James Skemp's StrivingLife

I brought you the timeline for Pulp Fiction (see my paper titled Pulp Fiction: A Timeline of the Events of the Movie), now I bring you the timeline for the movie 12 Monkeys, another interesting, and time-wise 'weird', movie.

As I see it, it's something like this. Well, first, note that this is the timeline in terms of real time, not in terms of movie time.

1. Cole 'participates' in World War I, and is shot in the leg.
2. Kathryn is born.
3. Cole is born.
4. Cole and Kathryn meet via the Sanitarium (1990).
5. Cole and Kathryn meet for the second time after her lecture (1996).
6. Cole and Kathryn meet while she is painting the side of the building.
7. Cole is shot and killed, and Kathryn sees Cole as a boy.
8. Kathryn dies (?).
9. Cole goes back in time (to 1990) to meet Kathryn for the first time.
10. Cole comes back and then goes back to WWI, and then to 1996, to meet Kathryn after her lecture.
11. Cole comes back and is healed, after which is goes back again to meet Kathryn so as to remove his 'divergence'.

In terms of movie time, it's going to be slightly different and a whole heck of a lot harder to diagnose. After all, we never really are at a time during which we know that Cole or Kathryn are born (we of course assume they are), contrary to the fact that we know when Cole died. That is, we see Cole die, and can place that in the movie timeline, but do not see him born, and cannot, therefore, place him in the movie timeline. How can we say that Cole was born when we didn't see it? So, what this all boils down to is that I will not be placing a movie timeline, since it cannot be done like the Pulp Fiction one, where each timeline matched (point for point that is).
Interesting stuff from the movie:

• Notice how the guard changes during Cole's attempted escape from the asylum?
• "I am insane and you are my insanity" - Cole
• Notice how we never see 'Bob's' (that is, the guy that calls Cole 'Bob' all the time) teeth the second time he meets Kathryn (while she is painting the building)? Is this the same Bob, or is it Bob from a different time? But, if it's Bob from a different time, what does that mean?
• In a wacky kind of way, Kathryn really did meet Cole at an age earlier then she first met him. That is, while at the theatre she talks vaguely about how she has known him before. At the airport, she sees his younger self. In a weird, 'time travel will make you go insane' kind of way, if time is linear, and we can only be in one point in time, then there must have been a time in which the airport incident had not occurred. Yet, that would be impossible, and therefore, well, it's hard to explain... :(

Notes

Created: June 28th 2003
Modified: July 12th 2003; October 24th 2003

• I heard you talking
• just the other day.
•  
• You talked like Aphrodite,
• that damned goddess of old,
• You were talking in her ear
• and it made me feel so cold...
•  
• I would give you all the attention,
• perhaps more then you could hold,
• I'd put my heart on the block,
• and not expect a 'thunk'.
•  
• Do you hurt me on purpose?
• Did those before?
• I'm not an artist,
• but I've a bleeding heart...
•  
• When you are not about
• I curse the ground you tread.
• When you are around me
• I wish for ground beneath my feet.
•  
• But you are a woman,
• and that explains all...

• Thinking about you,
• I found your picture,
• You were oh so beautiful,
• and I'm sure you still are.
•  
• Sometimes I wonder,
• what would I have been
• without seeing you
• without meeting you
• without having the pleasure...
•  
• Sometimes I cry,
• sometimes I bleed,
• sometimes I sit
• sometimes I gaze...
•  
• I looked at your picture,
• and I put it back down.
• I picked up your picture,
• and I put it back down.
•  
• I try to forget,
• but memories don't always die,
• no matter how hard I try
• to make them go away.
•  
• I guess what they say is true,
• you can't escape the past,
• you can't kill your memories...
•  
• Oh, think of the possibilities,
• Frontal Lobotomies...