Dark City
Dark City Film poster
Directed by	Alex Proyas
Produced by	Alex Proyas Andrew Mason Michael De Luca Brian Witten
Written by	Alex Proyas Lem Dobbs David S. Goyer
Starring	Rufus Sewell William Hurt Kiefer Sutherland Jennifer Connelly
Music by	Trevor Jones Pablo Beltrán Ruiz François Perchat Ben Weisman
Cinematography	Dariusz Wolski
Editing by	Dov Hoenig
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	February 27, 1998
Running time	100 min.
Country	Australia / USA
Language	English
Budget	$27,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Dark City is a 1998 science fiction film written by Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer, and directed by Proyas. It stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly. While not a box office hit, it has a considerable reputation. Film critic Roger Ebert is a well-known fan of the movie, having rated it with four stars out of four,^[1] naming it the best film of 1998.^[2] In 2005, he included it on his "Great Movies" list.^[3] Ebert uses it in his teaching, and also appears on a commentary track for the DVD. Image File history File links Darkcityposter. ... Alex Proyas (born September 23 , 1963) is an Australian film director, writer, and producer. ... Alex Proyas (born September 23 , 1963) is an Australian film director, writer, and producer. ... Alex Proyas (born September 23 , 1963) is an Australian film director, writer, and producer. ... Lem Dobbs (born Lem Kitaj on December 24, 1959 in Oxford, England) is an American screenwriter. ... David S. Goyer is a comic book writer, screenwriter, and film director. ... Rufus Frederik Sewell (born October 29, 1967) is an English actor. ... William Hurt in Lost in Space. ... Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born December 21, 1966 in London, England) is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning Canadian television and film actor, currently well known for his role of Jack Bauer on the series 24. ... Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an Academy Award-winning American film actress and former child model. ... Trevor Alfred Charles Jones (born March 23, 1949 in Cape Town, South Africa) is a South African orchestral film score composer. ... Ben Weisman (November 16, 1921—May 20, 2007) was an American composer and pianist best known for having written many of the songs associated with Elvis Presley. ... Dariusz Wolski is a Polish cinematographer who was born in Warsaw in 1956. ... New Line Cinema, founded in 1967, is one of the major American film studios. ... February 27 is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... // February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ... Alex Proyas (born September 23 , 1963) is an Australian film director, writer, and producer. ... Lem Dobbs (born Lem Kitaj on December 24, 1959 in Oxford, England) is an American screenwriter. ... David S. Goyer is a comic book writer, screenwriter, and film director. ... Rufus Frederik Sewell (born October 29, 1967) is an English actor. ... William Hurt in Lost in Space. ... Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born December 21, 1966 in London, England) is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning Canadian television and film actor, currently well known for his role of Jack Bauer on the series 24. ... Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an Academy Award-winning American film actress and former child model. ... Roger Joseph Ebert (June 18, 1942) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic. ... A major selling point of DVD video is that its storage capacity allows for a wide variety of extra features in addition to the feature film itself. ... DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

The story concerns a man waking in a hotel room with no memory, which soon proves to be but one of many troubles. He is sought by police, who believe him to be a serial killer, and also by a group of mysterious men with psychokinetic powers. Furthermore, something appears to be wrong with the world at large: time, memory, and identity behave in unusual ways. Serial killers are individuals who have a history of multiple slayings of victims who were usually unknown to them beforehand. ... Psychokinesis (Greek ψυχή + κίνησις, literally spirit-movement)[1][2] or PK, also known as telekinesis[3] (Greek + , literally distant-movement referring to telekinesis) or TK, is the proposed paranormal ability of the mind to influence matter or energy without the use of any currently known type of physical means. ...

The film is dedicated to the memory of Dennis Potter, which may be considered a useful indicator of the style of the story. The film might also be said to owe something to Expressionism and film noir, and may be considered neo-noir. Liber Amoris Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935—7 June 1994) was a controversial British dramatist who is best known for several widely acclaimed television dramas which mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. ... Expressionism in filmmaking developed in Germany (especially Berlin) during the 1920s. ... This still from The Big Combo (1955) demonstrates the visual style of film noir at its most extreme. ... Neo-noir is a term given to the modern trend of incorporating aspects of film noir into films of other genres. ...

