The more I learn about Jim Henson the more I admire him. SUch a fertile mine. Early in his career he did some work for the Experiment in Television project that NBC ran in the late 60s, writing and directing the documentary Youth ‘68 and reality bending The Cube. MetaFilter had a post (via Cogmios.nl) on the Cube yesterday. It seems that it was largely forgotten until a Yahoo Group was started up and began collecting information on it. Finally some copies were found and put up on the Internet, including a post on Google Video.
The overriding theme of the video echo The Prisoner and Brazil, the man who can’t get out of a completely absurd situation. His perception of reality and who he is is constantly tested to the point that the act of questioning and the testing becomes his reality. Or was that his reality to begin with? Think about that for a while and you’ll feel like a dog chasing its tail. I get around it by making assumptions based on trends. Not the best solution, but it works for me.
I also can’t help but think that the 1997 film Cube took some inspiration from Henson’s production, at least in the basic plot mechanism. Cube was very solid, the acting is shaky in some spots, but as a physiological character study and a commentary on human nature put to film it is among the best I’ve seen. The sequel Cube 2: Hypercube and psudo-prequal Cube Zero were just unfortunate, both extending the general concept of Cube (1997), but at the same time not really adding anything of value and actually removed many of the elements that made the film appealing. They all uphold the idea of a technocracy gone out of control that I find appeal in films like Brazil, but Cube just brings the story out more effectively.
