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Article: Gnostic paranoia in Proyas's Dark City.(Alex Proyas)
- Article from:
- Literature-Film Quarterly
- Article date:
- July 1, 2006
- Author:
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Alex Proyas's Dark City revolves around this core issue: Paranoia need not always prove psychotic. Certainly secular, psychological paranoia is mental illness, a dangerous delusion of persecution or grandeur and an inability to discern between phantoms of mind and facts of matter. But there exists another form of paranoia capable of liberating fantasies from reality. This paranoia is sacred and spiritual. It is an ascetic mode by which one doubts physical appearances to apprehend metaphysical powers.
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In exploring this spiritual paranoia, Proyas draws on a trend of second-century Gnosticism: the Valentinian dispensation. According ...