Projecting Shadows of Ideals: A Visual Analysis of Gattaca

In the Projective Cast, Robin Evans notes that in 17th-century art and architecture, geometry, in this case the equilateral triangle, served as both a symbol and signifier for the Holy Trinity; in other words, it is a perfect marriage of form and metaphor. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are understood as a triune: they are unique entities that have both individual autonomy as well as shared identities, make them simultaneously separate and whole. Thus, the equilateral triangle signifies this relationship: a geometry that is both comprised of 3 individual and identical angles that forms complete form.

In the science fiction film Gattaca, the three main characters share a similarly confounding, although entirely constructed, identity Ethan Hawke, aka “Vincent,”  born through traditional means, is known as an “in-valid.” Geneticists are able to tell his family that he has a 99% chance of only living 30.2 years, quarantining him to a life of cleaning the facilities of the Valids. He dreams of traveling to space, a journey only allowed by genetically crafted “valids.” His brother, Antone, happens to be a so-called “valid.” Jude Law, aka “Jerome,” although a “Valid,” is crippled and bound to a wheelchair from a previous accident, rendering him unfit for the space program. Vincent consults a specialist in order to fabricate his identity as a “Valid” using skin samples and other means to buy his way into the space program, with Jude Law (the real Jerome) serving day in and day out by providing blood, urine samples, etc. that will allow Vincent to slip through security screenings.

During Vincent’s childhood, he and his brother Antone would compete against each other by swimming out to sea to see who could last longer before having to return to shore. Vincent always lost because of his genetic inferiority. Throughout the film, there are a series of juxtapositions of the characters which underscores the ambiguity of identity. Particularly in this scene, the brothers similar appearance, but also the prominence of their shadows confuses both our conceptual understanding, but more importantly our visual understanding of which brother is which.

In chapter 9 of the Projective Cast, titled “Rumors of the Extremities,” Robin Evans  details Theo Van Doesburg’s process of reexamining his joint work with Van Eesteren’s “Maison Particuliere.”: “Van Doesburg pulls van Eesteren’s architecture back toward painting, and created an expansive openness where all the orthogonal planes, free of each other and yet more orderly, seem overwhelmingly dominated by an invisible orienting agency in the intervening space itself; an orienting agency far more powerful than the gravitation that is no longer evidence…It may seem strange that abstracted tracings from architectural drawings would prove to be of much greater interest to architects that the architecture from which they were traced, but it is more easily understood if one considers the counter-compositions as incitements to an effect, still painterly in character, that was exceptionally difficult to obtain in building.”[1]

The “other” class that discriminates against him, pitting them vs. us, which he is soon to embody….

The projection of his future (the old man), a shadow, if he does not accomplish his goal of traveling to space…..

juxtaposed with the imagined ideal projection of himself in the rocket that does not exist yet …

These all are projected onto the character of “Jerome” played by Jude law: he is the ideal in person, but now exists as a shadow of his past, bound to a wheelchair, only able to tell stories of his Olympian feats of swimming through a medal which pictures two swimmers…

...projecting his future, through a literal disembodiment, onto Vincent in hopes of fulfilling his past…

Standing on a staircase, its geometry a helix, while looking down on the old Jerome, Vincent has just passed his interview. Losing traces of himself while slowly siphoning traces of “Eugene,” he is now Jerome, completing the transformation from his old shadow self to his new ideal…

In order to prove that his hypothesis regarding a finite, yet unbounded, universe was real, Einstein deployed his own analogy using shadows:

“This projection… transforms any circle on the sphere into a circle on the plane. Think of a transparent globe with a light shining from one pole [N] that casts shadows onto a plane of projection tangential to its opposite pole [S]...We paste lots of little disks, all the same diameter, each touching the next, over the surface of the globe. On a plane surface every disk would be surrounded by exactly six others, but on the spherical surface there will be fewer than six around any one.

The shadows of all the disks on the globe will project as circles on the plane. If we go round measuring the shadows, they will get bigger as the distance from the point of contact with the globe increases. But if our measuring rod behaved in exactly the same way as the shadows from the globe, enlarging as it moved outward, then its user would survey a spherical surface, not a Euclidean surface.”[2]

In this analogy, the plane is our universe. By understanding non-Euclidean geometry, we can learn something about the shadows we observe, and the ideal that they project from.

If this is the case though, which really is the ideal, and which is the shadow? Are we only observing shadows, or is what we perceive indeed reality?

Scale becomes the linkage in this paradox: As long as the object we are perceiving is close to us, we  can implement euclidean geometry to draw and even (for the most part) build our imagination. However, when we look to the not too distant horizon, we perceive the effects of non-euclidean geometry, right on our very own planet… a ship appearing over the horizon demonstrates this.

The horizon is an illusion of our perception…

But, just as the field before my eyes determines my observable universe, so does the field of another standing on just the other side of that horizon…

Another strange result of the non-euclidean nature of our planet:

during a sunrise, we are, in a way, seeing the future. Because of the way the air in our atmosphere bends light, we are actually observing the sun before it rises.

At the end of Gattaca, Jerome is confronted with his past: a police officer investigating a crime within the walls of Gattaca discovers his real identity:

Who beat who?

Did the brother beat himself, or Is “Jerome” the self he is really referring to?

As Vincent asks, “are they even brothers?”

At a moment when the typically stoic Vincent erupts with emotion, we are probably seeing the closest thing to his real projection.However, the final part of the scene, when the two are racing, is particularly disorienting: the shot from above with the two swimming in tandem,

Antone himself disoriented without a view of the ground horizon...

the view from below with their shadows obfuscating each other

While watching this, I was confused as to which brother was which, and who was rescuing who...

But, by the end, we realize it is indeed Jerome, or rather Vincent, who has yet again, against all odds, saved his “Valid” brother.

Their mission complete, Eugene tells Vincent that he too is going on a journey and has prepared enough samples for two lifetimes. Vincent thanks Eugene, who replies:

“No, I got the better end of the deal.. I only lent you my body. You lent me your dream.”

As the flames of the rocket propel Vincent’s body towards the other space and away from his past,

Eugene takes his body, along with his medal of the two swimmers, to the flames of the incinerator, leaving only traces of himself for the world that he could no longer belong to.

[1] Robin Evans, The Projective Cast, p. 341

[2] Evans, p. 345