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53 What is there in The Fly (1986) of interest to philosophy? Sometimes films deliberately aim to stimulate philosophical reflection by manifestly engaging with philosophical themes. I will argue that The Fly does not do that. Rather, philosophy engages with The Fly when we stand back from our natural involvement in, and reaction to, the plot and ask what sense, if any, can be made of the story. Considering the plot brings us face to face with two large philosophical debates. The result of this encounter is that it is very difficult to say what happens in The Fly; in particular, what happens to Brundle. The Fly is a film that produces sharply different reactions in different viewers. Aficionados of nasty surprises and gore love it and assign it, probably rightly, an important place in the development of the genre they admire. Those of us with less of a taste for blood and guts can see it as a film with a fairly simple plot that moves quickly to its messy conclusion. It tells the tale of an experiment that goes sadly wrong in the context of—and because it is in the context of—that old-fashioned dramatic structure, the eternal triangle. Seth Brundle’s (Jeff Goldblum) fatal and unwitting decision to step into the teleporter device along with what we might call the fly in the ointment is inspired by drink and a jealousy he feels about Veronica Quaife’s (Geena Davis) involvement with her boss, Stathis Borans (John Getz). (This sentence reveals one very curious aspect of the film—its totally absurd names!) Of course Brundle, being the emotional incompetent that he is, has completely misinterpreted Quaife’s motives and behavior. The rest is history, with Brundle’s life (or, perhaps, not strictly Brundle’s life, as we will see) going (as one might put it with pardonable understatement) from bad to worse. What Happens to Brundle? Paul F. Snowdon Problems of Teleportation and Personal Identity in The Fly 54 Paul F. Snowdon Who is Brundle? Brundle is the central character, and any consideration of the film must start and end with him. He is a scientist to whom something truly awful happens. Quite how we should describe that awful thing is something of a mystery. But Brundle himself is also a mystery. He is a genius and a man, but apart from that he is very hard to describe, and our reaction to him is simply to ask questions. Is he an innocent? Is he autistic? Does he have emotions? How does he feel about his own fate? I will return to Brundle, but first I want to ask what else there is in the film. Within the film there are undoubtedly real pluses that anyone would recognize. There is plenty of humor—some is fairly low grade, but nonetheless it’s definitely funny. For example, when Brundle leaps through the glass to steal Veronica from the planned abortion, there is real shock, but the effect is also comic and absurd. Cronenberg also uses humor to define his main characters. Brundle jokes in an ironic and somewhat detached way as his bodily parts drop off and he puts them in his “natural history museum.” This conveys his dispassionate and scientific nature. In contrast, Stathis’s humor is vulgar and sexual, like his character, but nonetheless still funny. Another comic aspect is the equipment that Brundle employs. The pods look like the products of a nineteenth-century foundry. Cronenberg seems remarkably taken with the little revolving wheel that turns whenever the doors close, and we are repeatedly shown it. The computer that Brundle types into is, no doubt intentionally, laughable. The really major plus, it seems to me, is Geena Davis’s performance, in which she very effectively conveys the emotions that the evolving drama inspires in her character. Her emotional conflict at the end is undoubtedly highly moving. Somewhat oddly, the consequence is that although the real tragedy is Brundle’s, it is Quaife’s reactions and feelings that affect the audience. It is also undeniable that the film generates a growing and real tension. Cronenberg employs standard devices to produce this. Thus, for example, when teleportation occurs, the receiving pod fills with steam (or something like it), and so we must wait, with mounting tension, to see what it contains. Brundle’s warehouse apartment is in such a run-down area that whenever someone arrives there is a feeling of doom generated by the general...

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