The visual aesthetic of Dark City resembles the shadowy, labyrinthine and crime-ridden 'Gotham' types of cities characterized in Batman and other DC Comics, a night-time world of streetlamps, skyscrapers, alleyways, seedy hotels and dimly-lit hallways. Many of the outdoor scenes in Dark City were filmed in Sydney, Australia in areas with a 1920s character, such as Sydney's The Rocks district near Sydney Harbour Bridge, itself built in the 1920s. Other parts of Sydney featured in Dark City were Hickson Road and Museum Station. Batman (originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still referred to at times as the Batman) is a DC Comics fictional superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. ... DC Comics is an American comic book company (with related media publishing businesses). ... The Sydney Opera House on Sydney Harbour Sydney (pronounced ) is the most populous city in Australia, with a metropolitan area population of over 4,200,000 people, and 151,920 within the city centre. ... George Street, the main street of The Rocks The Rocks is a tourist precinct and historic area near the central business district (CBD) of Sydney, Australia. ... The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the main crossing of Sydney Harbour carrying rail, vehicular, and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district (CBD) and the North Shore. ... Museum is a railway station on the City Circle line in Sydney, Australia. ...

Plot

The film begins with a voice-over narration (which Proyas says was studio-imposed and "unnecessary")^[4] that gives away several key plot twists. A voice-over is a narration that is played on top of a video segment, usually with the audio for that segment muted or lowered. ... The Narrator is the entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. ... A Plot twist is a change (twist) in the direction or expected outcome of the plot of a film or novel. ...

John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes in a hotel bathtub, having lost his memory. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) urging him to leave the hotel immediately. According to Schreber, a group of men called The Strangers are coming for him. Murdoch escapes, and shortly afterwards, finds out his name and that he has a wife named Emma (Jennifer Connelly). Unfortunately, he also finds out that he is wanted for a string of serial killings, of which he has no memory. Rufus Frederik Sewell (born October 29, 1967) is an English actor. ... In psychology, memory is an organisms ability to store, retain, and subsequently recall information. ... Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born December 21, 1966 in London, England) is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning Canadian television and film actor, currently well known for his role of Jack Bauer on the series 24. ... Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an Academy Award-winning American film actress and former child model. ... Serial killers are individuals who have a history of multiple slayings of victims who were usually unknown to them beforehand. ...

He also starts to find strange things happening around the city, all of which seem to have some connection to The Strangers. For instance, whenever the clock strikes midnight, everyone in the city collectively falls into a comatose state of suspended animation, it is always night, and it seems to be impossible to leave the city. Allegedly, Murdoch was raised at a seaside resort named Shell Beach, a place that everyone seems to know, despite being unable to recall how to get there. Strangest of all, Murdoch has some sort of psychokinetic power, which the Strangers also seem to possess. In medicine, a coma (from the Greek koma, meaning deep sleep) is a profound state of unconsciousness, which may result from a variety of conditions including intoxication (drug, alcohol or toxins), metabolic abnormalities (hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, ketoacidosis, etc. ... Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. ... Psychokinesis (Greek ψυχή + κίνησις, literally spirit-movement)[1][2] or PK, also known as telekinesis[3] (Greek + , literally distant-movement referring to telekinesis) or TK, is the proposed paranormal ability of the mind to influence matter or energy without the use of any currently known type of physical means. ...

The Strangers in their underground hall

Meanwhile, police inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt), a sunken-faced cop whose deadpan manner hides an emotional side, is investigating the serial killings. Bumstead's colleague, Detective Eddie Walenski (Australian actor Colin Friels), had made inroads in the case, but was eventually driven mad by something he discovered. Bumstead takes over and soon begins to suspect that Murdoch himself is the victim of some plot. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x359, 57 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x359, 57 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... William Hurt in Lost in Space. ... Colin Friels (b. ...

