Minority Report

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Minority Report
Original title Minority Report
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2002
length 145 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 14
Rod
Director Steven Spielberg
script Scott Frank ,
Jon Cohen
production Gerald R. Molen ,
Bonnie Curtis ,
Walter F. Parkes ,
Jan de Bont
music John Williams
camera Janusz Kamiński
cut Michael Kahn
occupation
synchronization

Minority Report is an American science fiction - thriller of director Steven Spielberg with Tom Cruise in the lead role from the year 2002 . The screenplay is based on the short story of the same name by the American author Philip K. Dick from 1956. The film opened in German cinemas on September 26, 2002.

action

The wooden ball with the name of Anderton, exhibited at the ExpoSYFY in San Sebastián, Spain

Washington, DC in the year 2054: John Anderton works in a leading position for the Precrime division of the Washington Police Department, which aims to use precognition to prevent murders. This is made possible by the three so-called "Precogs" Agatha, Arthur and Dashiell, who have clairvoyant abilities. They are kept with medication in a state between dream and waking, which is particularly favorable for these abilities. In their visions they foresee the murders of the future. The names of the perpetrator and the victim are engraved in wooden balls. The timing of the future murders is also known. The police can also use the images of their visions to identify the (future) perpetrators. They are arrested and put into “custody” without trial, an artificially induced state of constant unconsciousness.

Precrime is hugely successful - there hasn't been a murder in Washington in six years. Precrime's founder is Lamar Burgess, who seeks to roll out the system across the country with the help of the Attorney General .

John Anderton is a capable police officer, but since the loss of his son six years earlier and the resulting separation from his wife, he has been depressed and regularly used drugs. Like Burgess, he sees the appearance of Danny Witwer, representative of the Justice Department, as a threat. Witwer is tasked with finding possible errors in the Precrime system in the run-up to the upcoming referendum on a nationwide introduction .

After Anderton and his widower, contrary to the rules, went to the “temple”, the room in which the three Precogs are, he is surprisingly arrested by Agatha. She points out images of her memory that are displayed on a screen on the ceiling of the room. They are the images of a woman who is drowned. “Can you see it?” She asks him.

Anderton then deals with the case and finds out from the prison guard that the victim was called Anne Lively, but also that a recording of Agatha's vision is missing in the archive. The perpetrator, who was arrested at the time and is now in custody, had someone else's eyes inserted, which means that his true identity, which is usually determined via iris recognition , is unknown.

Some time later, Anderton, to his surprise, finds his own name as that of a future perpetrator. The act is said to take place in 36 hours, he does not know the alleged victim, a certain Leo Crow. He escapes from the police building, but in 2054 he has little chance of getting very far, as scanners are installed everywhere in public places that identify every passerby through iris recognition. His only chance is to have his eyes replaced illegally so as not to be arrested before he can prove his innocence.

Anderton seeks out Iris Hineman, the "inventor" of Precrime . She tells him that she was the first to recognize the capabilities of the three existing Precogs when she was responsible for caring for children ten years earlier, with whom experiments were also carried out. All were born with severe brain changes as a result of a contaminated drug that had emerged at the time. Most died before they were twelve years old; only three survived to this day. These children regularly suffered from severe nightmares, and it turned out that the content of their nightmares were murders that actually happened shortly afterwards. Subsequently, the children's skills were used in the Precrime Program to prevent future murders.

Iris points out to Anderton the possibility that there could be a so-called Minority Report , a "minority statement", because all three Precogs do not always foresee the same future. But in order not to jeopardize the credibility of the proceedings, this is even kept secret from the investigators. If there were such a minority statement about the future, it would always be from Agatha, the most gifted of the three Precogs. So if Anderton's vision of the murder to be committed is not true, then he must download this Minority Report from Agatha's memory in order to be able to prove his innocence.

Since it is impossible for him to break into the Precrime building due to the ongoing search for Anderton , he has a dubious doctor put in new eyes. So he manages to penetrate the building, uses one of his eyes to gain access to the temple and finally kidnaps Agatha. He has Agatha's memory scanned at a friend's house, but it turns out that she had no other vision than the other two Precogs: There is no minority report for the Anderton case - he will kill Leo Crow. Shortly afterwards they both have to flee and with the help of Agatha's precognitive skills they manage to escape the police.

