‘The Matrix’ & Film-Philosophy

“The Matrix” (Wachowski & Wachowski, 1999) “is, at its core, a film with a moral plot” (Vasiliou, 2005, p.2). It follows the story of Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), or Neo, as he discovers that the world around him is a simulation governed by machines who breed humans as energy sources. Neo is recruited into a rebel group by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) where he meets Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), Tank (Marcus Chong) and Cypher (Joe Pantoliano), amongst others. The rebels’ goal is to wake up all the humans still trapped in the simulation and to end the reign of the antagonists, the AI Agents led by Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), shutting off the Matrix and freeing humanity.

“The Matrix films are arguably some of the most philosophical films to ever confront mainstream movie audiences” (Lawrence, 2008), which explains the wide scope of academic discourse on the film(s). This essay aims to draw from said discourse and to engage with the field of film philosophy. The aim is to prove that films can engage with and/or be philosophical, employing The Matrix as a case study in critical philosophical interpretations of film. The scene wherein Neo is firstly relayed the entire truth by Morpheus, who shows him the reality of the Matrix through the rebels’ computer loading program ‘The Construct’ [00:39:23-00:43:56], will be forefronted in this case study as an exemplifier of how this film performs philosophy, although some reference to other scenes in this film will be made as well.

Preceding ‘The Construct’ scene, Morpheus decides that Neo is ready to learn the truth of the Matrix (00:38:45), so Trinity thrusts a connection cable through his head making him scream (00:38:57-00:39:18) and Tank loads him into ‘The Construct’ (00:39:22). Our scene begins with Neo’s horizontal face occupying the whole screen (00:39:23) until he opens his eyes: the pain is gone. The camera pans backwards and simultaneously spins counter-clockwise, revealing the liminal space he is standing in and that his appearance has reverted to his Matrix persona (00:39:24-00:39:27). As he looks around, the camera circles him to reveal Morpheus behind him (00:39:28-00:39:31): “This... is the Construct”. He explains how it can load anything the rebels may need (00:39:32-00:39:48). The camera then circles Morpheus, who is now standing next to some armchairs and an old-fashioned TV (00:39:50). Neo approaches him, symbolically starting to internalise the truth, and touches the armchair on the right while asking “This isn’t real?” (00:40:09-00:40:15). Morpheus retorts “What is ‘real’? How do you define ‘real’?” (00:40:16-00:40:20). He points out that it is “simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain” (00:40:21-00:40:28) and then clicks the remote control and says to Neo: “This is the world that you know” (00:40:29-00:40:35).

The TV is now showing images of the Matrix (00:40:36-00:40:39). Neo ‘s eyes are glued to the TV and Morpheus starts explaining how it is a “neural-interactive simulation” to a rattled Neo (00:40:40-00:40:51). “You’ve been living in a dream world, Neo. This is the world as it exists today” (00:40:52-00:41:00).

The camera pans into the TV, as the screen is filled with a vision of a ruined city, before it nosedives into the ground, where Neo and Morpheus now are, armchairs and all, as the latter welcomes Neo “to the desert of the real” (00:41:01-00:41:20). Morpheus explains how humanity arrived at this point (00:41:21-00:42:16). As he looks up at the sky, which turns red, this fades into the head of an embryo with a metal plug in its neck (00:42:17-00:42:27). Morpheus explains how the machines turned humans into energy sources as the camera pans away from the embryo to reveal it is inside an egg, which is itself attached to a sort of tree (00:42:28-00:42:40). From the tree, the machines are plucking and consuming eggs through their tentacles as the camera continues to pan upwards, revealing the “endless fields where human beings are no longer born” (00:42:41-00:42:58). As Morpheus recounts when he first woke from the simulation, the camera follows a surge of black liquid flowing towards an intubated baby (00:42:59-00:43:16). He explains that dead embryos are liquified to feed the live humans as the camera reveals the baby is inside a sack, amongst other baby sacks (00:43:17). The camera pulls back further, exiting the TV, as Morpheus concludes by stating that the Matrix is “a computer-generated dream world built to keep [humans] under control in order to change a human being into [a battery]” (00:43:18-00:43:38). As he holds up the battery, the camera reveals Neo’s nauseated expression (00:43:39-00:43:43). This truth proves too much for him, as he starts screaming to be let out of the program (00:43:44-00:43:56).

