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Three years after the release of 'Gattaca', Columbia Pictures revisited the whole area of the social and ethical implications of genomics and genetic engineering in 'The Sixth Day', but this time with the emphasis on human cloning. "Cloning is love", proclaims a TV commercial (for cloned pets) glimpsed during the film's tumultuous first half-hour, but if 'The Sixth Day' is to be believed, material greed, (male) egotism, lust for power and the desire for immortality at any price are much more likely to prove the real driving forces behind the all-but-inevitable extension of cloning technology from domestic plants and animals to Man. Film details
Principal cast
Like 'Gattaca', 'The Sixth Day' is set in a near future technological dystopia – "nearer than you think", according to an inter-title - but an (American) society in many ways more familiar and more easily recognisable than that of 'Gattaca', in which consumer capitalism and surveillance technology rule supreme, and laser guns, electronic gadgets, virtual 'companions', attorneys and psychiatrists, cloned pets or 'Repets' and animatronic dolls or 'Sim-Pals' all figure prominently. (Also, in which environmentally friendly leisure pursuits are clearly still strictly for wimps). The President of the United States is a woman, but she does not actually appear in the film. Adam Gibson (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a regular family man and helicopter pilot who comes home on his birthday after a difficult day spent juggling work and family responsibilities, only to find that his place and identity have been taken over by a clone – a 'Sixth Day violation' – and that a posse of cloned hitmen and women, directed by Replacement Technologies' creepy boss Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn), himself a clone, are out to erase him and his fellow pilot and best buddy Hank (Michael Rapaport), or may indeed already have done so. Eventually, of course, Arnie succeeds in vanquishing the evil clones and regaining his identity and his place in the bosom of his family, but not before he himself has had to come to terms with the advance of genetic science in a big way and learn new ways of thinking about what it is to be human (and animal), to be alive and to be dead. Although still basically an action movie with a full cast of two-dimensional characters, 'The Sixth Day' is probably the most intelligent of Arnie's pump-action vehicles. The first half hour of the film in particular references many of the most important social and ethical questions posed by animal and human cloning, and indeed starts with a brief thumbnail sketch of the progress of cloning technology in the 1990s, extrapolated into a near future in which human cloning has been banned but the cloning of pets, farm animals and fish is common practice – as indeed is human cloning, despite the formal legal prohibition. Human cloning has begun in a furtive and essentially ad hoc way, largely for mundane economic reasons such as preserving the value of investment in American football players, and although it speedily gets out of control this is represented as being as much evidence of the cock-up as of the conspiracy theory of history. At first, Arnie is resolutely opposed to cloning on both moral and emotional grounds, but even he has to make major concessions in order to rescue his family and vanquish Replacement Technologies, first teaming up with his own clone and then discovering that he himself is no longer the person he thought he was. Considered purely as an action movie, 'The Sixth Day' has many points in its favour, but the scientific verisimilitude of its representation of cloning technology is definitely not one of them. In the film – more precisely, in Replacement Technologies' clandestine human cloning laboratories - generic human 'blanks' or 'drones' of both sexes and various ages and skin colours, etc., but devoid of any individual characteristics, are grown in 'embryonic tanks'. When, for whatever reason, someone needs to be cloned, his or her DNA is extracted and 'infused' at a 'cellular level' into a suitable 'blank', which then progressively takes on the individual characteristics and physical appearance of the original person. Finally, using a cerebral 'syncord' process, all their thoughts, feelings and memories are 'painlessly transplanted' or imprinted 'via the optic nerve', thus replicating his or her identity and mentality. All this is explained, and even shown, in some detail. Needless to say, this bears almost no resemblance to any actual or prospective cloning technology, and while this need not constitute a bar to enjoyment of the film or even reflection on the ethical issues that it raises, for scientifically literate viewers the sheer implausibility of the technology shown in an otherwise quite plausible near-future setting does rather detract from the credibility of the film’s apparently strong anti-cloning message. This message is further weakened by the fact that the film appears to equate human cloning with somatic cloning, and ignores therapeutic cloning entirely. In fact, on closer examination, 'The Sixth Day' is full of inconsistencies and confusion in its messages about biomedical science and biotechnology. Thus although Replacement Technologies boss Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn) is shown as thoroughly evil, the audience is invited to sympathise with his chief scientist, Dr. Griffin Weir (Robert Duvall), whose fatal dalliance with human cloning stems from his love for his (repeatedly cloned and 'resurrected') sick wife, and who eventually pays with his life for turning against his evil employer. Dr. Weir's motive bears obvious similarities to that of Victor Frankenstein for creating his monster, especially as shown in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film version of Mary Shelley's original story, but nothing is made of this potentially fruitful comparison. Again, 'The Sixth Day' relies heavily on the familiar notion that clones or 'replicants' are necessarily inferior to their originals and abnormal in mentality and behaviour, but while this is clearly true of Drucker and his cloned henchmen, curiously enough Arnold Schwarzenegger's clone turns into an exemplary comrade in arms as soon as he is made fully aware of his (and Arnie's) true situation, while the personal style, gallows humour and generally vile behaviour of Drucker's cloned hitmen (and women) are clearly intended more to entertain than to serve any moral purpose, much as they might do in an episode of 'South Park'. While 'The Sixth Day' appears to carry a strong anti-cloning message, it is difficult to take this message very seriously and at certain key points, the writers and director appear to be in two minds as to whether cloning technology is inherently evil, or whether it is merely the unethical application of biotechnology by power-crazed corporate bosses which is at the root of the problem. In almost his first appearance in the film, Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen looking into a mirror, wondering about his identity, very much as Harrison Ford does so often in 'Blade Runner' (1982), and [the spectator is again strongly reminded of 'Blade Runner' when a 'syncord' of Arnie's brain is surreptitiously taken under the pretext of an eye test.] Although very different in its 'look' and feel, and belonging to a different age scientifically, cinematically 'The Sixth Day' is in many ways a kind of homage to Ridley Scott's classic movie, and raises many of the same questions about what it 'really' is to be human, the nature of replication, and the relations between big business, science and the state. Indeed, while it has nothing very specific to say about genetics as such, 'Blade Runner' might almost be considered the template for nearly all subsequent movies about genetic engineering, cloning and human replication, and as well as being aesthetically superior, it remains a far more profound and searching meditation on these themes than almost any of its successors. 'Blade Runner' is also a notable exception to the familiar theme of clones or replicants [manifesting a serious loss of quality when compared to/being somehow less perfect than] their human prototypes, but so far, at least, this principle does seem to apply to the many films which have been inspired or influenced by 'Blade Runner', including 'The Sixth Day'. Considered as a science fiction or action movie, and especially as an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, 'The Sixth Day' is well ahead of the pack for its direction and cinematography, scripting and entertainment value, but considered as a meditation on science, technology and human nature and as a cultural icon of enduring significance, it can hardly be regarded as a serious rival to Ridley Scott's masterpiece. Michael Clark is a Research Associate of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London and a freelance writer on medical and scientific film and television. LinksInternet Movie Database: 'The Sixth Day' |
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