Anderton and Agatha go to the apartment where Leo Crow lives, the man he is predicted to murder - although he still doesn't understand why he should do so. On the bed of Crow's room, he finds pictures of his son that give the impression that Crow is the man who kidnapped and murdered his son. It comes to the situation that the Precogs saw 36 hours earlier - he points the gun at Crow with the intention of killing him. Agatha repeatedly conjures him with the words "You have the choice!" Finally Anderton actually pauses and instead declares Crow arrested. So he learns that the alleged Leo Crow is a prisoner who has been blackmailed by a stranger into allowing Anderton to kill him. For this he was promised that his family would receive financial support. When Crow realizes that the situation is going a different way than expected, he grabs Anderton's gun and kills himself. Anderton leaves his gun, which is later found by the police. However, the murder appears suspicious to a widower, as it looks staged.

As a result, widower also deals with the murder of the drowned woman and discovers inconsistencies. There are two very similar reports of the murder that indicate that the Precogs saw not one, but two different, nearly identical murders. The images of the second act were rated as an "echo" at the time, as a later repetition of the same event, and therefore ignored. He points out that someone can commit real murder in this way if they only fabricate a very similar murder beforehand, which is registered by the Precogs and foiled by Precrime , only to commit the actual murder undetected. When he explains this to Burgess, the widower shoots him. Since Agatha is not in the temple at this point and the other two Precogs are not capable enough on their own, he does not have to fear being arrested by Precrime .

Anderton flees to his former wife Lara, who asks Burgess for help. He sends the police to Anderton's hiding place, who is arrested and taken into custody. His wife finds out through a slip of the tongue from Burgess that he must be involved and frees her husband. With the help of Agatha's vision, Anderton succeeds in proving the murder in front of a large audience: Burgess had murdered Agatha's mother because, after she had overcome her drug addiction, she wanted her daughter back. However, this would have endangered the Precrime project . So he hired a man to kill her. After the Precogs anticipated the murder and Precrime was able to arrest the man shortly before the act, Burgess committed the murder himself under exactly the same circumstances a short time later. The Precog images of this murder were then viewed by the investigators as an echo of the crime that had already been prevented and consequently ignored.

After this opening, Burgess and Anderton will meet on the roof terrace of the building. Burgess is armed, and the Precogs realize he will murder Anderton. However, the wooden ball produced by the precogs is red, indicating that the act is unplanned and there may not be enough time to prevent it. In fact, the reach Precrime -Polizisten the roof too late. Just before they arrive, Burgess, realizing the hopelessness of his situation, commits suicide.

The Precrime project failed because Burgess did not commit the foreseen murder. This shows that while the precogs can foresee any murder, they also have visions of situations in which murder is likely but does not take place ( false positives ). Some of the people arrested for future murders may not have carried out those murders at all. The project is discontinued, those in custody are unconditionally pardoned and released, although some are kept under surveillance by the police for years. Anderton makes up with his wife, who becomes pregnant again. The Precogs Agatha, Arthur and Dashiell now live in a hut far from civilization, where they remain unmolested by their nightmarish visions.

synchronization

Dubbing company: Interopa Film GmbH, Berlin, script & director: Frank Schaff

background

reception

source rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
IMDb

Movie magazines

For the film service reviewer Franz Everschor, Minority Report seems like a “mixture of future fantasy , thriller and philosophical reflection ”. He continues: "The film is a lot in one and not a whole: a deterministic vision of society, an individual guilt-and-atonement drama and an effective escape story." He specifies the staging of the escape as follows: "Spielberg's fantasy when designing the escape situations and the future world in which they are set, is hardly behind ' Blade Runner ', from which some scenes were clearly inspired. It is not so much the effect-oriented car chases that fuel curiosity and tension than a whole series of atmospherically compelling, more chamber-play-like scenes whose role models come straight from the repertoire of ' film noir '. "At first glance, the film is" a cleverly constructed futuristic one Thriller "in the style of the innocent been issued for the investigation Dr. Kimble , but he is embedded “in a philosophical and socially critical environment”. This concept is "[t] technically brilliant and captivating [...] although certainly not convincing for every viewer".

According to epd film editor Kai Mihm, the Minority Report is “at least in form [...] a mixture of adventure spectacle and pulp noir story”, enriched with ethical questions, current references and quotes from classic films . He compared the Spielberg film with its predecessor: “His new science fiction drama may not be as emotionally upsetting and its vision may not be as epoch-making as ' AI '. But just as 'AI' condensed fairy tale motifs into a big film poem, Minority Report transforms an action blockbuster into visually and intellectually challenging cinema art. "

Daily and weekly newspapers

Mike Clark wrote in USA Today that the film fuses emotion with technology, is fast-paced and offers many surprises. There are humorous product placements and eccentric characters . The combination of Spielberg / Cruise is completely satisfactory.

