20 Minute Lifetime in Other Works

It is funny how once certain themes or ideas are brought up in class they seem to pop up everywhere. Since we have started discussing the idea of a 20 minute lifetime in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and Notebooms The Following Story it seems like I see it incorporated into films and books everywhere.

To begin with, we watched a Star Treck episode in class that was based on the theme. Although it was mos definitely a low brow version of the 20 Minute Lifetime, it did illustrate it well. I enjoyed watching it in class. It is always kind of nice to see both sides, the high brown and low brow versions, in order to gain a better grasp on the idea. At times the high brow versions complicate things to such a degree that it is difficult to fully understand them. That was most definitely not the case with the Star Treck version. In fact, one could pretty much guess what was going to happen before it did. Again, it was a nice break and fresh of breath air.

Another novel that the theme of the 20 Minute Lifetime can be found in is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. John Orsey brought this up in class briefly, and it reminded me of it. Throughout the book there are notes regarding past scenes that flash in Aureliano's mind as he stands in front of a firing squad awaiting his death. Although these memories do not comprise the whole novel as Mussert's do in The Following Story, there are multiple mentions of the vast amount of time that streams through his head right before death is supposed to come to him.

A movie in which the 20 Minute lifetime plays a huge role in is "Contact." Jody Foster plays a woman who has been attempting to make contact with beings from outerspace for a long time, and finally does. When contact is made, a set of directions for constructing a vessel is sent to earth. Two prototypes are made, and Jody Foster takes her place in the second one. As the vessel is started she witnesses all kinds of amazing things and even makes contacts with an "alien" (who has taken the form of her father) in a virtual reality constructed in a certain way to make her feel most comfortable. She is able to speak with him and discuss what is out in space and who the aliens are. She then returns to earth, and in doing so the vessel crashes. When she returns and speaks with her colleagues they don't believe what she has said because to them it looks as if the shuttle never took off and in fact simply fell strait through the machine. What they saw occur in mere seconds really lasted 18 hours for the character that Jody Foster plays, and there is blurred footage that proves it. It is most definately a low brow example as well.

Two other films that incorporate the same theme are the new "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz."