"For a few immortals to live, many people must die."
We are presented with a future world in the movie, In Time, in which time has become so precious that it has now become currency. Somehow, our bodies are born (or implanted with a device) that begins ticking when we reach the age of 25 so that those who work get paid in time and have to buy their necessities like food and rent using the currency of time.
There are also time zones (don't think like what we have -Eastern, Central, etc., but different parts of a larger city), segregated communities that you must pay time to get into. Just think of gated cities within a much larger city - this is a way to keep the very poor out of (what can only be assumed to be) a middle class or upper class time zone, because the more Will pays as he heads towards the wealthiest part of town, the price continues to go up. So, in essence, there still is free passage among the city, but only if you can afford it. But since many can't afford it, the poor are stuck in their slums.
The movie focuses most of its time on poor characters who are working day-to-day and struggling to survive. When wages go up, the prices of goods go up, so there's no real way for the poor to get ahead. And of course, in such a dog-eat-dog world, there are also gangsters who try to steal peoples' time - the Minutemen. And when the clock runs out on someone, he/she is dead. Even the timekeepers, the police of this dystopian society, are barely paid decent wages in order to stay alive. Sadly ironic, the ones that are entrusted with enforcing the system don't get paid enough (sounds familiar). In addition, the police are interested in the suicide of one wealthy man yet there are tons of murders in the ghetto everyday. Where does this society's priorities truly lie? In the preservation of the monopoly of time by one particular class.
The rich, on the other hand, are trapped in a different kind of gilded prison (think of why Henry gve Will almost all of his time before he died and let his clock expire). Philipe Weis thinks that this time as currency thing is just the next step in evolution - that it is unfair, he says, but so is evolution. With decades, even centuries on their clocks, they continue to look the same as they did when they were 25 even though they might be 107. The one creepy Freudian thing is when Phillipe Weis introduced his mother, wife and daughter (Sylvia) who all looked very similar. Sylvia and Will hit it off and that's when Sylvia said that all the wealthy needed to do was stay out of trouble and they could live forever. Play it safe = live forever. So, unlike Will who lives by the phrase, "Carpe Diem", Sylvia never took chances until she met Will.
Your job for this blog is to 1. apply at least one philosopher or philosophic concept to any part or parts of this movie that you find apply to this movie. 2. Find a weakness in the movie, whether it be in the plot, concept, etc. and explain why.
Due Thursday, June 2 by class. 350 words total for your response.
1. I can’t think of the philosopher now, but it is definitely capitalist. Especially when you look at the system with the exploitation of the working class. Where you have the upper class constantly raising taxes and prices as well as lowering wages every time the working class gets even the slightest bit more money. It is quite literally an extreme (but not inaccurate) example of capitalism gone too far. To be honest in this case they need something like Marxism (and that’s sort of what happens in the end) especially when it’s not only money that’s preventing people from being able to live but also the amount of time they have left in their life. There are most certainly examples today as well which are similar to in the movie. For example, current prices are suffering from mass inflation. In fact, I heard at one point that a bottle of ketchup is now seven dollars. Which is absolutely ridiculous. Honestly, I don’t think we’ll got to that sort of genetically modified humans, but I think if the world continues like this these problems will get much, much worse.
ReplyDelete2. It wasn’t really a plot hole but something I found interesting was what the Mrs. Wied told Mr. Weis when they saw their daughter robbing one of their banks. She basically said he was stifling her and the rest of the family. Which is not the typical reaction I would believe to your daughter robbing a bank. I mean I know personally my mother would be beyond angry and spouting stuff like a volcano. Also, the gang confused me, like why don’t you just take some time from the bank like the other people, what’s the point in still trying to kill people. Not only that but you’d assume he has enough to move up time zones. Just take some and then you get all the time you need. Lastly the head timekeeper, Raymond. I know his whole thing is he put 50 years into his job but also DUDE WHY WOULD YOU KEEP PROTECTING THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They keep you on a day at a time and you're protecting them?! Even after it’s revealed what he did and where he’s from. Why wouldn’t he go back and help his people?
-Emma Moskovitz