Unlocking The Matrix

Monday, May. 12, 2003 By RICHARD CORLISS
Article Tools
Print
Reprints
Sphere
RSS

(5 of 6)
Having survived their freeway adventure, Neo, Morpheus and the Key Maker enter a skyscraper--the building in Neo's Trinity dream. Neo insists Trinity remain behind, to stay alive. "One door leads to the Source," the Key Maker says; he adds that the door will be accessible for exactly 314 seconds. Eventually, after more fighting, Neo finds the right door and walks into a room where an old man (Helmut Bakaitis) sits."I am the Architect," he says. "I created the Matrix. I've been waiting for you."

Related Articles

Watching the first film, skeptical viewers had to wonder: In a world where nothing was as it seemed, were Morpheus and his band the only realists, or were they the victims of a monstrous delusion? The Architect tells Neo he is a dupe: a false hope that springs among the tiny group of rebels who believe in a superman, a One, as their salvation. The coming of Neo and his five predecessors--for this is the sixth version of the Matrix, the sixth revolt of Zion--was programmed by "the mother of the Matrix." The Oracle.

The Matrix Reloaded is sure to fuel avid speculation. Scholars will note that the Merovingians were a European tribe from the Dark Ages, and that Morpheus paraphrases King Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel. That strange number, 314: Could it refer to pi (3.14); or to Cerebral Cortex 314, the website for the Commander Keen computer game; or to the lifetime batting average of White Sox outfielder Bibb Falk? As for the Architect's apparently crushing revelation: Couldn't this be another lie--the biggest?

WARNING OVER: All right, Gentler Readers. You can come back now.

To get answers on Matrix arcana from the first film, TIME went to the Source: the Wachowskis, who cheerfully illuminated their dense, allusive text. But now, after just three features as writer-directors (their first was the darkly comic femme-revenge thriller Bound), the brothers have turned Trappist, gone Garbo, pulled a Pynchon--they've refused to speak to any journalists. At least that's what we're told. And if we hear they have broken their vow of silence, we'll be on them like a thousand Smiths.

Some of their actors are also reluctant to break the code. Fishburne: "I can't talk to you about them." (The brothers not only created a cult, they practically are one.) Others are less guarded. "They're not comic-book nerds," Pinkett Smith avers. "They're intellectuals. These cats study. Larry reads everything! When you think you've got him figured out, he pops something else out on you, like... Cornel West!?"

Larry was such a fan of West's books Prophesy Deliverance and Race Matters that he wrote a role for West in Reloaded. So last April, the Princeton professor flew to Sydney to play Councillor West in an action blockbuster. For the teacher, it was quite an education. "Larry and I got into these great philosophical discussions," West recalls. "We talked about the history of the epic, from Homer to Nikos Kazantzakis. The brothers are very into epic poetry and philosophy--into Schopenhauer and William James. It was unbelievable! We'd shoot from 6:30 a.m to mid-afternoon--50, 75 takes--it was hard fun and hard work. Then we'd go off to a restaurant and have a philosophical discussion. I was impressed with their sheer genius, their engagement with ideas. Larry Wachowski knows more about Hermann Hesse than most German scholars."