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Editorial Reviews
It's easy to understand why the late, great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky removed his name from the credits of Altered States and substituted the pseudonym Sidney Aaron. After all, Chayefsky was a revered dramatist whose original source novel was intended as a serious exploration of altered consciousness, inspired by the immersion-tank experiments of Dr. John Lilly in the 1970s. In the hands of maverick director Ken Russell, however, Altered States became a full-on sensory assault, using symbolic imagery and mind- blowing special effects to depict one man's physical and hallucinatory journey through the entire history of human evolution. It's a brazenly silly film redeemed by its intellectual ambition--a dazzling extravaganza that's in love with science and scientists, and eagerly willing to dive off the precipice of rationality to explore uncharted regions of mind, body, and spirit. William Hurt made his bold film debut as the psycho-physiologist who plays guinea pig to his own experiments; Blair Brown plays his equally brilliant wife, whose devotion is just strong enough to bring him back from the most altered state imaginable. From the eternal channels of sense memory to the restorative power of a loving embrace, this movie rocks you to the birth of the universe and back again. And while it's clearly not the story that Chayefsky wanted on the screen, the directorial audacity of Ken Russell makes it one heck of a memorable trip.
Plot Summary
- Tagline: In the basement of a university medical school Dr . Jessup floats naked in total darkness. The most terrifying experiment in the history of science is out of control... and the subject is himself
- Plot Outline: A Harvard scientist conducts experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and an isolation chamber that may be causing him to regress genetically.
- Plot Synopsis: An American researching different states of consciousness with the aid of mind altering drugs and an isolation chamber begins to experience disturbing physical changes in his body that point toward an evolutionary regression.
Product Details
- Actors:
William Hurt,
Blair Brown,
Bob Balaban,
Charles Haid,
Thaao Penghlis
- Directors:
Ken Russell
- Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
- Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
- Subtitles: English, French
- Disc Origin: Region 1 (USA) Original
- Region: All
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
- Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD5)
- Rating: R
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- DVD Release Date: June 1, 2004
- Run Time: 102 minutes
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