CRAFT & ENCODE present: Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
The research groups CRAFT and ENCODE invite you to Robert Longo and William Gibson's science fiction movie Johnny Mnemonic (Canada & USA 1995) at Verdensteatret Cinematek on Tuesday February 10 from 18:00.
When Canadian author William Gibson's Neuromancer hit the shelves in 1984, it changed not just his own life but the cultural landscape of science fiction. It was the seminal cyberpunk novel, a genre and aesthetic that is now ubiquitous. Neuromancer's world of glitzy tech, untrustworthy corporations, street hustlers and data jockeys started a movement, inspiring films such as The Matrix (1999).
But before Neuromancer, there was the short story 'Johnny Mnemonic' (1981) where Gibson debuted his style and his ideas. A data courier named Johnny makes a living acting as a living hard drive, storing data in his brain that can be retrieved by the buyer with the right signal. Johnny falls into mortal peril when he unwittingly carries information owned by the Japanese Yukaza. Gibson partnered with photographer and music video director Robert Longo to make a low-budget art-house adaptation of 'Johnny Mnemonic', starring a relatively small actor called Keanu Reeves.
The budget ballooned. Reeves made it big with Speed (1994). Johnny Mnemonic had to become a blockbuster. Dolph Lungren, Ice-T and Takeshia Kitano of Takeshi's Castle got attached to the project. The studio recut the final film. The result was a film that was a critical disaster and an infamous example of Reeves' famously woody acting.
Since then, the film has become a cult classic, and critically revaluated as a seminal part of cyberpunk history. After films such as The Matrix and his role in the videogame Cyberpunk 2077 (2020), Keanu Reeves is himself as close to the face of the genre as anyone could be.
In screening Johnny Mnemonic, CRAFT & ENCODE hope to not just introduce audiences to this important film but also to have a discussion of the themes of cyberpunk, both as envisioned by William Gibson and what the genre has grown onto mean, aesthetically and politically.
The screening is hosted by our partners Verdensteatret Cinematek. Zoheb Mashiur of the Norwegian College of Fishery Science will give an introduction before the film. There will be a discussion after the screening, which you are invited to stay for.
Film is shown in English with Norsk subtitles.