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Twelve Monkeys is an Academy Award-nominated 1995 science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by David and Janet Peoples. The film was inspired by the French short film La Jetée. It stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, who won a Golden Globe for best supporting actor; Pitt was also nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.
s Cole (Bruce Willis) is a convicted criminal living in a grim post-apocalyptic future.
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Quotations
Astrophysicist: Jones is my name. Shakes Dr. Peters' hand I'm in insurance.
Louie: Science ain't an exact science with these clowns, but they're getting better.
My father's going to be very upset when he hears about this! And when my father gets upset, the ground SHAKES!
There's no such thing as right and wrong; just popular opinion.
You are a total nutcase, completely deranged, delusional, paranoid. Your thought process is all fucked up. Your information tray is jammed, man!
My father is God! I worship my father!
Encyclopedia
Twelve Monkeys is an Academy Award-nominated 1995 science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by David and Janet Peoples. The film was inspired by the French short film La Jetée. It stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, who won a Golden Globe for best supporting actor; Pitt was also nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.
Plot
James Cole (Bruce Willis) is a convicted criminal living in a grim post-apocalyptic future. In 1996-1997, the Earth's surface was contaminated by a virus so deadly that it forced the surviving population to live underground. To earn a pardon, Cole allows scientists to send him on dangerous missions to the past to collect information on the virus. If possible, he is to obtain a pure sample of the original virus so a cure can be made. Throughout the film, Cole is troubled with recurring dreams involving a chase and a shooting in an airport.
On Cole's first trip, he arrives in Baltimore in 1990, not 1996 as planned. He is arrested and hospitalized in a mental institution on the diagnosis of Dr. Kathryn Railly (Stowe). There, he encounters Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), a fellow mental patient with animal rights and anti-consumerist leanings. Cole tries unsuccessfully to leave a voice mail on a number monitored by the scientists in the future. After a failed escape attempt, Cole is restrained and locked in a cell, but then disappears, returning to the future.
Back in his own time, Cole is interviewed by the scientists, who play a distorted voice mail message which gives the location of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys and states that they are responsible for the virus. He is also shown photos of numerous people, including Goines. The scientists then send him back to 1996.
Cole kidnaps Railly and sets out in search of Goines, who they learn is founder of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. When confronted, however, Goines denies any involvement with the virus and suggests that wiping out humanity was Cole's idea, originally broached at the asylum in 1990. Cole vanishes again as the police approach.
After Cole disappears, Railly begins to doubt her diagnosis of Cole when she finds evidence that he is telling the truth. Cole, on the other hand, convinces himself that his future experiences are hallucinations, and persuades the scientists to send him back again. Railly attempts to settle the question of Cole's sanity by leaving a voice mail on the number he provided, creating the message the scientists played prior to his second mission. They both now realize that the coming plague is real, and make plans to enjoy the time they have left.
On their way to the airport, they learn that the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is a red herring; all they have done is delay traffic by releasing all the animals in the zoo. At the airport, Cole leaves a last message telling the scientists they are on the wrong track following the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, and that he will not return. He is soon confronted by Jose (Jon Seda), an acquaintance from his own time, who gives Cole a handgun and instructions to complete his mission. At the same time, Railly spots the true culprit behind the virus - Dr. Peters (David Morse), an assistant at the Goines virology lab, about to embark on a tour of the cities which Cole had earlier memorized as being the path of the viral outbreak. Cole, while fighting through security, is fatally shot as he tries to stop Peters. As Cole dies in Railly's arms, she makes eye contact with a small boy - the young James Cole witnessing his own death; the scene that will replay in his dreams for years to come.
Dr. Peters, safely aboard, sits down next to the lead scientist from the future (Carol Florence), who introduces herself with: "Jones is my name. I'm in insurance." A young James Cole is taken back to his parents’ car, where in the back seat he stares at a plane taking off.
Cast
Production
Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe filmed a "making of" documentary about the film, The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys. The duo later went on to make Lost in La Mancha, despite their protests that they would not make "any more movies about making movies."
