Matrix

[Bill Ashline <williamlashline@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

And the Oscar for Best Scholar . . .
By MICHAEL AGGER
=20

Jasin Boland/Warner Brothers Pictures
Cornel West plays Councillor West in "The Matrix Reloaded."

What is Cornel West doing in "The Matrix Reloaded"?

Maybe this Princeton philosophy professor's cameo shouldn't be a surprise.
In 1999, Larry and Andy Wachowski stated their ambition to make an
"intellectual action movie" and they actually pulled it off. The first
"Matrix" movie gave the equivalent of a cinematic high-five to the French
thinker and philosopher Jean Baudrillard by featuring his book "Simulacra
and Simulation" in an early scene. If you look closely (and people did), yo=
u
could see that the book was open to a particular chapter, "On Nihilism." Th=
e
Wachowski brothers seized upon Mr. Baudrillard's general nihilistic notion
that we must deconstruct the images (television, movies, advertising,
clothing) that oppress us and imbue them with a new set of values. They
skillfully retold an archetypal messiah story with a dash of postmodern
theory.

In an interview with The New York Times last year, Mr. Baudrillard said tha=
t
the movie's use of his work "stemmed mostly from misunderstandings." But
this time, the Wachowskis have found a more willing philosophical
accomplice. Dr. West appears (minus his trademark glasses) as a wise
councillor of Zion, the last free human city on earth. He delivers only one
line, but it's a doozy: "Comprehension is not requisite for cooperation."
Those words have already been spotted on T-shirts in Los Angeles.

Like the Wachowskis, Dr. West draws on an impressively wide array of source=
s
for his work. And Dr. West has always aspired to be a very public
intellectual =8B he's recorded a rap album, he's a regular on television show=
s
and he writes for a nonacademic audience in publications like Spin =8B so it'=
s
not surprising to find him involved in one of the biggest spectacles of the
decade. A self-described "intellectual freedom fighter," his studies addres=
s
the legacy of racism and the problem of nihilism in black America. Larry
Wachowski loved Dr. West's writings so much =8B particularly the books "Race
Matters" and "Prophesy Deliverance!" =8B that he decided to write a role for
Dr. West in the movie, playing a loose version of himself. Which makes one
wonder: after the Wachowskis told us to deconstruct reality =E0 la
Baudrillard, are they now rebuilding reality with the ideas of Dr. West?

Reached by telephone in his office in Princeton, Dr. West said that he and
the Wachowski brothers had come together in "acknowledging the full-fledged
and complex humanity of black people, which is a relatively new idea in
Hollywood given pervasive racist stereotypes." And, indeed, "The Matrix
Reloaded" gives prominent roles and screen time to African-American stars
like Laurence Fishburne and Jada Pinkett Smith. A more tantalizing
connection seems to be Dr. West's notion of the jazz freedom fighter that
concludes his book "Race Matters." He writes: "I use the term `jazz' here
not so much as a term for a musical art form as for a mode of being in the
world, an improvisational mode of protean, fluid and flexible dispositions
toward reality suspicious of `either/or viewpoints.' "

This seems to jibe with the direction that Neo, the character played by Mr.
Reeves, is taking, as he discovers that the world of the Matrix is not
operating by fixed rules but is something more permeable and uncertain. Dr.
West also pointed out that "the second Matrix movie actually critiques the
idea of the first. It's suspicious of salvation narratives. It's deeply
anti-dogmatic. The critics haven't figured that out yet, but the scholars
will get to it."

While in Sydney for the movie shoot, Dr. West said he and the Wachowskis ha=
d
bonded over "wrestling with the meaning of life and the purpose of human
existence." They share an affinity for plucking ideas from religion,
philosophy, pop music, television and movies, and synthesizing them into a
prophetic, liberating message. They want to make the world a more
philosophical place. (The brothers even gave reading assignments to all of
the principal actors in the movie.)

Dr. West was coy when asked if he had a longer speech in the final
installment of the trilogy, but he did say that he will appear in a
documentary about the series where he expounds further on his ideas. Until
then, he has some advice for the audiences going to see the movie: "You've
got to look beneath the special effects."=A0=A0

Michael Agger is an editor and writer for the Goings On About Town section
of The New Yorker.

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