Murdoch is also being sought by Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien), a Stranger who has absorbed the memories Murdoch has "lost" (in truth, those of the serial killer that he is suspected of being) in order to track him. Unusual amongst the Strangers, Mr. Hand desires to experience life as a human through Murdoch's memories, but merely ends up manifesting the homicidal rage that comes from the memories of a serial killer. Richard OBrien as Mr. ... Richard OBrien (born Richard Timothy Smith on March 25, 1942 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England) is a writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. ...

Murdoch tries to return to Shell Beach using the subway, the last stop on the line according to the subway map, but the train goes out of service prior to that stop. Murdoch is told that he must take the express train to reach his goal, but finds that the express never stops to pick up riders. A rapid transit, underground, subway, tube, elevated, or metro(politan) system is a railway—usually in an urban area—with a high capacity and frequency of service, and grade separation from other traffic. ... Express trains (also sometimes referred to as fast trains) are a form of rail service. ...

As he is pursued by the Strangers, Murdoch sees the plastic nature of the city. At midnight, while everyone else is unconscious, the Strangers use their collective power to alter the very landscape; growing buildings out of the ground while dissolving other buildings out of existence, transforming slum tenements into mansions and vice versa, and injecting some of the citizens with fresh new memories, often transforming them into entirely different people.

William Hurt as Inspector Bumstead

Murdoch and Bumstead eventually meet, confront Dr. Schreber, and force him to reveal that the city is a vast experiment conducted by the alien Strangers, designed to reveal an aspect of humans that the Strangers lack and need to survive (hinted at being the nature of the human soul). The Strangers are in fact a dying race of alien parasites, who use human corpses as vessels. In their experiments, they put the entire city to sleep and, with Schreber's help, manipulate the memories of the citizens in an attempt to learn about nature and nurture. Occasionally, however, people wake up during the process and are left without memories, which is what happened to Murdoch. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (849x357, 12 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (849x357, 12 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... William Hurt in Lost in Space. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A parasite is an organism that spends a significant portion of its life in or on the living tissue of a host organism and which causes harm to the host without immediately killing it. ... The nature versus nurture debates concern the relative importance of an individuals innate qualities (nature) versus personal experiences (nurture) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits. ...

Eventually Murdoch, Bumstead, and a reluctant Schreber find their way to what at first appears to be Shell Beach, but turns out to be nothing more than a painting on the brick wall that makes up the impenetrable edge of the city. An enraged Murdoch proceeds to tear the wall apart, only to discover nothing but the cold void of space beyond. At this point, the group is confronted by Strangers led by Mr. Hand, who holds Emma hostage.

Mr. Hand threatens Emma Murdoch

Bumstead attacks the Strangers. In the ensuing struggle, he and one of the Strangers die when they are sucked out into space. The city is revealed to be a giant space habitat protected by a force field. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x360, 20 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x360, 20 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Richard OBrien as Mr. ... A pair of ONeill cylinders Interior of a Torus (doughnut-shaped) station A space habitat, also called space colony or orbital colony, is a space station intended as a permanent settlement rather than as a simple waystation or other specialized facility. ... In science fiction and fantasy literature, a force field is a physical barrier made up of energy to protect a person or object from attacks or intrusions. ...

The Strangers capture Murdoch, and attempt to have Dr. Schreber overwrite Murdoch's memories with their own collective memory in order to "share his soul". However, Schreber manages to imprint Murdoch with a different set of memories, ones which he had purposely crafted in order to give Murdoch a subjective lifetime's worth of experience with the psychokinetic powers that the Strangers use to alter reality. These give him the ability to shape reality as easily as the Strangers do. This enables him to do battle with the Strangers, culminating in a massive psychokinetic battle between Murdoch and the Stranger leader, Mr. Book (Ian Richardson), in the skies high above the Dark City. Ian William Richardson CBE (7 April 1934 – 9 February 2007) was a Scottish actor best known for playing the Machiavellian politician Francis Urquhart in the House of Cards trilogy for the BBC. // Born in Edinburgh, Richardson was educated at Balgreen Primary School and Tynecastle High School in the city,[1...

