... drinking and smoking. I apologize for being a mumbling idiot but I had just cleared the
qhost virus off and I had access to google again.... I own this movie and this thread has been brewing for a while so I'll try to be a little more clear.
The screen shots are just for fun.
Identity has a dual nature. One part is the ability provided by one's genes (as represented by Jerome). The other part is the will (Vincent). The movie illustrates why the will is the stronger part.
Jerome
could not get over the fact that he got second place in the olympics. That's why he stepped in front of the car. That's possibly why he killed himself in the end. For a suicide note -he gave Vincent a card with a lock of his hair.
Vincent gives the secret to his success after racing his brother in the end:
Quote:
They tread water several yards apart. The ocean is choppier
now. The view of the lights on the shore is obscured by the
peaks of the waves.
ANTON
(panic starting to show)
Vincent, where's the shore? We're too far out.
We have to go back!
JEROME
(calling back)
Too late for that. We're closer to the other side.
Anton looks towards the empty horizon.
ANTON
What other side? How far do you want to go?!
Do you want to drown us both?
(becoming hysterical)
How are we going to get back?!
Jerome merely smiles back at his younger brother, a disturbingly
serene smile.
JEROME
(eerily calm)
You wanted to know how I did it. That's
how I did it, Anton. I never saved anything
for the swim back.
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(from the script at http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/gattaca_early.html)
I don't know if anyone here has read Kierkegaard's
Fear and Trembling. This attitude of 'just swimming forward' smacks of Kierkegaard's faith. You move on and keep swimming because faith in the future renders fears insignificant.
Quote:
Faith is the highest passion in a man. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not even reach it, but no one gets further. Whether there be many in our age who do not discover it, I will not decide, I dare only appeal to myself as a witness who makes no secret that the prospects for him are not the best, without for all that wanting to delude himself and to betray the great thing which is faith by reducing it to an insignificance, to an ailment of childhood which one must wish to get over as soon as possible.
...
"One must go further, one must go further." This impulse to go further is an ancient thing in the world.
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But wait a minute, I'm drifting. The title here is about duality. Okay so how about the duality between Vincent's life as a janitor at Gattaca and that as an Astronaut.
Does anyone see a resemblence between his two bosses?
It seems that Vince's old boss Caeser (Ernest Borgnine), liked him so much that he's trying to cover for him. (Remember when he was caught trying to remove the trash with Vincent's DNA from the crime scene?) Is this paralleled by Directer Josef's (Gore Vidal) crime of killing the other director because he was going to cancel the mission?
I'm just throwing these suggestions out. I could be wrong, I don't care. I guess this is more of an appreciation thread more than anything. (Insert smoke and drink here.)