THE TERMINAL MAN
US, 1974, 105 minutes, Colour.
George Segal, Joan Hackett.
Directed by Mike Hodges.
The Terminal Man provides very interesting science fiction material on the level of ideas and so merits discussion. On the level of its cinematic impact, many audiences have found parts of it quite difficult. The novel was written by Michael Crichton, who also wrote The Andromeda Strain and Westworld (which he also directed). Crichton is fascinated with the advances of science and their repercussions on human behaviour, especially when human error enters. This is the mark of the previous films and is very much to the fore in this one.
The Terminal Man himself is an ordinary man who becomes psychologically unbalanced. Surgery is used to control his criminal and physical relapses. Something goes wrong. In this way the theme of the film is not unlike A Clockwork Orange.
1. Why are modern audiences interested in science-fiction? Was this a good science-fiction film? What presuppositions do science-fiction films have as regard their fiction? Audience-response in terms of fears, dangers, upset, prognostications of the future etc.? The use of adventures, thrills, experiments to communicate this?
2. The style of the film? The opening and closing with the helicopter, the diary technique, the eye looking through the hole and the words at the end? The blues and greens and silvers of the colours? The use of black and white clothing? The vividness of the blood and the roses? The whole antiseptic and clean atmosphere of the locations? The hospital, the factory, the modern houses etc.?
3. The appropriateness of the music, especially the Bach piano music and its mood and commentary?
4. Audience-response to the hospital, the medical background, the detail of the operation, the human-interest and the crisis for a human being, the psychological overtones of the film? How were these integrated into the science-fiction themes?
5. The meaning of the word "terminal"? A terminal-illness etc? The irony of this kind of terminal-illness. Mind-control as a cure and as an illness?
6. Discuss the conflict between physical therapy and psychological therapy. The discussions between the doctors and the psychologists? The nature of human illness in its physical and psychological realities? The repercussions on behaviour, especially anti-social behaviour? Illness and morals? Freedom and the capacity for decisions?
7. The impact of the photos of Harry setting up the mood of the film? The family happiness, the accident, the criminal change etc., the madness, the need for some kind of therapy?
8. The success of the lecture technique: the content of the lecture about the operation and Harry himself, Dr. Ross and her presentation, the disagreement, the questions, the Doctors' interest and observations, the important speech by the old Doctors opposing the operation? The film as a verification of his warning?
9. The personalities of the Doctors performing the operation - their confidence, playing with a man's life, the experimentation with animals, with men? The initial dinner discussion and the P.R.? The ambitions of the surgeon?
10. Harry himself: background by the photos, madness, obsessions about machines, violent turns and behaviour? His cunning and planning after his operation and his escape? His genuine feelings? The suffering? The experience of the operation in its detail? What the operation did to him, in terms of responsibility, human life? His fears and phobias? His response to Angela in terms of love and murder? His attitude towards the Catholic Church and his destructiveness? Destroying the computers? The attack on Dr. Ross? Wounded and going to a grave to die? Being shot like an animal?
11. Detailed presentation of the operation? Testing of the electrodes? The computers and the control and forecasting of turns? The human drama of the electrode test - the people in the controls. Dr. Ross and her human reactions, the varying responses of Harry as a child and as a man? The possibility of error?
12. Ordinary people, especially with their limitations: the nursing staff, the policeman and his comics and leaving the patient etc.? The comment on people's irresponsibility?
13. The drama of the escape - Angela's bringing the clothes, the wig, the car, the atmosphere of escape and its impact on Harry, his lack of awareness of what would happen to him?
14. The destruction - the impact of the murder of Angela, its visual presentation with white and silvers and then the blood? The importance of Harry's going to Mass and the atmosphere of the liturgy? His plea to the priest and then his killing him?
15. The ironic sequence of his destruction of the computers and its meaning in this film?
16. Dr Ross and her personality, efficiency in her work, her opposing the operation? Her concern for Harry and exhaustion. Her pity for him and her fears? The significance of her having a shower and then coming out to meet Harry? The significance of her stabbing him? Trying to help him at the grave?
17. What comment was being made by the long funeral sequence, Harry in his white suit bleeding and outstretched arms, his falling in the grave, the horror of his being shot?
