The Cell was my first exposure to Tarsem’s visual style. I watched MTV enough I’d probably seen his videos and commercials, but I was mainly listening to the music. 25 years later, looking back on The Cell in 4K highlights his surreal mind images in vivid color and detail.
Jennifer Lopez plays a psychologist using new technology to explore a serial killer (Vincent D’Onofrio)’s mind to find his latest victim before it’s too late.
The patient who establishes the technology dreams of a desert where Lopez wears a swan dress in the sand. When she wakes up in the killer’s mind, the deep shadows 4K is capable of come into play in the killer’s mind chamber, and more in the closet his inner child shoves her into.
But, the macabre fantasy brightens up quickly with the bisected horse in his childhood classroom. When the killer imagines himself as a king with a long purple cape, it unfurls, rippling along the wall. Eventually, he is shining in gold. Her final warrior costume matches his self-image.
Early CGI adds to the surreal feel. Plus, back then they still transferred CGI to film, so it adds many layers to the images.
But there’s still haunting, creepy stuff before The Cell enters the mind, like the hooks the killer uses to hang over his victims.
The soundscape of the mind surrounds you too. In the real world, trains zoom behind you.
Tarsem gives a 90 minute interview for the new 4K. Among the subjects he discusses are art, Davids Fincher and Lynch, the one argument he had and lost with Lopez, the favor she in turn did for him, adding breasts to the female bodybuilder but much more as you can imagine 90 minutes encompasses.
Director of Photography Paul Laufer talks for about half that time and details the technical process and communications between all the departments.
Two new commentaries offer new retrospective looks from the archival ones. Screenwriter Mark Protosevich goes into the spec sale and studio turnaround with Kay Lynch. Once the film gets going he talks about differences between Tarsem’s production and his writing.
The Critic commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson is also well researched pulling from interviews in the last 20 years and the original press Kit. They also have Australian sources so they’re different than the usual Hollywood ones.