Jerry Ashton - The Thirteenth Floor
TITLE: Smoke and Mirrors
AUTHOR: lonelywalker
AUTHOR SITE: World On A Wire: 13th Floor Resources // Lonelywaker's Fanfiction
CHARACTER: Jerry Ashton
FANDOM: The Thirteenth Floor
SPOILERS: The entire film The Thirteenth Floor, and the book Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye, on which the film is based.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters and I'm not making any money.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
It's all smoke and mirrors, Ashton. Like your world...
We're nothing but a simulation in some computer.
- Douglas Hall, in The Thirteenth Floor.
THE FILM
“Hey, what’d you do to the world?”
“Turned it off.”
Synopsis
The Thirteenth Floor (1999) is a science-fiction film based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye. It focuses on the mystery of who killed Hannon Fuller, a computer genius who had devoted six years of his life to creating a virtual world. This virtual world, a replica of 1937 Los Angeles, is entered through a complex computer system located on the thirteenth floor of a corporate building in modern day LA. The film confronts philosophical issues of reality, creation, morality, and metaphysics in the quests of its main characters to solve the murder.
The Main Characters
Douglas Hall: a returning employee of Fuller’s.
Hannon Fuller: creative genius and owner of the company.
Jason Whitney: primary technician / programmer on the thirteenth floor.
Jerry Ashton: bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in the virtual 1937 Los Angeles.
Jane Fuller: a visitor from the ‘real world’ masquerading as Fuller’s daughter.
Larry McBain: a homicide detective with the LAPD.
JACKING IN
Caught the last 50 minutes of The Thirteenth Floor, which was indeed rather unintelligible, but turned out to be better than I thought it would be. However, Vincent doing that trick with the martini shaker was seriously the coolest thing in the movie. Had I tried to do that, I would've probably knocked several people unconscious.
- my journal, December 7th, 2005.
In retrospect, I should never have become hooked on The Thirteenth Floor. The odds were against it. When it was shown on Israeli cable television, twice in two days, both showings significantly overlapped with my university classes. However, I raced home, dumped my bag and coat on the floor, and hurried to switch on the television.
There he was.
The Thirteenth Floor has a complex plot, weaved around multiple characters and spanning time from 1937 to 2024. Missing the first 45 minutes or so of the film was not particularly helpful in terms of having a clue what was going on. And, indeed, I was totally lost. But, within a minute or two of switching on the television I knew I was irrevocably in love with the film, and with one of its central characters: the morally ambivalent bartender Jerry Ashton.
In the summer of 2005 I had started watching the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, starring the actor Vincent D'Onofrio. I became interested in D'Onofrio's extensive and varied body of work in film, particularly because of his "chameleonic" ability to portray widely differing characters. Here was a man who would go from a mentally unbalanced, overweight and maniacally grinning marine recruit in Full Metal Jacket to a slim, muscular and confident garage mechanic in Adventures in Babysitting without, apparently, pausing to blink. In many of his roles he was quite simply unrecognisable - as a man possessed by an alien bug in Men In Black or as the many incarnations of a schizophrenic serial killer in The Cell.
For The Thirteenth Floor, the four lead actors - D'Onofrio, Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol and Armin Mueller-Stahl - were all charged with the unusual task of playing two different characters in the same film (Bierko played three). Producer Ute Emmerich explained:
Casting was a long process because we tried to find actors who could play both parts convincingly. Some actors we saw were great in one [half] of the characters but not as good with the other. Also, we wanted actors who would bring a certain sympathy to one of their characters, to balance the [darker] side.
Josef Rusnak, the director and co-writer of the film, said that D'Onofrio was the only actor considered for the dual roles of Ashton and Whitney. All concerned were well aware of his reputation as an actor who could deal with even the most challenging roles. D'Onofrio seemed like the perfect man to play both 1930s bartender Ashton and 1990s computer genius Whitney - even if he had to dye his hair blond for the parts.
As it happened, it was Ashton I saw first, standing behind the bar of a swanky hotel in 1937 Los Angeles. The scruffy, idiosyncratic detective I was used to seeing D'Onofrio portray in Criminal Intent was nowhere to be seen. Ashton was a picture of confidence and composure: an immaculately tailored and pressed uniform; cropped, tidy hair; clean shaven; and tossing a martini shaker above his head with an air of nonchalance that had to make me smile. On the face of it, he was the perfect, servile bartender, existing only to provide alcohol, cigarettes and women to the rich members of the Wilshire Grand's club. However, D'Onofrio's performance began to hint at the depths of the character.
I finally saw the entire film, from start to finish, in January 2006. Witnessing the development of Ashton, from that first physical impression to some of the deeper psychological issues the character presents, made me well and truly hooked on him, and on the film as a whole.
