Dream a Little Dream
This essay was originally posted to Twitter between May 8, 2021 and May 17, 2021. It was composed of 964 words across 20 tweets.
One of the more noteworthy things about SUPERMAN, from the very start of the movie, is how it takes place within several layers of nested realities. Come, dream a little dream within a dream with me.*
(*A title I callously nicked from Kristin Thompson.)
Stories are objects that occur within the real world--our world--but they themselves contain worlds, sometimes worlds within worlds. All movies do this to some degree. But rarely so many as SUPERMAN does, and they rarely display their Matrioshka doll structure as prominently.
Every movie we come to, we come to in a room with a screen in it, whether it be the movie palace or the multiplex or the living room. This is how we come to SUPERMAN.
As we begin, the first thing we see on the screen--the border separating our world from the movie--is curtains.
The curtains open. We see a movie screen (in vintage 1.33:1 aspect ratio), which gives the date as June 1938. Already, 30 seconds in, we're a layer deeper than usual, watching a movie within a movie. A story about stories, giving SUPERMAN a veneer of a tale retold through time.
Our reality is the top layer. Just plain reality. The movie--any movie, really--is a second layer nested inside it. We'll call it the prime reality, or reality'. SUPERMAN gives us a movie within a movie, a double prime reality, or reality''.
And that's just the beginning!
In the movie within the movie, we see a comic book shown from a child's point of view. The child opens the comic book and begins to read it aloud to us.
The movie within the movie is now telling us a story that exists within itself--yet another layer. Reality'''.
In a dramatic dissolve and camera move, we enter into the comic book. Its artwork becomes real. We see a live action rendition of the classic Daily Planet building, with its spinning globe, rendered in gorgeous black and white photography, and we rise over it as if taking flight.
This is not a new layer of reality--yet. This is still reality''', the world of the comic book. We're just in it now, rather than having it related to us by a reader nearly as omniscient as ourselves. This, as it turns out, is also the layer of reality where the credits exist.
Credits, titles, and the like are interesting features of a film. With rare exception, the characters don't see them, don't interact with them. The lettering on the screen is there for us, not them. In all movies, the credits exist in a layer between the characters and ourselves.
All non-diegetic features, whether credits or music or a break for intermission, exist at least one layer down from our reality, but at least one layer up from the characters' reality.
Once SUPERMAN's spectacular zooming credits are at an end, we finally arrive in reality''''.
To recap what we have so far:
Reality, AKA the world from which we, the audience, are watching a movie.
Reality', AKA the movie and all that it contains.
Reality'', AKA the movie within the movie.
Reality''', AKA the comic book within the movie within the movie, plus credits.
Our arrival in reality'''' is signaled by the approach of a vast red star--although, in space, as in traveling through the layers of a Matrioshka doll, we don't approach things so much as fall down towards their center. Past the star, we see Krypton, and here our story begins.
SUPERMAN is also unique in that, as we gaze down through its many layers at the world of the characters contained inside, it sometimes hints that they may be looking up at us. The first words of the movie (aside from the child) are "This is no fantasy," as though spoken to us.
This turns out to be Jor-El delivering his condemnation of Zod to the Kryptonian council, but the movie deliberately delays this crucial context.
It's important to note that, while brilliant, Jor-El has no special powers. He can't see us, but maybe he still knows we're here.
Much later in the movie, Clark Kent catches a bullet and "faints." When no one is looking, he dispenses with the bullet and gives us, the audience, a sly grin.
He doesn't just know we're here. Perhaps one of his powers is the power of seeing through the layers that separate us.
In final scene of the movie, Superman flies out of the atmosphere, away from the Earth. When flying free of a massive object in space, as in traveling upward through the layers of a Matrioshka doll, "up" and "away" are one and the same. In the distance, we see the rising sun.
This is a reversal of the imagery that signaled our arrival in reality''''. Instead of approaching a star and finding a planet beyond its horizon, we leave a planet and see a star rising in the distance.
Superman is guiding us back up through the layers. We depart reality''''.
The last thing he does is give us that grin one more time as he flies by. This moment serves no narrative purpose. The story is over. This scene is like a garnish on the plate, a final artistic touch, reminding us one more time that he's looking out at us as surely as we look in.
Roll credits, another spectacular zooming effect with spectacular music to play us out as we leave the movie, leave the theater, close off the channel between their world and ours.
The official runtime comes to 143 minutes. One last cheeky message from our knowing hero.
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Published 3/9/2024
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