The 2000 film, Cast Away, can be viewed in this light. Many existential concepts are presented throughout the film to the audience for contemplation. In place of the written word, story telling devices, such as emotion, archetypal characters, and conflict, coupled with the language of film, i.e. scenes, mise-en-scène, manipulation of time, etc, create a visual and emotional picture that inspires a conversation about existential concepts.
Chuck Noland is an employee of FedEx, who is charged with the task of improving efficiency around the world. Although he has a serious girl friend and house in Tennessee, his career takes him across the globe throughout the year, and is rarely able to spend time at home. Eventually, on a routine flight to Asia, a tropical storm brings down the FedEx plane and Noland is thrown into the Pacific ocean. He makes his way to an uninhabited island and learns how to survive there. After several years, a tan and lean Chuck Noland, constructs a crude raft and liberates himself from the confines of the island. His luck continues as he is found clinging to the raft by a passing cargo ship. His eventual return to Tennessee allows him to learn that his girl friend has moved on and he has been pronounced dead. He is left to contemplate his resurrection.
While on the island, Noland’s struggles illustrate central concepts of existential film. The use of fundamental forces, such as nature and time play a pivotal role in creating a conflict for the main character to face.
Nature is presented as indifferent to the efforts and trials of the characters in the film. Nature’s numerous manifestations carry on in a manner that is passive and apathetic to Noland’s experiences. Often, when natural events have a negative or harmful effect on our sense of security or cause us pain, we label these events as evil or bad. Likewise, when beneficial events occur, our perception leads us to believe that these events are “meant to happen” or “lucky”. The truth of the matter is that regardless of our interpretation of events, these are random, indifferent happenings that are not fundamentally evil or good.
The constant companion to nature is time. As finite beings, our construct of time is ingrained in our way of thinking and belief system out of our fear of death. More specifically, in the Western World, time has developed over the ages into a silent, invisible master. Our desire to control our fates has an eternal enemy, our inevitable death. Time is the messenger of this end.
“Time rules over us without mercy not caring if we are healthy or ill, hungry or drunk, Russian, American, or beings from Mars. Its like a fire it can either destroy us or keep us warm.” These are the first worlds that are spoken by Chuck Noland as he is instructing Russian FedEx employees on the importance of adhering to a strict schedule. Noland’s first words in the movie identify the object of struggle in the film.
A question that existentialism attempts to understand is this: When presented with these forces, life can seem unbearable and pointless. The question is raised: why carry on in such an uncaring world where everything eventually dies?
Absurdity is the concept that reality has no intrinsic value and the only value that it has is arbitrary. Values of good and evil are assigned to objects or events depending on their relationship to our well-being. The absence of value is unsettling to the human mind as it is in opposition to our quest to find meaning in life. This happens in two ways. Without the justification of permanent, exterior value, many concepts of meaning fall away as contrived or false. Also, the creation and assignment of arbitrary values requires a great deal of confidence. In the struggle to find meaning, this confidence is not strong because humanity is not infinite and omniscient.
Chuck Noland’s many experiences on the island are illustrative of the existential struggles that face humanity and explore viable responses to them. There are many natural events that inspire the idea that the world is an absurd place and events are meaningless. One of the first struggles in the film is the plane crash. While this is at first a physical struggle for survival, Noland’s eventual survival brings about philosophical issues. Noland is a veteran of traveling around the world as has done so throughout his whole career. It seems strange then that now the plane had to crash.
A natural event, a Southern Pacific storm, was the cause of the plane’s crash. An event such as a plane crash can be labeled as a negative event because it is harmful to Noland’s well-being. He is taken from his way of life and throw into the elements. The other members of the crew die during the crash. These thoughts point to the need to identify the plane crash as a evil or bad event. The audience and Noland are unable to do this with clarity because of the nature of the storm. The storm, itself, does not possess intrinsic value of good or evil. These concepts are assigned after the fact and are dependent on the outcome of the event. Since some members of the crew lost their lives, the event is assigned a negative label. Noland is left to respond to this idea.
