There are plenty of movies -- “The Matrix,” “Inception,” and “Total Recall,” to name three – that explore the realm of manufactured consciousness or synthetic experience and Duncan Jones has seen them all.
But if you’re looking for the inspiration behind “Source Code,” the hip, sci-fi thrill ride that opens in Atlanta on Friday, “the big one” was that goofy time-travel television series, “Quantum Leap.”
Herein lies a clue to Jones’ contribution to a project that was already well underway when leading man Jake Gyllenhaal brought him the script a few years ago.
What started out as a nail-biting hunt for a terrorist bomber went through the Duncan Jones lens to become a more affable (but still thrilling) character study.
Jones, 39, the son of musician David Bowie (real name “Jones”) and American model Mary Angela Barnett, made his mark with 2009’s “Moon,” a pocket-sized meditation on memory and identity. This bigger budget follow-up has some of the same modest appeal of “Moon.”
Jones, in spiky hair and a Sid Vicious T-shirt, recently stopped at the Four Seasons hotel in Midtown to talk about his colorful name (Zowie, before he changed it to Duncan) and channeling Alfred Hitchcock.
Q. Not to give too much away, but what about that ending?
A. There was an option when we were early in the film to have a purely sweet, romantic ending or more a head-scratcher ending. ... There's some head-scratching at the end.
Q. Aren’t you violating a few laws of physics?
A. There's an interesting ethical question at the end of this movie, which is: Jake Gyllenhaal is able to carve himself out a new life. The question is: At whose expense?
Q. What does this movie share with “Moon?”
A. Both main protagonists in both films believe they're something and find out they're something else entirely. I'm fascinated with identity.
Q. Did your name change have anything to do with establishing an identity apart from your famous father?
A. I changed my name at a very early age, at the age of 12, the same time I went off to boarding school. It was a great time to establish myself as myself. I decided I was going to be my own man.
Q. Jake has already done his part in promoting the movie. [At the Austin premiere Gyllenhaal got in a headline-generating scuffle with a man who tried to photograph him in the men’s room.]
A. A couple of my buddies were the ones who dragged [the paparazzo] out of the restroom.
Q. This movie fits Hitchcock's definition of suspense perfectly.
A. I hope people will see Hitchcock in it. It's a thriller that takes place on a train, there's a mysterious dame, even the score of the movie is designed to have a kind of Bernard Herrmann sound.
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