Donnie Darko in Visual Culture

While many popular films could not exist without their literary counterparts, the story of Donnie Darko could not survive in any medium other than film. The story itself is only the tip of the iceberg; to really understand it’s profound, overall meaning, one must watch the film with all of the audio and visual components in place. It is a very deep, dark narrative, comprised of and interwoven with commentaries, archetypes, symbols and themes. Samples of those present throughout the film include fantasy, reality, philosophy, politics, family, love, dreams, mental illness, the struggles of science vs. religion and good vs. evil. It is a story of tragedy, but also of triumph, told as much through its visuals as through its dialogues. In the following text we will explore the film’s overall meaning and underlying themes through the use of its powerful images and symbols.

The story takes place in October of 1988, and the Bush-Dukakis presidential race is in full swing. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie Darko, a white, upper middle class teenager coming of age in the suburban community of Middlesex, Virginia. He is the middle child of a near-nuclear family, with two sisters and two loving parents. His mother has him seeing a psychiatrist to cope with his mental illness. Because of it, Donnie feels lost and confused as teenagers often do, but also lonely and somewhat alienated by those around him. Ironically, he begins to find his way once his condition gets worse.

Due to his illness, Donnie has a chronic habit of ‘sleepwalking,’ usually outside of the house. Miraculously, it saves his life one night when a detached jet engine falls directly into his room. During his dream-like state, Donnie encounters a hallucination of a man in a haunting rabbit costume—his mischievous imaginary friend, Frank. After another visit to his psychiatrist, it is believed that Donnie suffers from daylight hallucinations, characteristic of paranoid schizophrenics. As these hallucinations with Frank continue, Donnie begins to unravel truths about the community and is given insight into the unseen world around him. Like the classic hero on a quest, Donnie has only 28 days to overcome the obstacles in front of him, solve the mysteries of the universe and save the world from certain doom.

Along the way he meets a girl named Gretchen Ross and is given a new outlook on life. Suddenly he understands that his purpose is not just to destroy his enemies, but also to take the second chance he was given at life and use it for good. After unlocking the secrets of time-travel and an encroaching alternate universe, Donnie decides to give his life in exchange for the woman he loves, his family, and possibly the entire known world.

Donnie’s character is most often considered a superhero or a martyr. The name “Donnie Darko” is an almost absurdly alliterative superhero name. Because of Donnie’s sacrifice, he draws many comparisons to Christ.

Donnie is challenged by a false prophet named Jim Cunningham, a motivational speaker at the school who is viewed throughout the community as a savior. This image of him is set up when he awakens Donnie on the golf course following his first encounter with Frank. When Donnie looks up, he can barely make out Cunningham’s face as the sun is directly behind his head, stirring up images of Christ. Donnie knows Cunningham is a fake, and through a series of rebellious acts, succeeds in tearing down his façade for everyone to see. For this reason, Donnie could just as easily be considered an antihero, liken to Holden Caulfield of Catcher In the Rye. Like Holden, Donnie rebels because he’s crying out for help. And as a result, he too has become an icon for teen angst. Perhaps the most powerful visualization of his destructive behavior comes near the beginning of the movie after Donnie vandalizes the school. The director pans out above the commons to display the bronze statue of the mascot with an ax driven into its head and graffiti that reads, “They made me do it” written underneath.

Many of the symbols and coincidences used in the film are only relevant within the context of the film itself and are there as instruments to pull together the plot, while many others attempt to communicate a more powerful, universal message. The vessels with which to deliver these messages are the characters, and each of the main characters is associated with a certain animal that symbolizes their role in the struggle between good and evil. This struggle culminates in the second act of the film.

The health instructor, a religious fanatic named Kitty Farmer, teaches Jim Cunningham’s self-help program for overcoming fear and living a more fulfilling life. The program basically states that on either side of the emotional spectrum there is love and fear. To demonstrate this point, Ms. Farmer puts on the board what is called the “lifeline,” with fear and the left side, and love on the right. The camera then cuts back and forth between the shot of the lifeline exercise and Donnie’s reactions to it in his chair. In that shot, Donnie is centered, with Cherita Chen to his left (our right), and Seth Devlin, the bully, to his right (our left). It is the classic image of man’s struggles with good and evil, with the devil on one side and the angel on the other. The two are sitting behind Donnie so that it appears that they are in fact on his shoulders. It is quite obvious that Seth represents evil as not only is he a bully with the last name “Devlin,” but the first time he is shown, he is taking a hit of cocaine in his locker with a sticker inside of it that reads “What Would Satan Do?” Cherita Chen’s role as the angel isn’t revealed until further into the second act.

