Knowing (film)

In 1959, a Lexington, Massachusetts elementary school celebrates its opening with a competition in which students draw what they believe will happen in the future; the works will be stored in a time capsule that will be opened in fifty years. All of the children create visual works except for Lucinda Embry, who is guided by whispering voices to fill her paper with a series of numbers with no apparent meaning. Before she can write the final numbers, the allotted time for the task expires and the teacher collects the students' drawings. The next day, as the time capsule is buried, the teacher finds Lucinda in a utility closet, engraving the remaining numbers into the door with her fingernails.

In 2009, the current class opens the time capsule and distributes the drawings inside among the students. Lucinda's sheet is given to Caleb Koestler, the nine-year-old son of the widowed MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler. John examines Lucinda's sequence of numbers and realizes that it is a coded message that predicted, with perfect precision, the dates and death tolls of major catastrophes over the past fifty years. However, three of the reported events have yet to happen, and one of the dates corresponds to the following day.

By coincidence, John is present during the next catastrophic event: a plane crash in which 81 people die. John learns that Lucinda's sheet also contains the geographical coordinates of the events. Interpreting the following numbers, John tries and fails to prevent a New York City Subway from derailing. John becomes convinced that his family has a significant role in these incidents: his wife died in one of the earlier events reported by Lucinda, while Caleb was the one to receive Lucinda's message. Meanwhile, Caleb begins hearing the same voices as Lucinda. To prevent the last event, John tracks down Lucinda's daughter Diana and her granddaughter Abby. After some initial disbelief, Diana goes with John to Lucinda's childhood home, where they find a copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision", in which a great sun is represented. They also discover that the final two digits of Lucinda's message are not numbers, but two reversed letter E's. Under Lucinda's bed, the letters' meaning is found to be "Everyone Else". During this search, Caleb and Abby, who were left asleep in the car, have an encounter with the beings who are the source of the whispers.

A copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision" (1670), which the film's protagonists interpret as an announcement of the end of the world.

The next day, Abby colors in the sun on the engraving, which gives John a revelation. He rushes to the MIT observatory and learns that a massive solar flare with the potential to destroy all life will hit the Earth on the last date indicated by the message. As Diana and Abby prepare to take refuge underground, John goes to the school and finds the door on which Lucinda engraved the final numbers, and identifies them as coordinates of a place where he believes that salvation from the solar flare can be found. The disbelieving and hysterical Diana loads both Caleb and Abby into her car and flees for the caves. At a gas station, the whispering beings steal her car with Caleb and Abby inside. Diana pursues them but is killed in an accident. The beings take Caleb and Abby to Lucinda's mobile home, where John encounters them shortly thereafter. The beings, who act as extraterrestrial angels, are leading children to safety on interstellar arks so that humanity may be rebuilt. John realizes he cannot go with them because he never heard the whispering, so he convinces Caleb to leave with Abby and both are transported away by the beings. The following morning, John drives through a chaotic Boston to his parents' house, where he reconciles with his estranged father. The solar flare then strikes, burning away the Earth's atmosphere and annihilating everything on the surface. Meanwhile, the ark, along with others, deposits Caleb and Abby on another world resembling an earthly paradise. The two run through a field towards a large white tree.

In 2001, novelist Ryne Douglas Pearson approached producers Todd Black and Jason Blumenthal with his idea for a film, where a time capsule from the 1950s is opened revealing fulfilled prophecies, of which the last one ended with 'EE' - "everyone else". The producers liked the concept and bought his script.[4] The project was set up at Columbia Pictures. Both Rod Lurie and Richard Kelly were attached as directors, but the film eventually went into turnaround. The project was picked up by the production company Escape Artists, and the script was rewritten by Stiles White and Juliet Snowden. Director Alex Proyas was attached to direct the project in February 2005.[5] Proyas said the aspect that attracted him the most was the "very different script" and the notion of people seeing the future and "how it shape their lives".[4] Summit Entertainment took on the responsibility to fully finance and distribute the film. Proyas and Stuart Hazeldine rewrote the draft for production,[6] which began on March 25, 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.[7] The director hoped to emulate The Exorcist in melding "realism with a fantastical premise".[8]

The film is set primarily in the town of Lexington with some scenes set in the nearby cities of Cambridge and Boston. However, it was shot in Australia, where director Proyas resides.[4] Locations included the Geelong Ring Road; the Melbourne Museum; "Cooinda", a residence in Mount Macedon which was the location for all of the "home and garden" scenes; and Collins Street.[1] Filming also took place at Camberwell High School, which was converted into the fictional William Dawes Elementary, located in 1959 Lexington.[9][10] Interior shots took place at the Australian Synchrotron to represent an observatory.[11][12] Filming also took place at the Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts.[13] In addition to practical locations, filming also took place at the Melbourne Central City Studios in Docklands.[14] The plane crash, which was mostly shown in one take in the film, was done in a nearly-finished freeway outside Melbourne, the Geelong Ring Road, mixing practical effects and pieces of a plane with computer-generated elements. The scenographic rain led to the usage of a new gel for the flames so the fire would not be put out, and semi-permanent make-up to make them last the long shooting hours.[4] The solar flare destruction sequence is set in New York City, showing notable landmarks such as the Metlife Building, Times Square and the Empire State Building being completely obliterated as the flare spreads across the Earth's surface, destroying everything in its path.[15]

Proyas used a Red One 4K digital camera. He sought to capture a gritty and realistic look to the film, and his approach involved a continuous two-minute scene in which Cage's character sees a plane crash and attempts to rescue passengers. The scene was an arduous task, taking two days to set up and two days to shoot. Proyas explained the goal, "I did that specifically to not let the artifice of visual effects and all the cuts and stuff we can do, get in the way of the emotion of the scene."[16]

The music for the film was written by Marco Beltrami, but also features classical works such as Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven) - Allegretto,[17] which is played without any accompanying sound effects in the final Boston disaster scene of the film.[18] Beltrami released the soundtrack as a CD with 22 tracks.[19]

Music in the film but not released on the soundtrack

• The Planets, Op. 32: IV. "Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity" - written by Gustav Holst[17]
• "News Theme" - written and performed by Guy Gross[17]
• Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 - composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and performed by Sydney Scoring Orchestra

• 20th Century Boys
• 2012 (film)
• List of films featuring the deaf and hard of hearing

• Official website
• Knowing on IMDb 
• Knowing at AllMovie