Is it wrong to design a baby?

GATTACA

In Gattaca’s dystopian society, “physical perfectibility has, ironically, led to an obsession with flaws. Vincent's [heroic] struggle to realize his dream strikes a blow against the status quo on behalf of the human spirit – for which, as is observed in the film, there is no gene.” John A. Woodcock,

NYU School of Medical Humanities Database

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webfilms/gattaca96-film-.html

The most unremarkable of events.

The most unremarkable of events.

V O:

This highly prestigious assignment was guaranteed Jerome at birth. He has all the gifts required. A genetic quotient second to none. There’s nothing remarkable about the progress of Jerome Morrow.

• What is the irony of this VO introduction? • How does it establish the film’s central theme of the human spirit’s victory over genetic determinism?

Intertextuality

• Several of GATTACA’s Sci Fi and film noir elements are borrowed from earlier films.

Intertextuality

• Several of GATTACA’s Sci Fi and film noir elements are borrowed from earlier films:

2001 – A Space Oddyssey

Intertextuality

• Several of GATTACA’s Sci Fi and film noir elements are borrowed from earlier films:

Blade Runner

INTRICATE VISUAL SYMBOLISM

Film Noir

• Film noir is a movie genre marked by cynical characters and a mood of menace and fatalism. • The term [black film] was applied by French critics to describe American thriller or detective movies in the 1940’s, which used B&W film stock (because it was cheaper than colour) and whose themes reflected a social pessimism, largely as a result of WW2. • What are its double meanings?

GATTACA Noir

• What features does GATTACA borrow from the genre of film noir ?

Intertextuality

• What does Niccol’s reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 Noir classic Strangers on a Train lend to his film?

Intertextuality

• What does Niccol’s reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 Noir classic Strangers on a Train lend to his film?

CHAPTER 11

• LOVE IN PARALLEL: – WHAT DO EUGENE AND IRENE HAVE IN COMMON?

CHAPTER 11

• LOVE IN PARALLEL: – WHAT DO EUGENE AND IRENE HAVE IN COMMON?

– (APART FROM ‘HOMOSOCIAL DESIRE’)

“MIND FORG’D MANACLES”

CHAPTER 20

DOPPLEGANGERS & SIBLING RIVALRY “I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body; you lent me your dream”

DOPPLEGANGERS & SIBLING RIVALRY

DOPPLEGANGERS & SIBLING RIVALRY

DOPPLEGANGERS & SIBLING RIVALRY