PERSONALITY PROFILE
"How about Ashton, my bartender?"
Jerry Ashton: History
The character of Ashton is originally from The Thirteenth Floor's main source material - Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye. However, Galouye's Phil Ashton bears only a perfunctory resemblance to the Jerry Ashton of the film. In Simulacron-3 Ashton is a "tall thin man" who is used by Douglas Hall's company to keep tabs on the simulated 1937 New Orleans. Ashton, as in The Thirteenth Floor, is a simulated character himself, but unlike the other characters he knows that he is a simulation. This knowledge is slowly driving him crazy. In an attempt to get to the "real world", Ashton somehow uploads into the body of Chuck Whitney, a computer technician. However, he is caught by Hall, his memory is erased, and he is sent back to 1937.
A draft script of The Thirteenth Floor, by Josef Rusnak and Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez, describes Ashton in more-or-less the way he would eventually appear onscreen.
Ashton's a suave 'mixologist' in his late twenties. The kind of guy who knows his clients by name and their favorite cocktails by heart.
He is later also referred to as, "the hip, sharp, cool cat version of Whitney." In The Thirteenth Floor, unlike Simulacron-3, there is an explicit relationship built up between Ashton and Whitney. In Simulacron-3 the fact that Ashton uploads into Whitney's body is purely coincidental. In The Thirteenth Floor, the two men look alike, and Ashton has been designed as Whitney's "link unit" to enable the programmer to download into the 1937 world by inhabiting Ashton's body. In the draft script, it is made clear that, despite appearances, Ashton and Whitney could not be more different.
The differences between the Ashton of the draft script, and the Ashton who appears onscreen in the finished film are mainly cosmetic - a result of the casting of D'Onofrio and the collaborative efforts of D'Onofrio, director Josef Rusnak and costume designer Joseph Porro in determining Ashton's appearance.D'Onofrio said in the production notes:
I worked closely with Joseph Porro, the costume designer, initially, because the wardrobe accentuates their physical differences. Whitney wears baggy pants and loose t-shirts but Ashton wears this fitted suit, and you automatically move differently in a suit.
D'Onofrio was 38 when he played Ashton - a decade older than the Ashton of the script - although the age difference was mostly irrelevant to the role.
Jerry Ashton: Biography
Jerry Ashton is Unit SJT6548555, a character in the virtual 1937 created by Fuller, Whitney, and Hall. However, like all of the units in the program, Ashton is initially unaware of his artificial nature. He functions like a normal human being, and presumably has memories of living his entire life, even though the program is no more than six years old.
Ashton works as a bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles. It is probable that he is head bartender. Although this is never explicitly said, Ashton implies it when he says "I just opened" [my emphasis], and from his knowledge of the customers. He also appears to be excellent at his job. He recalls Fuller on the basis of what he drinks - "Perfect gin martini up, one olive and likes them frigid as an Eskimo" - and encourages Hall to try "something fancy".
Ashton also serves as something of a pimp for the dancers and cigarette girls employed at the hotel. On two occasions he attempts to set up male customers with girls. In addition, one of the dancers - Bridget - refers Douglas Hall to Ashton when she thinks Hall is after sex. It is unclear whether this 'business' is one approved by the hotel, or merely Ashton's own enterprise. Despite Ashton's hazy morals, he is apparently liked and trusted by Fuller, who leaves a letter revealing the secret of the virtual world in his care. The fact that Ashton reads the letter is not so surprising, and the way he opens the envelope, so that it can be re-sealed, suggests that he has done this before. He also successfully tails Hall: another indicator of his shadowy business life. To confirm this aura of criminality, Ashton owns a pistol and knows very well how to use it.
When he discovers that his world is artificial, Ashton's reactions are both violent and fearful. He attacks and shoots Hall, before attempting to drown him in the hotel swimming pool. Ashton does not, in fact, kill him, which suggests that he is not completely without mercy. However, his actions from this point on are increasingly unbalanced, and it is unclear to what extent they are an accurate reflection of his previous character.
In the Los Angeles of 1999, where Ashton is transported after Whitney is killed in VR, he views everything with a sense of childish wonder, and even regards Hall as "a God". However, when Hall tells him that the 1999 world is also a simulation, Ashton reverts to his violent/scared actions, threatening Hall with a gun. It is possible that the Ashton of 1999, in Whitney's body, is affected somewhat by Whitney's residual memories and personality, but this is unclear.
Random facts: smokes; owns and drives a car; has a driver's licence; lives at 1463 Mill Street; and may be ambidextrous. No one ever calls him by his first name, and we never see him drinking (although it may be that a cop at one point smells alcohol on his breath). He wears four ornate rings, two on each hand, the significance of which is unknown.
Jerry Ashton: More Than Meets The Eye?
