EDITOR’S CORNER Demiurgical Technics: Existentialist Thought as Coercive Control in Richard Kelly's The Box Eris-Jake Donohue, Texas A&M University Richard Kelly’s 2009 sci-fi film The Box draws heavily upon the philosophy of existentialism, particularly the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartrean concepts like anguish, authenticity, and freedom are featured prevalently throughout its narrative. However, instead of agreeing with existentialism, The Box presents a critique against it. Kelly illustrates how existentialist values, contrary to the perspective of their adherents, work in service to demiurgical technologies that malevolently control the human subject. Through an analysis of The Box’s narrative, this project pits Sartre against a host of opposing philosophies of technology in order to expound upon this coercive aspect of existentialism.
Introduction Within the art of cinematic science fiction, existentialist philosophy prevelantly receives thematic acclaim. The former’s tales about aliens, advanced technologies, and other such humanity-questioning topics mesh excellently with the latter’s championing of human freedom, authenticity, and subjectivity.1 Less commonly, however, does a sci-fi film portray a critique against this school of thought, accordingly undercutting the humanist values exalted therein. Precisely such a rarity finds expression in director Richard Kelly’s 2009 film The Box. As a work of adaptation, The Box draws inspiration from Richard Matheson’s original 1970 short story “Button, Button” as well as the story’s televisual reimagining as a late-80s episode of The Twilight Zone.2 All three works center on a morality scenario involving a family, a device, a stranger, and a dilemmatic offer. As a feature-length picture, however, The Box stretches well beyond the precedent of its source material. Into the film Kelly weaves, as typical of the director’s dense approach to narrative crafting, a tangled knot of philosophical and intertextual threads.3 Existentialism stands out as the most prevalent of these. Preeminent 1
See Steven M. Sanders, “An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science Fiction Film.”
2
Roger Ebert, “Working outside The Box.”
3
Geoff King, Donnie Darko, 53.
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