The Matrix (BFI Modern Classics) Paperback – June 12, 2007

Very inspiring, like watching the whole movie again but from a new perspective. It gives a lot of social background for the movie, like the rise of the videogame and DVD industry at the turn of the century.

I should have read more about this.. thought this was the Matrix book.. it’s actually someone writing about their experience of the movie.

Film analysis being what it is, I am used to some esoteric theorizing in the genre. Although the monographs from the British Film Institute have not been immune, usually they provide sufficient insight to a movie to justify reading them. I have been able to appreciate several movies, such as The Birds, Belle De Jour, Vertigo, more than I otherwise would have because of the background and interpretation provided by BFI.THE MATRIX, however, by Joshua Clover, simply is not up to snuff. Clover brings up some interesting issues in the book, perhaps the most interesting of which is why Edge of the Construct films (in which characters are living in a falsified reality) were so popular at the end of the Twentieth Century. But the questions are buried under so much analytic-babble that the answers are never really all that clear.Similar problems exist with other issues raised in the book. Clover discusses The Matrix in reference to such issues as the increase in video game popularity, the symbolism of all the characters of the rebellion wearing sunglasses but only within the matrix itself (never while in the real world), and the parallels between the matrix world and current society's push to make one an ever working automaton in a corporate structure. But these issues all feel a bit artificial, as if Clover is not really analyzing the movie The Matrix as much as he is using the movie to soliloquize about his own views of the world and issues that he thinks the rest of us need to hear.This is particularly unfortunate given the specific movie involved. The Matrix is pregnant with meaning, both philosophical and social. This book could have been - should have been - better than the average release by BFI. Instead we get enough to whet the appetite only to be denied the nutritional meal.

Worthless

I can't give it less than 1 star. If I could I would don't Waste your money supporting this hate monger. Not worth the paper it's printed in.

I didn’t like it all, really a waste of time

A1