I HEARD A TERM ONCE THAT DESCRIBED THIS PHENOMENON OF CHAIN OF EVENTS THAT EVENTUALLY COMES FULL CIRCLE. SEEMS LIKE IT MIGHT OF HAD A "C" IN IT OR IT COULD HAVE BEEN FRENCH. I DON'T KNOW BUT IT'S MAKING ME CRAZY. NOW AFTER SEEING "CRASH" IT'S REALLY BUGGING ME. DOES ANYBODY KNOW????
shareYou're thinking of synchronicity: (from Wikipedia) "Synchronicity is a word coined by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung to describe the "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung spoke of synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle" (i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality). Plainly put, it is the experience of having two (or more) things happen coincidentally in a manner that is meaningful to the person or persons experiencing them, where that meaning suggests an underlying pattern. It differs from coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic that is being expressed through meaningful relationships or events. It was a principle that Jung felt encompassed his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious, in that it was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience and history—social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were due not merely to chance, but instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic." Pretty heavy s**t, huh?
shareYeah, I agree that "synchronicity" is most likely what you're looking for. It certainly applies in the context of the film.
shareI'm actually watching it at the moment. Mary McDonnell even has a line, where she's talking about the way our lives connect that pretty much says "synchronicity" without explicitly using the word.
shareI don't think that is the term the original poster is looking for-
To simplify what ddog's Wikipedia definition about Synhronicity...
'Synchronicity', was invented by Carl Jung after he went on one of his daily walks. Jung suddenly had a vision of a dead, bloody bird in his mind. A few minutes later on his walk, he actually SAW a dead bloody bird. Jung thought this had to be more than just coinicidence, so he coined the term 'Synchronicity'.
Simply put, it is the combinaiton of a vision in ones mind with actual encounter of that vision in real life. But the vision has to be sufficiently 'random' to be real 'Syncronicity'.
"You sent us to guard the wrong man Mr. Chalmers."
Perhaps the word he is looking for is contiguity To envoke Wikipedia: Contiguity: a continuous mass, or a series of things in contact or in proximity. In a different meaning, contiguity is the state of being contiguous.[1] The concept was first set out in the Law of Contiguity, one of Aristotle's Laws of Association, which states that things which occur in proximity to each other in time or space are readily associated.
Can't go wrong with an Aristotle reference....oh, to add why I know this has to be the correct term, this association was also formulated by none other than John Locke.
ouroboros
sharemaybe you're thinking of:
"causality loop"
or
"closed system"
or
"circuitous" (sp?)
folks pointing you towards "synchronicity" strike me as flat out wrong.
in forms of art, which i guess in our generation would include movies, the term described for these types of phenomenon that bring external and internal forces guided by some kind of fate are called "magical realism"
shareWhy am I suddenly thinking of that picture of the snake swallowing it's own tail (for any X-file fans, I think that was Scully got as a tattoo on her back in that one episode?). And I swear it started with a C. Does anyone know?
EDIT: Sorry, it appears that is ouroboros which was mentioned here already.
JP
the butterfly effect?
shareCircuity.
shareHyperlink Cinema
"Boy i got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals." - Butch Cassidy