When Neo wakes up in the real world, thus signalling the ending of our scene, he physically fights back against the rebels, still unable to accept the truth, and he panics until he eventually vomits and collapses, thus ending this sequence with a fade to black (00:43:57-00:44:22).

To understand whether The Matrix is a philosophical film or not, we must first contextualise it within the field of film philosophy. Sorfa argues “that cinema can do philosophy in a way that is unique to the medium” because of cinema’s ability to present complex thought experiments and its capacity to depict philosophical concepts, thus film “is philosophy itself” (2016, p.3). A film conveys its philosophy through its “cinematic attributes'', namely its visual and narrative elements, therefore offering a philosopher “the full expressive power of language” which is invigorated through cinema’s visual language, deeming film an exceptional vehicle for philosophical thought and for the dissemination of it (Karofsky et al., 2015, p. 4). For instance, The Matrix proposes a key philosophical dilemma for its audience by forcing viewers to adopt a “God’s eye perspective” (Vasiliou, 2005, p. 2) of the ontological dichotomy of the dystopian reality of The Matrix’s world versus the world that humans experience in their simulated reality. This juxtaposition is reinforced visually through the key differences in both these worlds: Neo’s appearance within the Matrix is quite polished but in the real world he looks ghastly; and the Matrix world itself is vibrant and lively whilst the real world is sunken in darkness. Vasiliou also argues that The Matrix’s dilemma can be utilised to ask similar questions on the reality of humanity, since humans are constrained by our physical needs and limitations, and “have longed to ‘break out’ of this reality, to transcend the imposed limitations on their physical being” throughout history (Vasiliou, 2005, p. 2).

The Matrix’s subtext foregrounds philosophical concepts and dilemmas that have been plaguing philosophers since the dawn of what we now understand as philosophical thinking. Within The Matrix, “Platonist, Cartesian and Hegelian ideas are clearly recognisable” and the film’s plot progresses through said ideas (Milidrag, 2013, p. 268).

Firstly, Milidrag argues that Morpheus is a “Platonic philosopher”, signified by how he initially approaches Neo and asks him to choose between the red and blue pill (between the truth and ignorance, respectively) (2013, p. 269). Both these options are antithetical, such as the Matrix and the real world are segregated, leaving “no doubt [as to] which world is ‘true’ and which one is ‘illusion’” (Milidrag, 2013, p. 269). Morpheus never once doubts that he “knows what the truth is” because of his Platonic disposition, and this is further conveyed in ‘The Construct’ scene since he maintains the Socratic notion that Neo must see the truth for himself to properly learn it. Simply doubting the validity of his senses and the existence of his body within the Matrix is not enough: “You cannot ‘wake’ from the world with the aid of [Cartesian] hyperbolic doubt; for that, you need someone who has already ‘awoken’ – like Morpheus” (Milidrag, 2013, p. 270). Additionally, Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ can be used to illustrate how the Matrix’s world of illusions is used to conceal the truth, which is that humans are enslaved by machines and trapped in “a prison for [their] mind” (00:27:54). In Plato’s cave, the prisoners are chained and forced to watch the illusions casted on the cave wall, believing this to be their reality since they have never lived otherwise (Plato, 1941). Eventually, one prisoner discovers the illusions and makes his way outside to discover the real world, only to return and be blinded by the sunlight, which leaves the other prisoners in fear of the outside world (Plato, 1941). In The Matrix, Morpheus is akin to this particular prisoner, as the first to ‘wake’ from the Matrix and the other prisoners are represented by characters like Cypher, who knows the truth but grows jaded of reality and thus chooses to betray the rebels and return to the Matrix.

