How the celebrity cult might keep movie stars real. (Now Playing).(Simone)(Brief Article)

The two prescient movies that have sprung from the mind of filmmaker Andrew Niccol--Gattaca and The Truman Show--both celebrate the spirit of the individual. His latest picture, Simone, satirizes that spirit's antithesis: the cult of celebrity.

Just as Gattaca explored genetic meddling the year Dolly let out her first "baa" and just as The Truman Show anticipated reality television before the original "Survivor" crew was dumped on that island, so is Simone, which Niccol wrote and directed, set in a possibly soon-to-be-familiar future. The movie focuses on a desperate director named Viktor Taransky, played by Al Pacino, who creates a computer-generated actress for his troubled film and passes her off as a real star.

Needless to say, his stunt is a success. A Frankenstein's bride culled from the body parts, personalities, and vocal inflections of screen goddesses past, Simone becomes the toast of Tinseltown. Her inability to make public appearances only adds to her mystique. The fact that she can't be trotted out for the talk show circuit creates the sort of vacuum our celebrity-obsessed culture abhors. The gossip rags clamor and the paparazzi scamper, all in a desperate effort to grab a piece of Simone, played by model-turned-actress Rachel Roberts.

In many ways, Simone is a logical extension of Niccol's earlier efforts. In 1997's Gattaca, his writing-directing debut, an aspiring astronaut who was a "natural birth" competes with those whose parents genetically designed them to be the smartest and strongest of the human race. In the end, it's the hero's determination--a genetic wild card--that puts him over the top. The Truman Show, for which Niccol wrote the script, roots for another man whose destiny has seemingly been predetermined: a mild-mannered insurance salesman who discovers that his entire life has been broadcast as an around-the-clock television series. If The Truman Show considered how celebrity status obliterates the individual--Truman, played by Jim Carrey, was literally adopted by the show's creator and figuratively adopted by the millions of viewers who watched him every night--then Simone takes the concept one step further. Here, we don't even need a real person to worship. It's the ...