Gattaca

Gattaca is a 1997 science fiction drama film by director/screenwriter Andrew Niccol, starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law and Alan Arkin.

Trivia

• The name of the film is derived from GATTACA, an arbitrary DNA base pair sequence of adenine, thymine, cytosine, guanine. The recent publication of the human genome sequence reveals that GATTACA, along with most other short base-pair sequences, occurs commonly throughout the human genome.
• Throughout the opening title sequence, the letters A, T, C, and G are displayed in an alternate typeface.
• To create an eerie atmosphere of ubiquitous physical perfection, the director cast fashion models as extras.
• The spiral stairway in Jerome's house is reminiscent of the helical structure of DNA, and has the correct helical chirality.
• The musical score of the movie was composed by Michael Nyman, known for his work on The Piano.
• The music playing in the background when Vincent blows cigar smoke into a wine glass to suggest the clouds of Titan is "Nuages" (French for "Clouds") by Django Reinhardt.
• Vincent's brother Anton may be perceived as his antagonist (Antagonist).
• "Eugene" means "well born" in Greek, and is similar to "eugenics" and "gene".
• Jerome's first name rhymes with genome.
• The character Irene Cassini is named for Giovanni Domenico Cassini, a 17th century astronomer who discovered the largest gap in Saturn's main rings: the Cassini Division. He also discovered its moons, Dione, Iapetus, Rhea, and Thethys. Cassini-Huygens is a space mission intended to study Saturn and its moons, launched in 1997. The space mission in Gattaca is destined for Saturn's moon Titan.
• Gattaca is partially filmed in Marin County at the Marin County Civic Center (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright), which is called "Gattaca Aerospace Corporation" in the movie. Much of the interior of Gattaca, however, is filmed in Hollywood, except for scenes near escalators.
• The exterior of Vincent and Jerome's apartment was filmed at the CLA (Classrooms, Laboratories, and Administration) Building of Cal Poly Pomona.
• Agents of the FBI are called "Hoovers" in reference to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and the Hoover Company — creators of vacuum cleaners, which are shown gathering DNA evidence.
• American author Gore Vidal is cast as Director Josef, whose first given name is Eugene.
• The public announcement system of Gattaca is spoken in Esperanto, a constructed international language.
• The piece played by the six-fingered pianist is based on Impromptu in G Flat Major, Op. 90, No. 3 by Franz Schubert. For the performance in the film, the piece was embellished with additional notes and harmonies so that it "can only be played with twelve ," as Irene explains.
• The film's working title was "The Eighth Day", a reference to the Biblical creation story, which states that the earth was created in six days and on the seventh day, God rested. The original title implies the tampering of man with what God has already made, and "The Eighth Day" is still the name of the center in the movie where the children are engineered, as noted on the DVD deleted scenes.