During the lifeline exercise, Donnie is called to the board to read an example and place an ‘x’ on the appropriate side of the spectrum. In his example, a character named Ling Ling finds a wallet full of money and returns the wallet but keeps the money. A few days later, Donnie finds a wallet on his walk home from school…Jim Cunningham’s wallet. At this moment, Frank mutters to Donnie, “Now you know where he lives.”

The night of the school talent show, Donnie takes Gretchen to the theatre to see a The Evil Dead as part of a “Halloween Frightmare Double Feature”—the significance of course being that the film involves a time portal. During the movie, Gretchen falls asleep and Donnie sees Frank sitting next to her. Frank shows him the portal and tells him to “Burn it to the ground.” Donnie leaves Gretchen to dream, and as he walks out of the theatre, the marquee reveals that the film playing alongside The Evil Dead is The Last Temptation of Christ—not only a clear juxtaposition, but also a clever foreshadowing.

Meanwhile at the talent show, Cherita Chen performs an interpretive dance called “Autumn’s Angel.” In the performance she portrays a swan. The swan is a symbol of gracefulness and calmness, also sensitivity, love and beauty. Cherita possesses all of those attributes and is therefore synonymous with all that is good in the world. It is only fitting that Jim Cunningham hosts the talent show as he introduces the following act, Sparkle Motion. Sparkle Motion is a five-piece, preteen dance troupe in which Donnie’s little sister Samantha is the lead dancer. In at least three separate scenes, Samantha is in someway associated with unicorns. Her role as the virgin/unicorn is first indicated during the dinner scene at the beginning of the film when Donnie and his older sister Elizabeth (Maggie Gyllenhaal) are talking about pregnancy. Samantha asks innocently, “When can I squeeze one out?” To which Donnie replies, “Not until eighth grade.”

The unicorn symbolizes Samantha’s innocence being compromised. She is a virgin, but is put on stage with other young girls to perform a dance routine with adult implications. This particular sequence is shown simultaneously with that of Donnie burning down Jim Cunningham’s house as Frank had instructed. There is a literal image when Donnie throws gasoline all over Cunningham’s narcissistic self-portrait and lights it on fire, but there is also a more subtler, symbolic one. Upon either side of the painting are the heads of two male deer, or stags. The stag is a masculine symbol, representing male independence. The phrase, “going stag” is used when someone attends a party or dance by them self. A girlfriend of Donnie’s mother makes it known earlier in the film that Jim is single. The fact that he is single however, may have more to do with the other symbolic implication of the stag, which is castration. This becomes shockingly clear whilst in the aftermath of the fire, it is discovered that behind his painting was a safe containing child pornography.

In the closing sequence of the film, we are given a simultaneous view of everyone’s life at the moment of Donnie’s death. Jim Cunningham is shown crying in his bed, perhaps because of his personal struggle with pornography, but most likely due to the fact that he is terribly alone in his cavernous mansion. The immediate shot following his shows a painting of a male and female deer on the wall of Kitty Farmer’s bedroom—of course suggesting her obsession or infatuation with him, and the irony of the fact that her daughter is also a part of Sparkle Motion.

The final and most obvious of the zoomorphic symbols is the rabbit. The rabbit often appears in folklore as the trickster archetype, as he uses his cunning to outwit his enemies. The best examples of this in American culture are the cartoon character Bugs Bunny, and the White Rabbit from Lewis Carroll’s book, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. It is Frank, the rabbit, who leads Donnie “down the rabbit hole” or “to the light,” which allows him to see more than his peers and therefore enabling him to save the world. Frank essentially gives Donnie his superpowers. The scene where Donnie takes Gretchen to the theatre may even be compared to Plato’s allegory of The Cave; the image inside of a theatre draws many parallels to Plato’s description of the cave. Frank shows Donnie “the truth” and then releases him from the theatre or “the cave.” Donnie then returns to rescue Gretchen.

Frank also encourages Donnie to wreak havoc during his hallucinations. Both of his major acts of vandalism are lifted directly from Graham Greene’s “The Destructors,” a book he was assigned to read in English class. Another story the class covers during the course of the month is “Watership Down” by Richard Adams, an epic tale about a group of rabbits escaping the destruction of their home and their journey to find a new one.