Murdoch defeats Mr. Book, and uses his power to turn the city towards the sun, bringing sunlight to the city for the first time and causing the surviving Strangers (including a recalcitrant Mr. Hand) to flee into the darkness. Murdoch also "recreates" Shell Beach by flooding water out of the edge of the city so that it pools in the city's force field.

He then seeks out Emma, who (due to a memory change) is now called Anna, and has no memory of having been his wife. However, Murdoch is willing to make new memories with her.

Similarities to other works

The film's style can be compared to the works of Terry Gilliam, such as Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. Beyond that there are clear similarities between it and The Matrix, which was released one year after Dark City.^[5] Terrence Vance Gilliam (born November 22, 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, animator, and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. ... Twelve Monkeys is a 1995 science fiction film written by David and Janet Peoples and directed by Terry Gilliam. ... The Matrix is a science fiction/action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano and Hugo Weaving. ...

One scene, in which Murdoch looks out a window into an alley to view an approaching Stranger, is almost identical to a similar scene in The Matrix between Trinity and an Agent; and the staircase on which Neo experiences déjà vu was previously used by Murdoch to flee Bumstead's curiosity. The set for the scene in which Murdoch jumps between rooftops is the same set used in The Matrix for a similar scene with Trinity. Trinity is the central female fictional character in The Matrix universe, played by actress Carrie-Anne Moss in the films The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. ... Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith in The Matrix. ... Neo is the name of the central fictional character from the movie The Matrix and its sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. ... The term déjà vu (IPA:) (French for already seen, also called paramnesia from the Greek word para (παρα) for parallel and mnimi (μνήμη) for memory) describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. ...

Some stylistic similarities have been noted to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 1995 film The City of Lost Children (also influenced by Gilliam's Brazil). In the film, one of the Strangers says that some unsuccessfully imprinted people are found "wandering like lost children". Jean-Pierre Jeunet (born 3 September 1953) is a French film director. ... The City of Lost Children (French: ) is a French fantasy/drama film by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet released in 1995. ...

Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis was a major influence on the film, showing through the architecture, concepts of the baseness of humans within a metropolis, and general tone.^[6] The plot also contains many similarities to Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Philip K. Dick's short story Adjustment Team, and Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars. The random permutation of people's social identities is reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges's short story "The Lottery in Babylon" (in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the story of the Tower of Babel is a key theme). In many ways, Ten Blocks on Camino Real by Tennesee Williams could be considered a primitive version of Dark City. There "Street Cleaners" take away the dead and admonish the losers. Although Tennesse Williams claimed that it was written about his time, the "convention" of it is that it does not exist in a specific time or place. Friedrich Anton Christian Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-American film director, screenwriter and occasional film producer, one of the best known émigrés from Germanys school of expressionism. ... Metropolis is a very early science fiction film that was produced in Germany during the brief years of the Weimar Republic. ... Victor-Marie Hugo (pronounced in French) (26 February 1802 — 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. ... Les Misérables (translated variously from French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims) (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, and among the best-known novels of the 19th century. ... Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American writer, mostly known for his works of science fiction; additional to forty-four books currently in print, Dick wrote several short stories and minor works published in pulp magazines. ... 1954 cover of Orbit Science Fiction Adjustment Team is a science fiction short story/novella by Philip K. Dick. ... Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born December 16, 1917) is a British science-fiction author and inventor, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. ... The City and The Stars (1956) is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. ... Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986) was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. ... The Lottery in Babylon is a short story written by Jorge Luis Borges in 1941. ... Engraving The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865), who based his conception on the Minaret of Samarra According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built to reach the heavens by a united humanity. ...

