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Equilibrium Commentary
Kurt Wimmer
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2. An Unfeeling Society
Transcription by JenGe
You know, there's a number of films Fahrenheit 451, Logan's
Run, Gattaca, Brave New World, THX II38, The Matrix, Alphaville,
Clockwork Orange, Handmaiden's Tale, Judge Dredd even Triumph of the
Will...these were...all of these were films I was accused of
unapologetically ripping off to make this film. And you know, it's
true. I like all of these stories and I actually like some of those
films and certainly I did draw inspiration from them for making my own
dystopic universe. Although I certainly wasn't trying to pull the wool
over anyone's eyes because at the end of the day I believe that this
film is actually about something different then those films were about.
Um...you know, I always thought that 1984 was about
socialism and Fahrenheit 451 was about Mccarthyism while for me this
particular film was about numbness. It's about numbness I think as
brought on by over saturation potentially from the media. It's about
numbness that is brought on by self-medication, whether it be over the
counter or under the counter...
...Oh...by the way, this flag. I'll talk about that a little
later actually. I didn't actually intend for it to look like a swastika
the way it does...
...over saturation by the media. Numbness by self-medication
and, you know, any of the ways that we have made ourselves insensible
to the environment around us. And also not only that but sort of a
sister theme...of a dangerous...what I think to be a dangerous idea
that's growing. I see growing daily around me, that some people's
feelings are dangerous and need to be censored...and...so these are the
things that sort of thematically drove me.
I have to say when I see these crowd scenes I kind of cringe
because I didn't have much time or resources to execute them and I
think that I approached them wrong. And I think even if I did have the
time and resources they still might not have worked out quite right,
so...
 By the way, this is the Gun Kata. Right here they are
doing a sort of soft Chinese open style. Later in the film you will see
them doing more of a Japanese hard style.
He mentions EC-10 here. That's clearly a reference to NC-17,
MP double A, the burning of film. You know, I was talking about the
sort of ideas that certain people's feelings are dangerous. I find it
disturbing on a certain level that there are people out there who have
set themselves up to decided, you know, what we should and should not
be able to feel. What we can take. And it's certainly not just the MP
double A either. It's happening all the time on Capital Hill or Mayor
Giuliani seeking to censor the Brooklyn Museum of Art...etc...etc...
Anyway, back to that flag. I didn't want it to be a
swastika. In fact, the symbol of the Tetragrammaton, which is the four
Ts, it looked very great...right there on that injector...
...you see it there. It's simply geometric. And that was the
way it was throughout the vast majority of the film and it was towards
the end that I had that flag made. I only really saw it on the day and
I saw it and said, "Oh, Christ!! It looks like a swastika." But I was
stuck with it and had to go with it.
And so, that's how it ended up looking like that. It wasn't
intentional. I wasn't trying to make this seem like Nazi Germany even
though I shot a lot of the locations on Nazi Germany.
 These are all
airport trucks by the way, you see passing in the foreground and
background. You'd never know it. They look great. They're fire trucks
but they look just like military vehicles and they added a lot of
production value to the movie I think.
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