The teacher assigning these books, Ms. Pomeroy, played by the lovely Drew Barrymore, is inevitably fired for going against the curriculum. On more than one occasion, she can be seen next to an American flag. While she is not represented by an animal, she is synonymous with American values. She symbolizes liberty and freedom, more specifically freedom of speech. She is a champion of storytelling and somewhat of a muse to Donnie. She believes in him and encourages him, aiding him in his quest. When she is fired, she tells Donnie that a famous linguist once said that of all the combinations of words in the English language, “Cellar Door” was the most beautiful. This of course was a clue for him to go back to Grandma Death’s house and look inside the cellar. Upon leaving, a small flag can be seen coming out of Ms. Pomeroy’s box of belongings, symbolizing the threat to American’s rights by organized religion and religious fanatics.

In the director’s cut of Donnie Darko, there is a scene where the class watches the animated film version of Watership Down. Afterwards, Ms. Pomeroy prompts the class with a question about the film, which ultimately ends up in an argument between her, Donnie and Gretchen. Gretchen focuses not on what happens in the story, but merely the fact that the author is sharing a piece of himself with everyone who reads it. The irony is that they are discussing a story whose author shuns or denies any symbolic meaning in a film that revels in it. To close the discussion, Ms. Pomeroy explains that the rabbits were saved not by themselves, but their creator, or in this case, the author. To describe it, she uses the phrase, “deus ex machina,” which literally translates to “god from the machine.”

‘Deus ex machina’ is a plot device that refers to ancient plays when God would suddenly appear in the final act via trap door to resolve all of the plot complications. It has always been criticized—viewed as cheating to create a satisfactory ending (i.e. War of the Worlds). Nevertheless, many fantasy and science fiction authors have embraced ‘deus ex machina,’ occasionally teasing critics by mentioning it (i.e. Matrix Revolutions). After Elizabeth’s boyfriend, Frank, saves Donnie from the Seth Devlin but also inadvertently kills Gretchen, Donnie mutters, "deus ex machina." At the time, it appears that he might be referring to Frank's intervention, but it is actually Donnie’s realization that he could act as the 'deus ex machina’ by traveling back in time to save Gretchen and the rest of the world.

The ‘deus ex machina’ or ‘god within the machine’ is represented throughout the film in the form of an eye. The ‘eye’ is historically seen as a symbol of wisdom. It appears primarily as a sketch on Donnie’s wall and is used as a comic book image (continuing with the superhero theme) to express a higher knowledge or higher power at work. The drawing is visible at both the beginning and end of the film when the jet engine falls into his room, signifying the opening and closing of the tangent universe. The hint that there is a higher power at work comes not only from Donnie’s conversations with his psychiatrist and his science teacher, but from Frank. There are three key scenes where attention is diverted to Frank’s right eye: First, when Donnie sees Frank’s reflection in the bathroom mirror and stabs his eye with a knife. Secondly, when Frank takes off his mask in the theater to reveal a gunshot wound to his right eye. And lastly, at the very end, just before the screen jumps into the next frame, Frank can be seen rubbing his right eye, as if he had just dreamt of losing it. The hallucinations of Frank are messages to Donnie from this ‘higher power,’ instructing him on how to close the portal to the tangent universe, which will eventually collapse in on itself, creating a black hole and taking all of humanity with it.

There is an eerie coincidence surrounding the American release of the film Donnie Darko. It came to theaters just in the wake of September 11, 2001. It is speculated that the film’s failure at the box office was due to the fact that it was marketed as a ‘teen slasher flick.’ The few of those who went to see it, expecting horror, may have been even more horrified by the images of a jet engine crashing through the American flag hanging from the ceiling of Donnie’s bedroom. All of a sudden the conversations surrounding the Bush-Dukakis race, in addition to the theme of religious fanaticism and its threat to the United States, became hyper-relevant.

It is no surprise then that the film performed much better in the UK. British audiences connected especially well with its 1980’s new wave soundtrack. The acoustic, piano version of Tears For Fears’s “Mad World” by Gary Jules became a smash hit. The song was chosen for the final sequence of the film for its literal lyrics: “The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had….When people run in circles it’s a very, very Mad World.” Despite the dark, depressing subject matter of the song, it went all the way to #1 on the UK charts during the Christmas of 2002. The warm reception of the film overseas inspired a documentary called, “They Made Me Do It: The Cult of Donnie Darko.” In it, a number of die-hard fans describe what the film means to each of them. Thanks to the many storylines and subplots woven into the film through the use of symbolism and powerful imagery, it has a much different meaning to everyone who watches it. The film is about possibilities, and the unknown—about the futility of searching for God; Its about mental illness and alienation. At the heart of it, Donnie Darko is about coming of age, and how scary the world can be when making that transition. It’s about enlightenment and seeing more to life than what is visible. It’s about believing the unbelievable and the changing the course of the future.