In the Berliner Tagesspiegel , three journalists devoted themselves to the film. In the actual review , Jan Schulz-Ojala found that the details and the scenes marked “perfect cinema”. All in all, the film “can also be read as a cold satire on total consumer society ”. What will remain in terms of film history , he suspected, “is the furious exposition, the setting , the original plot ” and not so much the action moments and the harmonious finale. In Eric Mandel's background report it was said that Spielberg was using Dick's template "rather as a raw material store for originality-obsessed motion cinema". He continued: “The subtleties such as the biographical motivation of the protagonist Anderton, who is about to retire , the paranoid relationship with his younger colleague, the key role of his wife or the technical disdain he has for the three mutants , become the superstar image of Tom Cruise Subordinate. ”Finally, Thomas Willmann wrote in the cinema weekly supplement:“ Pale, the colors of the film are often close to black and white. Between all the lively action, it is emphasized again and again what great questions of free will, predestination and inner security are being negotiated here. At some point, of course, Spielberg is more interested in how he can provide reassuring answers to these questions: This turns the film into a classic crime thriller - with a kind of family reunification in a log cabin and knitted sweater idyll . Because the refuge of the good, the true, the beautiful is nature here. Strange, when Spielberg turns out to be one thing in particular: as a virtuoso technician. "

Susan Vahabzadeh wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : " Minority Report is masterfully staged, a thriller, strictly speaking a film noir - Spielberg still knows the most successful way to sneak into the souls of his viewers [...]." The billboards that Pushing people to consume and monitoring them at the same time, viewed them as “accessories”, but at the same time as the coldest and most critical of capitalism detail. However, the film is sometimes illogical. She cited as an example: “ Minority Report is an ode to free will , which is predestination, how it happens that some cannot defend themselves against the course that has been set for them - it becomes a complex, inextricable web . "

Spielberg fascinates the cinema-goers with scenic “picture terror” and technical “magic”, summarized Michael Althen in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and wanted to show what he could do. He suspected that Spielberg had “got it into his head that he would like to make a film like John Huston or Alfred Hitchcock once did , a dark film with a hero who is not conscious of any guilt and yet not innocent, who is blind and in painful ones Wise must come to knowledge. So he studied the relevant films, broken them down into their components and then put them back together again. Of course the film works, everything is there, and yet something seems to be missing. Wherever a heart should beat, you can still see the calculation at work. "

The reviewer of the Frankfurter Rundschau , Daniel Kothenschulte, was "[...] very satisfied with this overly complex, crystal clear and somberly looking structure called the Minority Report , the richest and most perfect film of his [Spielberg's] career". The “modern film noir” offers an “overabundance of pictorial information”, making Spielberg the “most brilliant picture narrator since Griffith ”.

In the world , Hanns-Georg Rodek stated that the Minority Report was "one of the most disturbing future plans for a long time, because the fiction is gloomy - and around us we can already see its roots take root". Spielberg dress, said Rodek, the political reflections of the year 2002 (the war on terror in reality corresponds to the war on crime in the film) in "a 'Jagt-Dr.-Kimble!' - action film". Despite the many borrowings - such as from Metropolis , Uhrwerk Orange , The Passion of the Maiden of Orléans , Blade Runner , Strange Days or Fight Club - something "unique, coherent, heavyweight" emerged. The happy ending is mandatory for Spielberg and embodies a utopia , while everything that precedes makes a probable prediction about the "course of the world".

Anke Westphal, who writes for the Berliner Zeitung , found the film, which is reminiscent of a “ Whodunit ” à la Hitchcock in the main line of the plot , “entertaining and disturbing”. Spielberg shows "what maturity the spectacle cinema can reach not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of content". He had put "the advantages of the popular action genre at the service of a social discourse " and thus proved to be "the most innovative director of Hollywood cinema".

Michael Vaupel watched the film for the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and found it to be "image-intensive and intelligently structured." Even the resolution, which is often unsatisfactory in thrillers, works logically. The basic idea of ​​the fleeing individual has already existed in many films; Logan's Run , Total Recall and Judge Dredd come closest to it and, regarding the vulnerability of Pre-Crog Agatha, The Fifth Element .

