The 13th Floor - Are you what you think?

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Movie
German title The 13th Floor - Are you what you think?
Original title The Thirteenth Floor
Country of production Germany ,
United States
original language English
Publishing year 1999
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Josef Rusnak
script Josef Rusnak,
Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez
production Roland Emmerich ,
Ute Emmerich ,
Marco Weber
music Harald Kloser
camera Wedigo von Schultzendorff
cut Henry Richardson
occupation
synchronization

The 13th Floor - Are you what you think? (German Cover Title: The 13th Floor , TV titles also: down in the future , Original title: The Thirteenth Floor ) is a German-American science fiction - thriller from the year 1999 . He addresses the effects of virtual reality on human consciousness. After Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Welt am Draht, the film is the second adaptation of the pre- cyberpunk novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye . The film opened in German cinemas on November 25, 1999.

content

In 1999, the programmer Hannon Fuller recreated a lifelike simulation of Los Angeles in 1937, which runs on servers on the thirteenth floor of a computer company . The player can join this simulation and interact as a character with full consciousness with computer-generated characters.

After leaving a message for his friend and assistant Douglas Hall on a bartending character named Ashton, Fuller is murdered. The suspicion falls on Hall, who puts himself into the simulation to solve the case. There he comes across Ashton, who has read the message and seen the geographic end of the simulation, thereby questioning the nature of his existence. He accuses Douglas of mind manipulation (original quote: “ Why are you fucking with our minds? ”) And tries to kill him. Douglas Hall can, however, flee into his presence.

Due to the increasing influence of the game, Douglas too begins to doubt his own existence more and more in the course of the film and discovers that he himself also lives in a simulation. He gets support from the mysterious beauty Jane Fuller, Hannon's daughter, who confirms his fears for life (the world is a computer game).

Her husband used Hall as a character and killed Fuller, who found out he was living in a simulation. While trying to kill Jane, he is shot by the investigating police officer. This causes Douglas to take the husband's place in his reality. There he meets Jane's real father, who served as a model for the character Hannon Fullers. The fact that Douglas' simulated person can find himself in a superordinate reality at all, as well as the colourfulness of its graphic virtualization suggest that this reality is only a virtual one. As a result, all characters appearing in the film are game characters of nested virtual worlds and none of them real.

Triskaidecaphobia

In the context of the film, the thirteenth floor means something like non-place. Due to the superstitious fear of the number thirteen ( triskaidekaphobia ), the number of floors in many American skyscrapers is followed by 14, so that the thirteenth floor denotes a place that does not exist at all or only exists in the mind of the players.

Differences between book and film

  • In Simulacron-3 , the real and the simulated world lie on the same time plane (“present”, approx. 1960s ); the simulation is used by a company for market research purposes .
  • The simulation in the film The Thirteenth Floor, however, represents the year 1937. The simulation system is a prototype that is to be commercialized. The simulation does not seem to serve any specific purpose other than to satisfy Fuller's personal dreams. The film suggests that simulations will be a generally recognized pastime in the future.

Allusions

  • Vertigo - From the realm of the dead : The relationship between the protagonist Douglas Hall and Jane Fuller is similar to the love affair from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo from 1958. Douglas' character within the computer game is also called John Ferguson - like theprotagonist of Hitchcock playedby James Stewart -Classic.
  • Blade Runner : Douglas lives in the apartment (interior set) of theprotagonist Rick Deckard, playedby Harrison Ford , from Ridley Scott's science fiction film from 1982. The conflict between Douglas and Ashton (deputy of the "creator" against "creature") is similar to the conflict between the human Deckard - or the engineer Tyrell - and the android Roy Batty. At the beginning of the film there is the quote " I think therefore I am " by the philosopher René Descartes , which also appears in the film Blade Runner . The hero of Blade Runner is called Rick Deckard, which in turn is a reference to René Descartes. The 13th Floor therefore references both Blade Runner and René Descartes directly.

synchronization

role actor speaker
Douglas Hall / John Ferguson / David Craig Bierko Patrick Winczewski
Jason Whitney / Jerry Ashton Vincent D'Onofrio Stefan Fredrich
Jane Fuller / Natasha Molinaro Gretchen Mol Nana Spier
Detective Larry McBain Dennis Haysbert Engelbert von Nordhausen
Hannon Fuller / Grierson Armin Mueller-Stahl Armin Mueller-Stahl
Bridget Manilla Shiri Appleby
Bank manager Bob Clendenin Bernd Vollbrecht
Detective Zev Bernstein Steven thrust Peter Flechtner
Jane's lawyer Leon Rippy Roland Hemmo
Joe Rif Hutton Tilo Schmitz
Tom Jones Jeremy Roberts Erich Rauker

Film music

The symphonic soundtrack of The Thirteenth Floor was composed by Harald Kloser . The commercial soundtrack includes the track Join Me (in Death) by HIM , which was also released for promotional purposes. The original title track, however, is Erase and Rewind by the Cardigans . Towards the end of the film appears a short passage from the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri on. The song The Future Of The Future (Stay Gold) by Deep Dish and Everything But The Girl is playing in the bar . Part of the soundtrack was recorded by the Vienna Boys' Choir .

Awards

The film was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film in 2000.

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

Reviews

“Complex, technically perfect, but innovation-free variant of the old time machine theme. The 1973 film adaptation of the same material by Fassbinder ( Welt am Draht ) will survive this remake. "

- film service 1999-24

“Clever game of confusion with more than just a double bottom, produced by Roland Emmerich. Matrix minus action: substantial noir sci-fi "

- tvspielfilm.de

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The 13th Floor. In: German synchronous card index. Retrieved September 13, 2017 .
  2. ^ The 13th Floor - Film Review. tvspielfilm.de ; Retrieved September 22, 2010