Written by: PBF
You could call Altered States a love story, because that’s what it is, but you would be doing director Ken Russell and writer Paddy Chayefsky a disservice. For the actual love story parts of it are merely the filler in an absurdly religious and cosmic journey that you really aren’t supposed to take seriously. It wouldn’t be the first disservice done to Chayefsky (at least in his opinion) in regard to the film; he had a some kind of dispute with the film’s first director and he later changed his name (to his real first and middle names) on the film due to his disapproval of it.
Professor Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) is studying schizophrenia using sensory deprivation tanks. At some point he places himself in the tank under the observation of his colleague, Arthur Rosenberg (Bob Balaban). After having hallucinations in the tank and reliving the death of his father, he becomes obsessed. Fascinated with religious experiences, he becomes consumed with finding the “first self.” He becomes unhappy with the convention of marriage and domestic life, and gets separated from his wife Emily (Blair Brown). He goes to Mexico, and ingests a concoction that causes a number of intense hallucinations, prompting him to take it back to the states where he can study it. “Studying it” simply means that he takes it prior to immersing himself in the deprivation tank and thus combining the two experiences. He then begins to “externalize” his visions, and seems to regress genetically, and then reconstitutes. However, each regression places him further backward genetically, and even seems to “de-evolve” and have visions when out of the tank. He explains this with, “Our other states of consciousness are just as real as our waking states and the drug externalizes them.” His wife and another colleague become quite concerned with his “research.”
The point of the film where I decided I couldn’t possibly be expected to take it seriously is when Jessup regresses to an ape like creature, and begins wreaking havoc, finds himself in a zoo and eats a sheep. That seemed a bit much. Even more so than when he turns into some kind of cast member from an Ah-Ha music video.
The concept of this movie is actually really fascinating. And it does work well in execution sometimes. A lot of the film, though, was a little too much. Since the characters in the main cast are geniuses, a lot of the dialogue is comprised of words that mean nothing to me, and spoken at times at a pace I did not are to keep up with. I sort of got the sense that this was maybe intentional, keeping with the overall nonsensical tone of events, but it did not work in that capacity. It just kind of made me lose interest in an otherwise normal scene.
The regressions were actually very interesting, except for that ape man scene. With the first regression, he comes out unable to speak, and apparently a “quasi-simian.” He then begins to have visions and change physically. He then has the ape-man episode which only further peaks his curiosity as opposed to scaring the hell out of him. Another episode turns him in to cosmic energy and he witnesses the birth of the human. I found this scene to be quite fantastic, especially as Emily is fighting her way to Jessup through a whirlpool of primordial ooze (or whatever) to reach him. It’s is almost powerful enough to draw a tear as she touches him and brings him back to this world. I understand that the primitive man section was sort of a logical step before this point, but man, it was just really silly. The ending also, reminding us that this in fact, is a love story, is pretty gripping, even though a bit fantastical (and again, reminiscent of an 80’s music video).
But wasn’t the whole thing fantastical? Well, yes, but really only in concept (even though this was inspired by true events). As fantastical as it was, within the context of the film, it fit in nicely.
William Hurt’s performance was quite strong, and impressive for his screen debut. It was directed quite well also, but that doesn’t matter. You are led where Russell leads you and if you can’t keep up or don’t like it, tough.
It’s pretty entertaining, and possibly the most meaningless philosophical film you will run across. As thought provoking as it appears to be, it really is not. Not a bad film to spend an afternoon with.
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