#8 - Colossus: The Forbin Project, Joseph Sargent (1970)
No, sweetie. We're not stopping. We have HAL 9000 at home.
HELLO. Once again, I find myself writing an apology after a long delay. I was just in the lovely little city of Clermont-Ferrand, France for what feels like a year and a half (12 days) for their international short film festival. Maybe I’ll do a little write-up about it later this week, if that’s of interest to anyone. Anyway, between watching like 20 short films a day, meeting 100 new people, and getting a bad cold followed by a little stomach ulcer après taking les NSAIDs, I’ve nearly forgotten my experience watching 70s Cold War “thriller,” Colossus: The Forbin Project.
That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my time. But for this newsletter, I’m experimenting with not looking up anything about the movie and relying on memory and the notes I jotted down afterwards to try and relay what this thing was about.
Going into this film, the only thing I knew about it was the below picture. It popped up on my Twitter one day, and I thought it was hilarious so I made it my cover photo. I barely spared a thought for its source until I saw an ad for Film Forum’s AI: From Metropolis to Ex Machina program. I said, “That’s the vermouth movie!” And then I found out it was by Joseph Sargent, director of perfect movie, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. I had to go.
Colossus: The Forbin Project is a peak Cold War AI-warning film. The titular Dr. Forbin has overseen the building of the titular Colossus, a supercomputer that will take control of the US’s nuclear arsenal, under the assumption that a machine, driven by logic alone, won’t be susceptible to the emotions that drive humans’ decisions. The computer is built into the side of a mountain, where it is sealed up and made physically impenetrable. A new era dawns.
When Colossus boots up and logs on, the first thing it tells the scientists around it and the hilariously-Kennedy President is that it has detected another identical supercomputer under Soviet control. Classic, right? Their computer is called Guardian, and Colossus insists on having a yap sesh with it or else it’ll nuke Chicago (or something like that, I just remember it threatening to drop its nukes very early on). The two divas come up with their own new language and decide that yeah, humans are stupid, and if they’re going to control the nukes, they might as well control everything.
I’m trying to remember what my “coming up on your left…nothing” note was about. It’s definitely a reference to another perfect film, The Simpsons Movie (2007), something I saw about 500 times when I was in high school. Stay with me here if you’re unfamiliar with the plot. The TL;DR is that Springfield (Homer’s hometown) has become so polluted that the US government puts them in a big (literal, plastic) bubble. When that plan backfires and the citizens start making cracks in the barrier, the hilariously-Schwarzenegger President decides to blow up Springfield and pretend it never existed. The joke is that the GPS of someone driving by starts to show the town on a map, but it fades out and tells the driver there is nothing coming up. ANYWAY, I’m pretty sure my note was in reference to Colossus threatening to obliterate a place without anyone knowing. Maybe? These two movies honestly have quite a bit in common. The Simpsons Movie doesn’t really deal with AI, or I’d be up in arms about it missing from the Film Forum’s programming. [Editor’s note: the quote is actually coming up on your right, and I am ashamed I messed that up].
Back to Colossus - after assuming control, the computer starts planning Dr. Forbin’s days down to the minute, so that he can’t work with the other scientists to dismantle the sassy computer. Forbin hatches a scheme to bang his hot coworker secretly get information from the team by telling Colossus he’s been banging his hot coworker. One of the funniest sequences in the movie is the computer asking Forbin: ok yeah you want it, but how many times do you need a conjugal visit per week? This is also where the vermouth comes in. Colossus may be the ultimate AI, but he does not know how to make an extra dry martini. Forbin informs him that you coat the shaker with vermouth and pour it out before adding the vodka. Funnily enough, this is basically the one glimpse of hope the movie has that an AI cannot know the depth of human existence.
Spoilers from here - the movie does kind of lumber along, with the humans crafting a master plan to overload Colossus’ system, and the computer ultimately thwarting them in the end. It ends with a defiance from Dr. Forbin - even though they’ve lost, the human spirit will not surrender to the machine. It’s an interesting ending, even though it ultimately brings the film screeching to a random halt. It’s kind of a classic take on nuclear proliferation and technology - the Soviets and the US do finally cooperate when they are actually both threatened by this monster they’ve created. Not that it does any good, really — at that point it’s too late and the computers do obliterate a military base — but at least its something.
This movie is fighting a battle it cannot win when obvious comparisons of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove inevitably come up. However, while dated, it does feel absurdly relevant, in many ways. At least in this film, they were trying to solve the doomsday clock, not tearing down the rainforest to make stupid, uncanny valley cat videos. When the lights came up in the theater, a boomer (proudly, so that the whole room could hear his joke) said, “Siri won.” And, you know what? I’ll give it to him.
Where I Watched: Film Forum
(not streaming anywhere else but you can get creative)
Further watching:
The film is apparently reference a couple times in Mystery Science Theater 3000, most notably in Episode 501: Warrior of the Lost World, so I WILL be watching that.
Watch if you like: Oppenheimer, Ex Machina