Milidrag also argues that The Matrix presents several Cartesian motifs, even if the aforementioned hyperbolic doubt does not fit this specific film. Firstly, The Matrix establishes Cartesian dualism, or the body and the mind to be completely separate, through Morpheus teaching Neo martial arts in a separate scene within ‘The Construct’, “to teach [him] that the body in (...) the Matrix is not a body at all” (Milidrag, 2013, p. 271). The mind can be purified by erasing the “teachings of nature” (Manley et al, 1996; Milidrag, 2013, p. 271) within the necessary, substantial union of mind and body (Seager, 1988). This separation of body and mind is necessary for the existence of free will, since the preconceived ideas that stem from the body can obfuscate our judgement (Milidrag, 2013). In ‘The Construct’ scene, Neo struggles with accepting the truth due to his ‘corporeal’ experience within the Matrix, although he eventually accepts it towards the end of the film, effectively separating his mind from the iteration of his body within the Matrix.

Thus, Neo’s mental liberation is limited in nature. His “mind is free but [he] is still not (...) affirmed in such freedom of his because (...) that freedom is not also the freedom of a true body, freedom in the real world” (Milidrag, 2013, p. 271). Milidrag relates this to Hegel’s stoicism, arguing that “Neo finds himself at the Stoic position of ‘subjective reconciliation’: he is free from the Matrix, but he is still free only within the Matrix” (2013, p. 272). Thus, Neo conveys the Hegelian notion of “unhappy consciousness” (Milidrag, 2013, p. 272), whereby he is aware of the self-contradictory nature of his mental liberation versus his continued physical entrapment (Farivar, 2018).

Regardless of the “deep philosophical prejudice against the visual image as an avenue to philosophical enlightenment” (Falzon, 2002, p.4), Falzon dismisses the notion that films lack the capacity for philosophical thought (Wartenberg, 2006, p. 19). He argues that images are inherent to philosophy itself, highlighting the role of “the philosophy we can discern in the image” (Falzon, 2002; cited in Wartenberg, 2006, p. 20). However, film is more than a mere illustration of philosophy, it is also “a site of deep thinking” (Wartenberg, 2006, p. 30) that invites the audience to question analogous systems of oppression in our society. If the Deleuzian model of the “brain as the screen” is to be believed (Flaxman, 2000, p. 23) then cinema is certainly an apparatus of philosophical thinking for the masses to engage with. More specifically, “the science-fiction virtual-reality genre” in which The Matrix exists is ideal to introduce philosophical skepticism, or the questioning of the validity of the senses, to its audience (Karofsky et al., 2015, p. 34). The Matrix also raises questions on the nature of free will (Kale, 2014), presenting an anti-capitalist critique that is akin to the Wachowski sisters’ politics. Thus, the interpretation of their work is reactionary: “a liberating act” (Sontag, 1966, p. 3) much like The Matrix’s climax is liberatory in itself.

In conclusion, films are arguably philosophical because they simultaneously illustrate, practice and disseminate philosophical theory due to cinema being a “mass art” (Adorno, 1966; cited in Hansen, 1981, p. 186). Philosophy is conveyed through the visual and narrative languages of cinema, and through subtext and overall themes. The Matrix’s language spells out a cautionary tale for the future of humanity, highlighting the oppressive systems imposed on humans during late-stage capitalism and the dangers of over-relying on machines for our survival, tinged with anxieties over the technological superiority of AI and over the ignorance and apathy resulting from a world of illusions. In ‘The Construct’ scene, Neo fully grasps the scope of the philosophical dilemma immediately apparent once one has ‘woken up’ from the Matrix for the first time: this is Neo’s key lightbulb moment even if he is unable to see or accept it at the time. This scene spells out the dangers of Enlightenment, the pain of possessing sentience and free will in a world with strict rules to follow. Ultimately, this feeling is so inherent to human existence that by conveying it, The Matrix may offer some empathetic comfort to its audience in the form of a communal experience of said feeling. After all, there is nothing more human than simply wanting to “transcend” (Vasiliou, 2005).