On "The Lathe of Heaven"

Watching all of these recent science-fiction action spectaculars premiere lately, I think it's a good thing to remember that you really don't need much by way of resources to make a good, engaging science-fiction movie. And I'm not just talking about the one-room talking head exercises like "The Man From Earth," or artsy pieces like Darren Aronofsky's "Pi." Some of the best science fiction media ever made has been very simple stuff, often forgotten and overlooked in favor of flashier projects. One of my favorite sci-fi obscurities is a television movie with very unlikely origins.

Way back in 1980, PBS commissioned directors David Loxton and Fred Barzyk to create a pilot for a potential series of science-fiction television films. The series never materialized, but this did result in an adaptation of Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Lathe of Heaven," the story of a man named George Orr (Bruce Davison), who has "effective dreams," dreams that can rewrite reality while he sleeps. George goes to a doctor who specializes in dreaming, Dr. Haber (Kevin Conway), hoping to be cured, but when Haber discovers Orr's powers, he decides to use them to try and better the world according to his own ideals. He aims to solve all the problems that plague mankind - war, prejudice, poverty, and more. Unfortunately, George's dreams prove to be mercurial, and difficult to control. The story is complex, set in a dystopian future that undergoes disasters, plagues, and even an alien invasion. Loxton and Barzyk had a budget of $250K (about $710K in today's dollars), and two weeks to shoot the movie.

Watching the film today, it's clear that budget could only be made to stretch so far. You can tell that most of the film was shot in and around a series of Dallas office buildings. Many of the effects look terribly primitive, notable the alien spacecraft that are no more than crudely animated blobs of light superimposed on top of landscape shots. All the aliens are clearly a single creature puppet, dressed and shot differently for each appearance. However, some of the storytelling devices and production solutions that the filmmakers came up with are simply brilliant. Surreal video art and symbolic images populate George's dreams, showing major upheavals happening in the abstract. To present the devastating effects of a plague, George dreams he is seated at a table surrounded by people, who all are eventually draped in gray sheets and then disappear, one by one. When he wakes up, the once busy courtyard below Dr. Haber's office is empty. Simple as that.

The performances do a lot of the heavy lifting here. The film is very exposition-heavy. Each time George has an effective dream, he wakes up to a different reality that needs some of the details filled in, and there is a lot of thunderous debate about the nature of reality, morality, existentialism, and other such heavy topics. It's simple enough for non-sci-fi fans to follow easily, but the material could get dry very quickly. Fortunately Davison and Conway are up to the task. Conway especially is fantastic, as the self-righteous and increasingly megalomaniacal Dr. Haber who morphs from a friendly counselor into a menacing villain. The two of them, plus Margaret Avery as George's lawyer and love interest Heather LeLache, keep the increasingly bizarre and cerebral story from ever going off the rails.

"The Lathe of Heaven" is remarkably faithful to its source material. Author Ursula K. LeGuin was heavily involved with the film from the start. As a result, the script by Roger Swaybill and Diane English (who would create "Murphy Brown" a few years later) is refreshingly smart, literate, and trusts the audience to be able to keep up with its numerous twists and turns. In the spirit of "The Twilight Zone," the ideas are placed at the forefront, rather than the actors or the effects, and it's apparent how much trust the filmmakers had in the strength of the concepts. At the same time, it's a very cinematic adaptation, with little moments of humor and lots of great visuals. The aliens, somehow, have not aged badly, and I've never seen a film with more threatening shots of urban architecture.

"The Lathe of Heaven" was difficult to come by for years, never released on home media thanks to rights snafus until the year 2000, when it was restored and rereleased. It experienced a brief resurgence of interest thanks to this, enough to prompt a new adaptation from A&E in 2002 with a much bigger budget, but little of the charm or effectiveness. Over the past thirteen years, "The Lathe of Heaven" has largely faded from the public consciousness again, which I think is a shame. It's one of those rare, successful adaptations that really should be discussed in the same breath with the 70s sci-fi classics like "Silent Running" or "Soylent Green." It remains a cult favorite, though, and at least it's far easier to access now than ever.
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