This cult classic is a fairly loose adapted from one of Cyberpunk’s founding short stories by William Gibson. Despite the dialogue and character development feeling hilariously awkward, it’s important to note how seminal this film was in visually articulating the predictions of Gibson. The internet was just going mainstream so this became the visual standard of communicating the urban-like informational structures of Data and the psychological impacts of this cognitive overload on our organic systems. This also cemented the hacker-as-political-actor aesthetic and corporate enclaves as the central site of conflict which obviously influences the biggest films of Cyberpunk — Blade Runner and the Matrix.
The depiction of cyberspace as an actual virtual place — not unlike a mega urban environment — is obviously a critical influence on the imagination of Cyberspace but we also see seeds of what I think is the overly occular-centric way of approaching or interacting with this environment. There are other ways I feel the imagination of Johnny Mnemonic fails.
I always find it funny that despite predicting the value that Data would come to play in the near-future, I do find it hilarious that Johnny nearly sacrifices his brain to carry just 320gb of data — not sure why they couldn’t imagine the amount of data or storage density scaling at all.
I’ve also observed that despite data being the locus of power and control, there is a strange amount of fist fighting, grenades, threats (even hacking threats) are made with physical gestures, and a very weird amount of the film takes place in Newark.
Given some of the reading I have been doing on Divine Machinary and TechnoMagic, I’ve paid particularly close attention to the Street Preacher. It’s a little sloppy in terms of execution: he is in catholic church but later, seems to be an Evangelist street preacher. But I believe his role is not just supposed to be a surreal intrusion but an attempt to communicate the corrupted forms of worship, mistaking the Machine of corporate power for the actual spiritual truth. It should be noted however that this character did not exist in the book. Even though I’ve seen this movie probably a hundred times, I still cannot help but belly laugh when Henry Roillins steamrolls him with a truck and Keanu Reeves just asks, “who the fuck was that?” at about 54minutes.
The cybernetically enhanced Dolphin’s role in decrypting the data was also played up dramatically by the film — a risk they took that, despite being a strong end-film story telling mechanism, ends up really permanently dating the film as the mid 90s obsession with dolphins did not stand the test of time. That said, I actually find this an incredibly interesting story telling device and honestly wish we knew more of the mechanics of.
I’ve always felt this film deserves a contemporary re-soundtracking. There are some great (albeit now dated) Jungle house moments that depict Logging On and Locking In, but there are other more cringe moments that sound like they could be out of Jurrasic Park. Unfortunately I don’t have the skills to rescore it, but I’ve always thought this would be a fascinating remastering project to be taken seriously.
I actually learned that the film was actually intended to be in Noir style Black and White, and was recently reworked, but the director was pushed into summer blockbuster 80s pop colors. (Johnny Mnemonic: Back in Black (and White) - A Cyberpunk Noir Rediscovered)
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