On The Cinematic Expression of Time Travel

Buoyed by the latter half of the 20th century's accumulative technological progress – by measures such as science, medicine, warfare, and post-industrial development, but most poignantly for the purposes of this essay, within the literally “timeless” medium of cinema – the exploration of time travel, a concept that has existed as a human fantasy for quite some time, has managed to effectively penetrate the human and cinematic psyche. This has been accomplished by the advent of influential films dealing with the provocative subject matter such as Chris Marker's innovative 1963 La Jetee, from France; James Cameron's 1991 Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the second film in the popular Hollywood franchise; and Terry Gilliam's 1995 12 Monkeys, its tagline confirming that the U.S. film was officially “inspired by La Jetee.” Significantly, all three of these films fantasize the notion of a post-apocalyptic future, in which the dismal prospect of humanity’s extinction or complete usurpation by the growing (and hauntingly realistic) advent of all-pervasive technology spurs the development of a form of time travel. Inherent within this fantasized technology is the hopeful mission of somehow changing the future – or even restoring it to its rightful place, therein taking solace in the past either by simple reminiscence or literally returning to it, as a means of coping with the monstrosity of the present or our impending anxieties regarding the high-tech future. But no matter how idealized our recollection of this heyday may be, audiences may still be lost on the fact that our collective nostalgia is still predicated on a past that, both within the context of these films and within our lives, ultimately if circuitously contributed to humanity’s present (or future) “critical dystopia.” To what degree can impending catastrophe really be averted, if at all?

In challenging their viewers with the impossible notion of a “time loop paradox,” La Jetee and 12 Monkeys force their respective protagonists – and by extension, viewers – to come to terms with the traumatic notion of not only seeing one's self while traveling in time, but witnessing one's own death. As inevitable as death may be for all living creatures, this motif suggests that in attempting to transcend the linearity of time and space, despite unprecedented technological prowess, humankind is still incapable of transcending its own mortality and the manifest apprehensions surrounding it. Humankind’s collective existential desires and anxieties, in many ways, seem to trigger the desire to travel through time and space to attain an outlet for humankind’s survival in lieu of the impending uncertainties or destruction imposed by technology. In Terminator 2, and indeed the franchise itself, temporality is explored as a cyclic institution with effects that are directly related to their causes, regardless of ex post facto breaches in the fabric of time. Therefore, by returning to the past from a dystopian future to destroy the child version of rebel leader John Conner, he will also cease to exist in the future. In the original Terminator, this hypothetical cause and effect relationship is explored within another context: the notion of choosing one’s own parents by retroactively altering the course of history, and in the case of the franchise, idealizing John Conner’s father – the “primal scene,” a concept reminiscent in some ways of Sigmund Freud’s observation of the irreparable and transformative trauma a child faces in observing one’s own parents making love.

“Observation,” interestingly enough, is a theme explored in Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, as the protagonist Cole is chosen for his mission precisely because of his exceptional observational abilities stemming from the indecipherable childhood trauma of witnessing his death. Fascinatingly, the film’s ending in which the child Cole witnesses the older and disguised version of himself being shot at an airport and dying is also the beginning of the film’s narrative – mirroring La Jetee, in which the nameless protagonist’s vague recollection of a traumatic incident on “the sea by the pier” serves as the catalyst for the perpetual re-experience of his own death. Both films, to this end, provocatively call into question the notion of temporal priority itself, and posit that within the cinematic realm, the impossibility of traveling through time can flourish precisely because narrative structures themselves can be upheaved and reshuffled to the director’s liking. This point is underscored in La Jetee by its creative production from photographic stills, which additionally implies a sense of stagnation within events that remains frozen in time beyond our attempts to manipulate and revolutionize them for humanity’s betterment. Tellingly, the only moment in which there is actual cinematic movement (or the illusion of such movement, given the structure of film’s projection at 24 frames per second) in La Jetee comes from a woman opening her eyes, as if in realization of humanity’s failure. Temporality – and death – cannot be surmounted.