IMDB User Review – No Maps for These Territories

Editor — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:53:18 +0000

You don’t need to be a fan of William Gibson to get a lot out of “No Maps for These Territories.” Taking the simple form of Gibson expounding on a raft of subjects from the backseat of a car en route from Los Angeles to Vancouver, intercut with a breathtaking visual melange to illustrate his points, “Maps” is a good reminder of how truly profound have been the changes in the world in the last few years, as well as what it means to be human — the only animal that makes maps, after all.

Despite the whole “cyberpunk” label (which he rejects, anyway) Gibson comes across as intelligent, thoughtful and a rather nice person, and he looks at least a good decade and a half younger than his mid-50′s baby-boomer age. And his description of his writing process is the most accurate distillation of how creativity works that I’ve ever heard. There isn’t any BS coming from this back seat; Gibson speaks from the heart and it shows.

No Maps for These Territories

Editor — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:36:57 +0000

On an overcast morning in 1999, William Gibson, father of cyberpunk and author of the cult-classic novel Neuromancer, stepped into a limousine and set off on a road trip around North America. The limo was rigged with digital cameras, a computer, a television, a stereo, and a cell phone.

Generated entirely by this four-wheeled media machine, No Maps for These Territories is both an account of Gibson’s life and work and a commentary on the world outside the car windows. Here, the man who coined the word “cyberspace” offers a unique perspective on Western culture at the edge of the new millennium, and in the throes of convulsive, tech – driven change.

During the documentary Gibson muses both on his past and the circumstances that led him to write what he wrote, as well as our present which, accordingly, is starting to resemble in many particulars the futures he has variously penned.

He speculates on topics as wide-ranging as post-human society and mechanics, nanotechnology, drugs and drug culture, the effect of Neuromancer on his fans and his later writing career, and the normalisation of technology (that is, the ways in which we have justified the use of technology to the point that it is invisible to us, a concept similar to the “sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” concept of Arthur C. Clarke.)

The documentary is extremely free-flowing and also highly personal, in that it allows one to gain an extremely close understanding of both the thought processes and internal psychological triggers of William Gibson. Occasionally prompted by an unseen Driver figure (female in voice) and sometimes communicating with outside figures (specifically, Jack Womack and Bono, who was also being filmed at the time, the final product being superimposed on an electronic billboard).

Source: Wikipedia

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