Tiziana Zugaro wrote in the Märkische Allgemeine : “Even the dark and oppressive is polished up here, set in breathtaking scenes and permeated with a sense of humor.” Individual scenes, such as those of the bloody eyeballs rolling across the floor, would also fit into a splatter film . In contrast to this, by switching off the one “evil [...] in the center of power”, the “Spielbergian world”, that is, the ultimate pleasure, is already restored.

In the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , Thomas Assheuer characterized the film as a “preventive dictatorship” staged with “ blending orgies and routine editing thunderstorms ” and “technoid [r] impressive aesthetics”. Instead of an interpretation “as a political manifesto , as a visionary complaint about the approaching surveillance state ”, he preferred a metaphysical one about the salvation of the soul.

Internet portals

In his essay published on filmstarts.de , Johannes Pietsch breaks the plot down to the two well-known subjects of the time paradox and the system servant who becomes a renegade . He is enthusiastic about the set design with its big city panoramas and advertising holographs as well as the light and color scheme that reflects Anderton's inner state of mind. With this film, Spielberg proves himself to be “the creator of first-class, fast-paced science fiction cinema ”. However , Spielberg gave "a particularly profound answer" to the inherent philosophical question "in favor of action and suspense hardly any further room".

According to Spiegel-Online editor Oliver Hüttmann, behind the ostensible criticism of a surveillance state with its possibilities for manipulation is the actual topic of “identity and perfection”. He writes: “Every detail and character is reflected in a different aspect of the film or in those of other films. Minority Report is a monstrous conglomerate of meandering quotes, cross-references, puzzles, references, historical sources and utopian ideas. A dozen futurists have - such as pre-cogs - the perfectionist Spielberg delivered the items for an overwhelming surface show. The branched content and the gloomy atmosphere, on the other hand, are made up of classic topoi of film noir. "After analyzing origins of names and other references to film classics, Hüttmann comes to the intermediate result:" All of this is an incredible virtuosity , a total work of art, the greatest cinematic design to date this millennium from the spirit of popular culture of the 20th century , without a doubt a perfect film. ”The downside is that Spielberg has lost his own identity “ in this hodgepodge ”. The only “weak” psychological thriller attempt “despite many action scenes that Cruise is used to professionally” lacks the “sadistic consistency” with which Spielberg endowed earlier films. His conclusion is: “Pompous, lifeless, presumptuous. And too long. "

The present review by Roger Ebert , the late most important film critic in the USA, certifies that the film provokes thoughtfulness and emotions in the viewer in equal measure. It says that Minority Report is a film noir of the highest quality and comes up with breathtaking sequences. The daily news is striking. Spielberg, the master of technology, puts his main focus on the plot and the people involved, he uses the technical possibilities as a tool and not as an end in itself.

On the entertainment website avclub.com , Dan Neilan takes a comprehensive look back at the genesis of the film, which was published in 2017 on cinephiliabeyond.org . The success after the release of the film was triumphant, mainly because it was (or is) visually appealing and philosophically thought-provoking. As Spielberg later revealed, he wanted to create something futuristic and spectacular on the conceptual basis of film noir classics, using The Maltese Falcon and Dead Sleeping Firmly .

Awards

Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom was in 2003 for the sound editor for the film award Oscar nomination.

The film won the 2003 Saturn Award in four categories: Best Director ( Steven Spielberg ), Best Science Fiction Film , Best Supporting Actress ( Samantha Morton ) and Best Screenplay ( Scott Frank and Jon Cohen ). He also received seven nominations for the Saturn Award, including nominations for Tom Cruise and Max von Sydow .

It won the Curt Siodmak Prize in 2003 for Best Science Fiction Film .

continuation

In the United States, a television series titled Minority Report began on Fox on September 21, 2015 .

