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<\/a><\/p>\nThe Matrix<\/em><\/a> is probably the film I’ve most seen that, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, I never feel like I’ve really seen it all. It feels inexhaustible. Or, perhaps better, it feels like parts of it are always out of one’s reach, much like the dream that one barely remembers, but that you know shook you to your core mere minutes before.<\/p>\n The guy is blind, though<\/em>. He’s holding a white cane. I must have watched that scene literally a dozen times before I…well, before I saw<\/em> it. So, who, exactly, is really the blind man?<\/p>\n The Matrix<\/em> is threaded with moments like this, where the film is playing to the viewer’s misunderstanding or incomprehension of what they’re looking at, asking questions about how sure they are of their senses and what they’re telling them. Neo’s meeting with the Oracle, perhaps the film’s central moment, itself has such a false impression built into it. It’s based on the average viewer’s conviction that she actually does tell Neo he is not The One, when, in fact, she never says this. It’s almost as if the movie were some sort of Turing test, or, more, perhaps the question is if the viewer is actually the test, and the movie the one taking it.<\/p>\n Those who know the film’s lore learned long ago that Will Smith was originally offered the role of Neo, but turned it down<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>For example, there’s a scene, early on, when Morpheus takes Neo to visit the Oracle. As they enter the lobby of the decrepit projects building in which she lives, Morpheus nods to an old man sitting in the lobby. He nods back. The two visitors enter the elevator, and proceed on their way.<\/p>\n