Kiefer Sutherland as Dr. Schreber

References to Memoirs of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber (after whom character Dr. Schreber is named) can be found in the film, notably in the use of his "fleetingly-improvised men" concept. The film has also been interpreted as containing references to the Bible, with John Murdoch being an allegorical Jesus; for example, the number of the room John is in at the film's beginning — 614 — may evoke John 6:14, a biblical verse in which Jesus' followers say of him, "This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world." Notice also the DVD cover, where Murdoch is stretched across a clock face in a manner bespeaking either crucifixion or the Vitruvian Man (as well as being another reference to Lang's Metropolis). Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x358, 20 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x358, 20 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born December 21, 1966 in London, England) is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning Canadian television and film actor, currently well known for his role of Jack Bauer on the series 24. ... Daniel Paul Schreber was a German judge suffering from schizophrenia. ... Daniel Paul Schreber (1842-1911) was a German judge suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ... This article is about Jesus of Nazareth. ... The Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the canon of the New Testament, traditionally ascribed to John the Evangelist. ... The Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the sequence of the canon as printed in the New Testament, and scholars agree it was the fourth to be written. ... Crucifixion is an ancient method of execution, where the condemned was tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead. ... The Vitruvian Man is a world renowned drawing with accompanying notes created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1492 as recorded in one of his journals. ...

Also quite noticeable is the use of Cartesian philosophy. This tends to draw comparisons to other films made around the same time that made use of it, such as The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, and eXistenZ. While the idea that sensory experience could be manufactured by some form of virtual reality is not new in science fiction, Dark City addresses the (arguably more radical) question of memory. In Bertrand Russell's words, how can we be sure that "the world was not created five minutes ago, and our memories with it?" (the Omphalos Hypothesis) René Descartes (French IPA: ) (March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650), also known as Renatus Cartesius (latinized form), was a highly influential French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer. ... Movie Poster The Thirteenth Floor is a 1999 film released to cinemas in Germany and the United States (as The 13th Floor). ... eXistenZ is a 1999 psychological thriller/science fiction film by Canadian director David Cronenberg. ... Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician and advocate for social reform. ... The omphalos hypothesis was named after the title of an 1857 book by Philip Henry Gosse in which he argued that in order for the world to be functional, God must have created the Earth with mountains, canyons, trees with growth rings, Adam and Eve with hair, fingernails, and navels...

Comparisons have been made between Dark City's villain Mr. Hand and the villain from the Matrix Trilogy, Agent Smith. Both are enforcers for the film's antagonists (the Strangers/the Machines), but both are somehow different from their otherwise homogeneous fellows. Both develop a bond with their human opponent (Hand through Murdoch's memories, Smith through Neo's code), which causes them to become more human and to develop some of humanity's worst characteristics. Subsequent movies in the Matrix Trilogy further this comparison, as the climactic fight scene in Dark City is not unlike the one seen in Revolutions. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Matrix Revolutions is the third and last film in the Matrix trilogy. ...

Nor do the comparisons end there; both Matrix and Dark City concern artificial memories and habitats, and both are patrolled by faceless superpowered beings challenged when a human develops comparable powers. Comparisons have been made between scenes from the movies, making note of similarities in both cinematography and atmosphere.^[5] This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

The Animatrix short story A Detective Story is remarkably similar to Bumstead's story arc in Dark City. In the short story, a detective is pursuing an enigmatic figure (Trinity, who like Murdoch is an "enlightened" human with knowledge of the false nature of their reality). Over the course of the investigation he learns that the previous investigators went insane or disappeared. In the end, the detective catches up with his target and learns the true nature of his world, only to die shortly thereafter. The Animatrix is a collection of nine CG and anime shorts set in the world of The Matrix, partly written by the Wachowski brothers. ... A Detective Story is an animated short film set in the universe of The Matrix. ...

Furthermore, in The Matrix, the sun is never seen until the final shot of the final movie in which the sun rises, similar to Dark City and its end

The scene where Emma Murdoch is standing on a pier facing the ocean is strongly similar to that of a scene from Requiem for a Dream involving Jennifer Connelly's character. Requiem for a Dream is a 2000 film adaptation of a 1978 novel of the same name. ...