literature

  • Philip K. Dick : Minority Report . Millennium, London 2003, ISBN 1-85798-947-3
  • Philip K. Dick: Minority Report. Stories . Heyne, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-453-21749-7
  • Julia Stenzel: The Reversed Categorical Imperative. Attempt a typology of taboo. In: Texts and Taboo. On the culture of prohibition and transgression from late antiquity to the present. Ed. V. Matthias Emrich and Alexander Dingeldein. Bielefeld: transcript, 2015. pp. 41–58. ISBN 978-3-8376-2670-4
  • Philipp Stückrath: “What keeps us safe also keeps us free”: State Control vs. Personal Liberty in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report and the Present-Day United States In: Georgi, Sonja and Loock, Kathleen (eds.): Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks, Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2011 ISBN 978-3-941875-91-3 Open Access available
  • Stefanie Schwarz: “Can you see?”: The Importance of Vision and the Eye Motif in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report . In: Georgi, Sonja and Loock, Kathleen (eds.): Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks, Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2011 ISBN 978-3-941875-91-3 Open Access available
  • Eva Horn , the future as a catastrophe. Frankfurt a. M. 2014. pp. 359-375.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Approval certificate for Minority Report . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2002 (PDF; test number: 91 394 V / DVD).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Minority Report . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ "Minority Report" in the German synchronous file
  4. ↑ TV Movie 3/2008, p. 55.
  5. ^ "Minority Report" on boxofficemojo.com
  6. ↑ a b [1] at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed on August 17, 2018.
  7. ↑ Minority Report in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  8. ^ Franz Everschor: Minority Report . In: Filmdienst . No. 20/2002 , September 24, 2002, cinema, p. 22nd f .
  9. ↑ Kai Mihm: Can you see? Steven Spielberg and his clever genre film Minority Report . In: epd film . No. 10/2002 , October 2002, p. 24-27 .
  10. ↑ Mike Clark: The verdict is in: 'Minority' rules. In: usatoday.com. June 23, 2002, accessed August 17, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Jan Schulz-Ojala: Do you want total peace? Science fiction tells of the future. But play with current fears. Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" thinks a modern surveillance state to the end - and has every chance of becoming a classic of the genre . In: Der Tagesspiegel . No. 17902 , October 2, 2002, cinema.
  12. ↑ Eric Mandel: The Plot Machine. Amphetamines and schizophrenia: Philip K. Dick created the template for "Minority Report" . In: Der Tagesspiegel . No. 17902 , October 2, 2002, cinema.
  13. ↑ Thomas Willmann: Do not trust your eyes. Tom Cruise investigates himself in Steven Spielberg's science fiction thriller "Minority Report" . In: Supplement to the Tagesspiegel: Cinema program 3 to 9 October 2002 . October 2, 2002, Film of the Week, p. 3 .
  14. ↑ Susan Vahabzadeh: The future was yesterday. The sixth sense - Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 1, 2002, features section.
  15. ↑ Michael Althen: The retina of memory. If you can't miss your eyes here, you can have them exchanged: Steven Spielberg's “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise paints a bleak picture of the future . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . October 2, 2002.
  16. ↑ Daniel Kothenschulte: The shadow maker. The human cinematheque: Steven Spielberg's greatest picture narrative "Minority Report" . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . No. 229/2002 , October 2, 2002, features section .
  17. ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Only the blind remain free. Steven Spielberg's “Minority Report” is (also) a cinematic essay about seeing and the flood of images . In: The world . September 30, 2002, features section.
  18. ^ Anke Westphal: Errors in the system. Entertaining and disturbing: The new film by Steven Spielberg "Minority Report" . In: Berliner Zeitung . No. 230/2002 , October 2, 2002, features section .
  19. ↑ Michael Vaupel: An almost perfect system. Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" . In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 228/2002 , October 1, 2002, Culture.
  20. ↑ Tiziana Zugaro-Merimi: Dark as a Marshmellow. Steven Spielberg's vision for the future: "Minority Report" . In: Märkische Allgemeine . October 2, 2002.
  21. ↑ Thomas Assheuer: Visions from the primordial soup. "Minority Report": Steven Spielberg saves the human soul from the Western preventive dictatorship . In: The time . No. 40/2002 , September 26, 2002, features section , p. 44 .
  22. ^ Johannes Pietsch: Minority Report. In: filmstarts.de. Webedia GmbH, accessed on August 17, 2018 .
  23. ↑ Oliver Hüttmann: "Minority Report". The effects sparkle lifelessly. Impressive but poor: Steven Spielberg's future thriller “Minority Report” is a perfectly composed hodgepodge of quotes from 20th century pop culture. For all its cinematic virtuosity, the film fails to inspire on another level - neither as a crime thriller nor as a social criticism. In: spiegel.de. October 4, 2002, accessed August 20, 2018 .
  24. ^ Roger Ebert: Minority Report. In: rogerebert.com. June 21, 2002, accessed August 20, 2018 .
  25. ^ Dan Neilan: How Steven Spielberg Reinvented the Whodunit with Minority Report. In: avclub.com. Laura M. Browning, Sean O'Neal, January 9, 2018, accessed August 20, 2018 .
  26. ↑ variety.com, accessed March 4, 2015