Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Screenplay by Fritz Müller-Scherz and Rainer Werner Fassbinder
From the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye
Cinematography by Michael Ballhaus
Edited by Marie Anne Gerhardt
Production designed by Kurt Raab
Costumes by Gabriele Pillon
Music by Gottfried Hüngsberg
Produced by Peter Märthesheimer and Alexander Wesemann
Starring
Klaus Löwitsch as Fred Stiller
Mascha Rabben as Eva Vollmer
Karl-Heinz Vosgerau as Siskins
Adrian Hoven as Professor Vollmer
Ivan Desny as Günther Lause
…
"Sorry, I've never heard of a Lause."
…
Review by William D. Tucker.
World on a Wire is one of those science fiction stories that asks We the Audience to play the Reality Game: "What if the world as we know it is just an elaborate, interactive deception? What if We the Inhabitants of this deception are just simulated beings with bogus programmed memories and personality constructs? What would we do if we discovered the illusory nature of our world, our selves? Could we become real on the basis of such insight?"
Amusingly, World on a Wire uses artificial sets, discordant sound effects, voyeuristic camera placement, hypnotic music, and overly precise phrasing of dialogue,framing of shots, and timing of montage to convey such a simulated world. The people here are more like the iconographic avatars of Second Life or The Sims-collections of gestures, wardrobe, and obsessively goal-focused patterns of thought and speech, lacking the emotional fuzziness and warmth of a more natural acting style.
This world is a simulation, after all, and simulations are typically constructed at great expense to achieve some sort of instrumentality, usually economic, political, entertainment, and/or military in nature. Therefore, the idiosyncrasies of emergent, evolutionary humanity are streamlined to suit whatever variables are deemed significant to the project's decision makers.
Our-the Audience's-video game avatar is a computer engineer named Fred Stiller, who has helped build an elaborate simulated virtual world called Simulacron-3. Stiller's motivations are pure science and the public good. But Simulacron-3 could only be realized via a convergence of corporate, governmental, and idiosyncratic psychological interests. Big business wants a leg-up on the competition via omni-variable economic forecasts. The government most likely desires some sort of intelligence and surveillance level-up, though this aspect is muted in World on a Wire. The project is being underwritten by tax revenues from the public, who, as per usual, don't seem to have much democratic control over the process. Technocratic daydream believin' elites seem to trump a skeptical public as per usual in science fiction.
Stiller loses his grip on reality when a colleague is seemingly erased from everyone's memory except his own, a man named Lause.
Before we meet Stiller, we witness a scene wherein Lause has to make sense out of the sudden inexplicable death of Dr. Vollmer, the chief architect of Simulacron-3. So, We the Audience are led to believe in the objective existence of Lause.
Later, Stiller sees Lause in a nightclub. And then Lause disappears. Moreover, no one seems to remember the very existence of Lause . . . except for Stiller.
Nowadays, this plays like a blatant "Glitch in the Matrix." Someone or something has rewritten the reality all around Stiller while neglecting-or failing-to change Stiller's memories.
Stiller cannot deny the reality of his memory and so he pursues this phantom Lause to the uttermost distance, beyond job security, beyond the law, beyond the limits of his own sanity.
Of course, another reading of World on a Wire is that Stiller is actually losing his mind due to some combination of work stress, undiagnosed mental illness, and maybe some kind of substance abuse. The corporate/governmental intrigues surrounding the Simulacron-3 project are intense. Stiller's boss tries to replace him with a new hire with loyalties to a steel company. The steel company wants privileged access to the economic forecasting powers of Simulacron-3 by means of what amounts to an industrial spy. The idealistic Stiller could be suffering from a growing disillusionment as he bears witness to this chicanery, which might feed into some type of paranoia.
I think the intention here is to get the audience on Stiller's side. He keeps his cool. He's intellectual. Even his frustrated outbursts are carefully modulated. We already know that Lause existed outside of Stiller's memory. We want Stiller to solve the mystery.
However, science fiction can and does work on both the literal and metaphorical levels. Even if we believe in Stiller, World on a Wire could be read as a commentary on the pressure and duplicity one must endure in a high stakes technology start-up. The confusions over what's real and what's illusion could be a critique of the hype cycles surrounding the advent of any new and fashionable gadget or process or management doctrine.
If you ever have the time, go to a big university library and browse the stacks with the business school texts. Take note of the titles and trends and fads. As an American, I'm always amused by the volume of titles predicting Japan's impending takeover of global capitalism. Plenty of smart, well educated, well trained people get caught up devising trendy scenarios pandering to the financial titans of the moment. Maybe it is this crooked process that drives Stiller nuts since this is a direct assault on his core identity as a socially conscious champion of pure, unbiased scientific research.
Mirrors are everywhere in World on a Wire. A biased simulation just reflects back increasingly distorted images of what we desperately wish to be true. And unfortunately, even a distorted simulation can be used to inflate consumer and, more importantly, shareholder confidence.
World on a Wire also mixes in elements of film noir, hard-boiled detective fiction, and James Bond. Stiller is a two-fisted computer nerd who dresses in tuxedos and pinstriped suits, drives a sports car, and always gets laid. Plenty of fighting and fucking in this techno-thriller. These macho cliches also point up the artificial nature of what transpires with a high degree of self-aware camp. The fact that Stiller's executive secretary also seems to function as a concubine is a clue that there's something weird about this reality that seems to pander to a specific set of desires and corporate fetishes.
As Stiller gets deeper into things, we have scenes set inside a nightclub where a Marlene Dietrich impersonator sings in the face of impending execution by Nazis who march while singing television advertising jingles. Before she is shot, the Dietrich doppelganger looks at her reflection in a sword and freshens her lipstick. Is Simulacron-3, this carefully crafted simulation, attaining self-awareness? Is it evolving a counterculture with a fuck you attitude to corporate capitalism? World on a Wire has fun with these possibilities.