The scene in which Cole wanders post-apocalypse Philadelphia was not originally supposed to be set in the winter. After the studio delayed the film's shooting, however, Gilliam decided that he preferred the isolated look of winter.
Architect Lebbeus Woods sued the producers of the film, claiming that they copied his work "Neomechanical Tower (Upper) Chamber". Woods won a "six figure sum", and allowed the film to continue to be screened.
Like Brazil, also directed by Gilliam, this film uses fresnel lenses in its set design.
Themes
Madness
Madness and sanity are important themes in the film, and Gilliam deliberately left certain scenes ambiguous, allowing for an interpretation that Cole is "mentally divergent" and the whole film a manifestation of his psychosis. From the sleeve notes to the DVD release: "Between the past and the future, sanity and madness, dreams and reality, lies the mystery of the Twelve Monkeys."
Memory
The film deals with the subjective nature of memories and their effect upon perceptions of reality. Some examples of false memories are:
- Cole's recollection of the airport shooting which is altered each time he has a dream.
- A "mentally divergent" man at the asylum who has false memories.
- Railly telling Cole "I remember you like this" in the scene in which a barely recognizable Cole and Railly are seen in disguise for the first time.
Time
In one scene, Cole and Railly watch Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, and the scene that appears is that of James Stewart and Kim Novak in Muir Woods National Monument where Novak looks at the growth rings of a felled redwood and traces back events in her past life ("here I was born ... and here I died"). In addition to resonating with the movie's larger themes, Cole and Railly later have a similar conversation while the same music from Vertigo is repeated. As Roger Ebert has described the moment, "He's not simply providing a movie in-joke. The point is that Cole's own life is caught between rewind and fast-forward, and he finds himself repeating in the past what he learned in the future, and vice versa." This scene from Vertigo is also observed explicitly by Chris Marker, whose La Jetée inspired Twelve Monkeys, in his 1982 documentary montage Sans Soleil.
The poetry reading interrupted by Railly's pager includes the following quatrain from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
- "Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
- Tomorrow's Silence, Triumph or Despair:
- Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
- Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where."
References to time, time travel, and monkeys are scattered throughout the film, including the Woody Woodpecker "Time Tunnel" cartoon playing on the TV in a hotel room, The Marx Brothers movie "Monkey Business" on TV in the asylum and a monkey taking a sandwich to the boy thought to be trapped in a well.
Prophecy
There is a recurring motif in the film regarding the depiction of time travelers as prophets. During Railly's lecture on "Madness and Apocalyptic Visions", she recounts the Cassandra myth, and speaks of medieval and war-time predictions of an apocalypse in the year 1996. Later in the movie, we encounter a medieval evangelist who tells Cole "You're one of us" and Railly's photograph reveals that the soldier from 1917 was actually Cole's friend Jose with "Cole" in the background reaching towards him.
Furthermore, religious studies academics have authored essays claiming that the lead character James Cole (initials J.C.) fits the cinematic character type of a Christ-figure, a savior sent to sacrifice himself in order to save humanity.
Soundtrack
The film makes frequent use of the "Introduccion" from Astor Piazzolla's Suite Punta del Este as the signature theme from the film.
Critical reception
The film received generally favorable reviews. It has a "fresh" rating of 87 percent on rottentomatoes.com based on 47 reviews. On Metacritic it has a score of 74.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times said about Gilliam: "There's always overripe method to his madness but in the new 12 Monkeys Mr. Gilliam's methods are uncommonly wrenching and strong." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said "As an entertainment, it appeals more to the mind than to the senses." Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called it a "densely plotted, visually dynamic post-apocalyptic thriller."
Richard Corliss of Time said, "In its frantic mix of chaos, carnage and zoo animals, 12 Monkeys is Jumanji for adults."
Twelve Monkeys ranks 465th on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.
Theatrical release
The film was also a financial success. It was released on December 29, 1995 in the U.S. in only three theaters and grossed $184,776 on its opening weekend. The following weekend, the film had its wide release and grossed $13,842,990. It eventually grossed $57,141,459 in the U.S. and $111,698,000 outside the U.S., bringing its total worldwide gross to $168,839,459.
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