What is Noland supposed to do under these circumstances? At first the primal urge to survive is the main inspiration to survive on the island. Hunger, pain, thirst, and other physical challenges are good motivators. Healthy individuals want to do everything in their power to avoid these sensations. Noland is able to create opportunities for himself by finding food, shelter, and fresh water. As these primal discomforts are alleviated, the Noland’s true struggle is revealed.
Noland is faced with the challenge of overcoming the despair that is felt when faced with absurdity. At first Noland struggles to find meaning while surviving physically on the island. Noland faces this challenge and eventually reaches a place of liberation.
The concept of suicide or the killing of one’s self is explored in the film as the mental and physical pain of being on the island becomes an overwhelming burden for Chuck Noland. One of the first significant landscapes that is brought to the audience’s attention is a high cliff near the beach on one side of the island. This cliff is linked to Noland’s confrontation with suicide because it is first shown around the time when two significant events occur, the discovery and burial of a crew member from the flight and the appearance of a ship’s light on the horizon. The cliff is a symbol of choice. It provides the opportunity to destroy one’s self and to change one’s perspective on things by using it as a look-out post.
The cliff is a complex symbol in the film. It is a place where perspectives can be changed by physically climbing it and looking out at the ocean. Noland uses the cliff to determine the best time to escape from the island by learning the behavior of the seasonal winds. The parallel object that is associated with the cliff, suicide, also has the ability to change perceptions of reality. Noland's desperation is finally expressed at the cliff. He ascends the cliff during the night and brings a rope with him. At the top he views the ocean and the sky and experiences a catharsis. He places the noose around a piece of wood that resembles a human and hangs it off the cliff in his place. This totem remains visible from the ground throughout the movie to as a self-made tool to remind Noland of this moment.
The use of a totem is another complex symbol that has deep existential meaning. One of the challenges faced by humanity is the yearning to feel justification for the action that are performed each day. Sources of extrinsic justification are embedded in daily life; family, friends, co-workers, and religious figures. Alone on the island, however, Noland was unable to call these sources for aid. His despair is countered by his attempts to create a meaningful existence while on the island. The creation of a totem was his way to manipulate his environment to meet the need for external motivation. This process illustrates the concept of authenticity. Living a truly authentic life involves living with passion according to the values that are assigned subjectively. Creating an opportunity to “find one's self” through the creation of values is through to be an authentic way of living in a world devoid of truly objective truth. Noland's totem was an result of his struggle to find authenticity.
A similar, second way that Noland battled the existential conflict of authenticity was through the creation of a friend and companion. While scavenging the beach for packages from the plane that had washed ashore, Noland discovers a volleyball. During a fire-making session, Noland's hand is punctured and he grabs the volleyball and throws it out of frustration. Later, he creates a crude face by smudging some of the blood.
When existing in a world that is fundamentally indifferent, the human need to be social becomes under-stimulated. Long-term isolation can lead to a host of mental disorders and bring on sessions of existential despair. Once again, Noland finds a creative solution to this problem.
Noland befriends the volleyball, which comes to be named Wilson, and has extended conversations and emotional exchanges with it. This can be viewed as symptomatic of a mental disorder, but as a healthy and strong individual prior to his time on the island, Noland is resilient enough to prevent the onset of a psychological problem by creating a companion.
As with the suicide totem, Wilson is a tool used by Noland to stave off the onset of an existential crisis, loneliness. Much like lack of authenticity, and absurdity, loneliness can be debilitating. The solution is to live though choosing not to succumb to desperation and create a truth that is subjectively true and use that as a method of navigating the world. Wilson provides this to Noland. While it really was a volleyball to the audience, Wilson was truly a friend to Noland when defined existentially.
Modern times, with all the conveniences have eliminated the struggle to find food and shelter, for a number of people in the world. What is left in the wake of this “progress” is an existential crisis. The struggle to find a true way of living in a world with many competing truths and the challenges brought on by loneliness and absurdity constitute a modern subjective crisis. Cast Away creates a platform on which these concepts can be explored. Released at the turn of the century and millennium, it guides the audience to a place where the emerging conflicts of then and problems of the present can be contemplated in a separate reality; the theater, the living room, or any places this film is shown. Created for modern times wrought with existential struggles, Cast Away symbolically references the challenges that face our subjective lives and perceptions.
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