“I’ve Got the Pilot”: An Interpretation of Flight, a Film by John Gatins, Writer, and Robert Zemeckis, Director

Abstract

Robert Zemeckis’s recent film Flight, about a talented but flawed commercial airline pilot (played by Denzel Washington) is discussed on both the realistic and allegorical levels, showing the relationship between the contemporary plot and the fifteenth-century morality play, The Summoning of Everyman. Evidence for and against the different kinds of interpretation is identified and discussed. The film forces the main character to make a series of progressively more difficult and significant ethical decisions about drugs, alcohol, friends (true and false), lovers, and personal atonement that challenge him. The audience must make an interpretive decision between the possible levels of meaning.