The overlying plot of the anime The Big O also features an isolated, noir-esque city, where virtually everyone suffers from amnesia, people possess memories that are not their own, and in the end it is revealed that the city is apparently some sort of experiment, ending and resetting itself every 40 years. Original run October 13, 1999 – March 27, 2003 No. ...

One of the last scenes of the movie, in which buildings "restore" themselves, is strikingly similar to the last panel of the Akira manga. Proyas called the end battle an "homage to Otomo's Akira".^[7] Akira (Japanese: ) is a cyberpunk serial manga by Katsuhiro Otomo (Japanese: ). An animated film version was released in 1988 (see Akira (film)). Compared with the film, the manga is an epic which exhaustively examines its themes of social isolation, corruption and power. ... Manga )   (pl. ... Katsuhiro Otomo Katsuhiro Otomo (大友克洋 ÅŒtomo Katsuhiro) (born April 14, 1954 in Hasama, Miyagi, Japan) is a Japanese manga artist and anime director. ...

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for the film was released on February 24, 1998 on the TVT label.^[8] It features music from the original score by Trevor Jones, and versions of the songs "Sway" and "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" performed by singer Anita Kelsey. It also includes music by Hughes Hall from the trailer^[9], as well as songs by Gary Numan, Echo & the Bunnymen, and Course of Empire that did not appear in the film. Image File history File links Dark_city_soundtrack. ... A film soundtrack is the music that is from or inspired by a feature film. ... February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... TVT Records is an independent record label located in New York City in the United States. ... For the record label, see Film Score Monthly. ... Trevor Alfred Charles Jones (born March 23, 1949 in Cape Town, South Africa) is a South African orchestral film score composer. ... Sway is the English version of Quién Será, a 1953 Latin pop song with a mambo beat written by Mexican composer and bandleader Pablo Beltrán Ruiz. ... Full name Hughes Hall Motto Disce ut Servias Named after Miss Elizabeth Phillips Hughes Previous names - Established 1885 Sister College(s) None President Mrs. ... Movie trailers are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown; they are commonly known as previews of coming attractions. ... Gary Numan (born Gary Anthony James Webb on March 8, 1958) is an English singer, composer, musician and electropop pioneer. ... Echo & the Bunnymen are an English post-punk group formed in Liverpool in 1978. ... A heavy metal / grunge band based in Dallas, Texas. ...

Trivia

• Dark City has one of the shortest average shot lengths of a modern film; a cut occurs in the film, on average, every 1.8 seconds.^[10]

• Warner Bros., the film's copyright holder (New Line Cinema, a division of Time Warner, distributed it), objected to the title Dark City early in the film's production. They felt the title would confuse audiences with Mad City, Warner's soon-to-be-released film starring John Travolta and Dustin Hoffman, which they predicted would be a commercial hit. The filmmakers changed the title to Dark World, but Steven Spielberg's production company threatened legal action, feeling the title was too similar to their film The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The title was then changed to Dark Empire, but legal action was again threatened, this time by Lucasfilm, who felt the title was too similar to their own well-known film The Empire Strikes Back, and was an exact match for the Star Wars: Dark Empire comic series that had been published by Dark Horse Comics in 1991-92. However, by the time the film was completed and ready for release, Warner's Mad City had come and gone from theatres, and was not the hit they hoped it would be, and the filmmakers were allowed to use their original title,^[11] on the condition that Warner could use the original set of Dark City for The Matrix.^[12]

• When “Emma” pays a visit to Dr. Schreber, she walks down a dark hallway and into the more brightly lit laboratory where Schreber is conducting experiments with rats in a spiral maze. Careful attention to this scene reveals that the hallway and lab create an ambiguous image optical illusion. The lab also looks like a human skull, very similar to the illustration All is Vanity (1892) by Charles Allan Gilbert.

