Title: A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Year:

Director: Steven Spielberg

Reviewed by: David Brant

A.I. comes to our screens with the reputation of two great, but very different filmmakers, to live up to. The artistic marriage of Messrs Kubrick and Spielberg would seem one doomed for divorce - Kubrick always preferring a very technical distant approach to his films and their characters, Spielberg more manipulative, tempting an audience to feel rather than think. Neither of these particular methods is right or wrong, but when they reside in the same film one would think the result would be something of a mess.

That Spielberg has conjured up his most fascinating intelligent movie ever therefore comes as a welcome surprise. But is this all due him taking over a long cherished idea of one of films great minds (Kubrick) or a maturing of his filmmaking philosophy? Unfortunately the truth on just how much of the structure and script is Spielberg and how much Kubrick will probably never be known, one of the 2 being dead and the other shy of DVD commentary tracks. Crueller critics have suggested the film can be split into two halves as the name of its title � Spielberg bringing the "Artificial" in the shape of emotional mawkishness, Kubrick responsible for the "Intelligence". Such duality both in vision and style is both a flaw and a fascinating conundrum in a film that has many.

If we take what we know about both filmmakers and the structure of A.I. what we think we know can be turned on its head. For Example one of the more interesting subversive ideas of A.I. comes in the introduction of Gigolo Joe (played vibrantly by Jude Law) a pleasure model robot, who it is suggested is a better lover than a human because humans lack the intelligence to act sensitive and loving enough to manipulate a woman to wide eyed arousal. Such an idea of male and female human inadequacies one would think is Kubrick all over, but infact Gigolo Joe�s role was almost completely invented by Spielberg.

In another example, the whole quest of David the Robot Child (Haley Joel Osment) encompasses what he learns from the children�s book Pinocchio his adopted Mother reads to him. Taking the book as the truth he believes that the Blue Fairy can make him a real boy as she does Pinocchio in the fictional book. Such a reverence of Fairy Tales could only come from a Director who�s made a living of retelling them ("Hook" 1991, "E.T." 1982) but the plot motivation of Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy was a Kubrick invention.

Stylistically we can see many nods to Kubrick, especially in the opening domestic scenes � the symmetrically composed shots, the halo light over the families dinner table which crowns David reminiscent of similar (if larger scale) lighting of the War Room in "Dr Strangelove" (1963). As David�s journey begins and the film opens out it is Spielberg who takes the reigns, using all elements of design, special effects and lighting to create one magical location after another.

For Spielberg who so draped the American flag over the ever so worthy bookends of Saving Private Ryan (1998) it is gratifying to see the same flag flying over a shouting gang of inbred hillbillies as they cheer imaginative methods of mutilation of robots. The WWF style demolition derby of The Flesh Fair as its known, shows a more repugnant side of America than previously viewed by Spielberg�s movies � portraying the robots as human and sensitive and the humans as a moronic mass � its as if the Sci Fi future has opened up a more indirect social criticism that he is more comfortable with, or is it all Kubrick?

Sex also seems more relevant here than in Spielberg�s previous work, especially at the arrival of Rouge City � driven into through its deep throat tunnels, a Las Vegas for the future, infidelity with a robot possibly less guilt inducing than the human kind. "There�s Mildred!" says Gigolo Joe to David, pointing at a huge architectural building in the shape of a nearly naked woman lying on her back. "I have to show you inside Mildred" says Joe and you feel Kubrick would of shown the audience too, Spielberg on the other hand chooses a side view of Mildred (entrance hidden from view) and a quick cut away to a church.

"His Love is Real. He is not" so reads the poster Ads for A.I. Strange then for this viewer nothing rang so untrue as the relationship between David and his adopted Mother that is meant to motivate all. David seems much more human when his primal anger smashes an identical model of himself (and with it the lie that he is special/individual) than when he endlessly tells his Mother "I Love You Mommie". It�s almost as though in trying to push the "Love" aspect and making it more mawkish Spielberg has made it more subversive, it�s so fake/mechanical a robotic idea of love, where just the words will suffice, and begs the question does David love his Mother or is he in love with the abstract idea of love?

Upon first viewing of A.I. It seems to have a perfectly distinct conclusion with David endlessly wishing for the blue fairies assistance trapped below the sea, a journey based on fairy tale fiction after all is surely doomed to fail. Instead a journey based on fiction receives a manipulative fictional ending. David is discovered by a breed of super robots (not aliens as many have misread them as) for whom he is a sign of their evolution and of humans as their original creators. They construct his old family home from his memory and bring back his Mother for one day, thus Directing Spielberg�s happy ending also.

The more one studies the ending of A.I. the more one realises this in not in fact a happy ending but one constructed by the super robots � nothing is real, least of all David�s Mother finally telling him "I Love You". It�s as if Spielberg is the controller and leader of the super robots, manipulating both David and the paying audience (hopefully David can hear John Williams sentimental scoring too, to relax him into submission). It�s as if Spielberg has stood up and acknowledged the fakery and manipulation in his work and played to it for those wanting a happy ending, whilst allowing those with clear thought to see the truth. Or again is it Kubrick, finding in Spielberg the perfect accomplice to hoodwink into a subversive sentimentality?

What we do know from early drafts of the script is that this final act was a complete Kubrick invention � it seems to have similarities with the child star reborn at the end of 2001 certainly. Maybe hints at a darker tale also exist on paper, David�s adopted Mother being an alcoholic in early drafts created under Kubrick�s supervision � the Bloody Marys David would make for her replaced by Coffee in Spielberg�s movie.

Kubrick fans amongst us may quibble that it isn�t as dark and distant as he would of made it, but I just thank god that it was made at all. The fact it was Directed by Spielberg just ads to the curiosity. For A.I. is not only rich in Ideas of Love, Life, and Spirituality/Religion it is also the most interesting study of Auteur Theory in the history of cinema � that we will never know which Auteur just adds to the fun � Kubrick must be looking down laughing heartily.

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