Warner Bros. ... New Line Cinema, founded in 1967, is one of the major American film studios. ... John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe Award-winning American actor, singer and entertainer. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Steven Allan Spielberg KBE (born December 18, 1946)[1] is an American film director and producer. ... The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a 1997 movie which is a sequel to the blockbuster Jurassic Park. ... Lucasfilm Ltd. ... Movie poster Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is the sequel to the first released Star Wars movie, and the second film released in the original trilogy. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Certain images are interpreted by the Visual System in more than one way. ... An optical illusion is always characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. ... Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin: wise man or knowing man) in the family Hominidae (the great apes). ... It has been suggested that temporal fenestra be merged into this article or section. ... Charles Allan Gilbert (1873-1929) was an American artist and illustrator. ...

Awards

Dark City won the following awards:^[13]

It was also nominated for the following awards: The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for superior achievement in horror writing. ... Nominees are listed below the winner(s) for each year. ... Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser) and James Whale (Ian McKellen). ... The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. ... The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Science Fiction Film: See also Science fiction film Categories: | ... The album cover Armageddon is a 1998 disaster film/science fiction film about a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers who are sent by NASA to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. ... The Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film was created in 1983 as a venue for horror, thriller & science fiction films. ... The Film Critics Circle of Australia is a non-profit organisation, a group of cinema critics that judge Australian films. ...

• the 1999 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
• the 1999 International Horror Guild Award for Best Movie
• the 1999 Saturn Awards for Best Costumes, Best Director, Best Make-Up, Best Special Effects, and Best Writer

The 2005 Hugo Award with base designed by Deb Kosiba. ... The Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation is one of the annual Hugo Award categories, presented by members of the World Science Fiction Convention. ... The International Horror Guild Award is a recognition presented by the International Horror Guild (IHG) to recognize the achievements of those who create in the field of Horror and Dark Fantasy. ... The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Costume: Year - Motion Picture 1976 - Logans Run 1977 - Star Wars 1978 - The Eyes of Laura Mars 1979 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century 1980 - Somewhere in Time 1981 - Excalibur 1982 - Tron 1983 - Return of the Jedi 1984 - Dune... The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Direction: ... The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Make-up: Category: ... The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Special Effects: ... The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Writing: ...

Technical data

A new building sprouts through the city

• working titles: Dark Empire, Dark World
• writing credits: Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, David S. Goyer
• music: Trevor Jones
• runtime: 100 minutes
• sound: Dolby Digital / SDDS
• aspect ratio: 2.35 : 1
• release date: February 27, 1998 (USA)
• budget: $27,000,000
• total gross (USA): $14,378,331
• distributor: New Line Cinema
• MPAA rating: R

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x362, 28 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (852x362, 28 KB) Summary Dark City screen capture Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Alex Proyas (born September 23 , 1963) is an Australian film director, writer, and producer. ... Lem Dobbs (born Lem Kitaj on December 24, 1959 in Oxford, England) is an American screenwriter. ... David S. Goyer is a comic book writer, screenwriter, and film director. ... Trevor Alfred Charles Jones (born March 23, 1949 in Cape Town, South Africa) is a South African orchestral film score composer. ... Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ... SDDS stands for Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, which is a cinema sound system developed by Sony. ... February 27 is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ... New Line Cinema, founded in 1967, is one of the major American film studios. ... The MPAA film rating system is a system used in the United States and territories and instituted by the Motion Picture Association of America to rate a movie based on its content. ...

See also

• Simulated reality
• 1990s in film
• 1998 in film

This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling. ... Films made in the 1990s included: Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A Above the Rim (1994) Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) Ace Ventura: Pet... // February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein. ...

References

Roger Joseph Ebert (June 18, 1942) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic. ... The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... February 27 is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... November 6 is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... July 29 is the 210th day of the year (211th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The All Music Guide (AMG) is a metadata database about music owned by All Media Guide. ... QuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... May 4 is the 124th day of the year (125th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) [1] is an online database of information about actors, movies, television shows, television stars and video games. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... May 6 is the 126th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (127th in leap years). ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Dark City

• Dark City home page
• Dark City at the Internet Movie Database
• Dark City at the All Movie Guide
• Dark City at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dark City at Metacritic
• Dark City at the Open Directory Project
• Dark City at Box Office Mojo