Ashton is, for almost the entirety of the film, the nominal bad guy. From the very first scene, he is shown to be morally ambiguous, trying to pimp out a young woman to Fuller, and then reading the very letter he had told Fuller he would keep safe. Through the twists and turns of the plot, we are led to believe that Ashton may have had something to do with Fuller’s death, and this idea is only confirmed when Ashton attacks and tries to kill Douglas Hall.
However, from this same first scene, we also discover that Ashton is far from what he appears to be. He is, for all intents and purposes, a bartender. He may be exceptional at his job, but he seems insignificant in a broader context. He is certainly depicted as neither the social nor the intellectual equal of Fuller, Hall, and Whitney, all of whom are presumably very well educated and well paid. Ashton’s function is only to pour drinks, light cigarettes, and match up bored old men to eager young girls. It’s not such a taxing job.
From the perspective of his occupation, Ashton is expected to be servile and to do what is expected of him. This is also true from the perspective from which Fuller, Hall and Whitney look at him, as a simulated character in a simulated world - a cog in a machine. However, Ashton is unwilling to be taken at face value. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Hall!”, he says, frustrated that Doug isn’t taking him seriously as an intellectual threat (in an earlier draft, he rebukes Doug for thinking of him as a "dumb bartender"). In fact, his actions prove him to be extremely clever, resilient, and resourceful.
There are suggestions in the film that Ashton is a poor boy who has clawed his way up into polite society through brains, talent, and sheer effort. He may dress in very good clothes, and wear expensive jewellery, but he's nothing like the upper classes he serves. We see his disdain for the petty concerns of these men, only interested in drinking and smoking and having sex with prostitutes. Ashton is a man who works, and he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.
Although there is no explicit statement made about Ashton's sexuality, there are several hints in the film that he is either gay or bisexual. He has dyed blond hair - something that would be very unusual for a straight man in the 1930s - and otherwise a very meticulous appearance (although this may be attributed more to his profession). When he tells Douglas Hall that Fuller "really goes for the girls", there's a derisive edge to his voice. It seems eminently reasonable that the hotel would hire a gay man as a pimp - at least he's not going to sample the merchandise. He also blows kisses at Doug twice. They're meant as taunts, but it seems unlikely that a straight man would choose that method over a simple "fuck you!" or similar. In the draft script, Ashton actually assumes that Doug is gay, and offers to set him up with a hotel busboy, so he's certainly not a homophobe.
After witnessing the strange behaviour of "Douglas Hall", he follows Ferguson and ascertains that, despite appearances, Ferguson and Hall are not the same person. Since this amazing realisation gives credence to the letter Fuller gave him (saying that his world is a simulation), Ashton tests his hypothesis by attempting to drive to Tucson. He in fact reaches the end of the world. The fact that he dismisses none of the extraordinary things that happen to him as the acts of madmen suggests that he has a finely calculating mind. This is only bolstered when he calmly lures Doug to the basement with the intention of making Doug get him to the "real world".
When he confronts Doug, his precise, smooth tones of the bar peel away into something much more raw and scared. Without thinking, he slips into language the upper classes would no doubt be embarrassed to hear: "it ain't real" being the most obvious. He's also perfectly prepared to get into a fistfight, even if it messes up his perfect clothes and perfect hair. Ashton's proficiency at taking down Doug suggests that the rings on his fingers aren't purely for decorative purposes.
One of my favourite scenes in the film takes place when Ashton finds himself in a 1999 corporate tower, in the body of Whitney. Wandering through the building, he walks into a clear glass door. It's a funny moment, as Ashton tries to puzzle out how to unlock the door - there are no handles, no locks, but it's immediately obvious to the audience that the door is opened by the keycard hanging around Ashton's neck. However, the scene shows that Ashton is determined to think through the problem, and to get to the other side of the door. Even when the card brushes past the sensor by accident, opening the door, Ashton doesn't go through it. He waits until it closes again, and thinks about it, and eventually figures it out. The idea of a card that opens a door must be completely alien to him, but he takes his time, and he solves the problem.
For a man from the 1930s, in a world that had never heard of virtual reality, Ashton acts with intelligence and logic throughout - despite the fear and anger perpetually bubbling under his cool exterior.
Dumb bartender, my ass!
LINK UNITS
"In the end, they're just a bunch of electronic circuits."
The Thirteenth Floor takes place over a relatively short time period - two or three days - and there is little capacity for seeing much of Ashton’s “normal” life. There is no reference to him having any family, and we are only shown how he relates to other people in his work environment. Despite the likelihood that Ashton’s persona at the bar is a much more charming, polite and affable version of his real personality, he does seem to be generally extroverted and confident in social situations.
Hannon Fuller
Ashton’s relationship with Fuller sets the standard for his normal behaviour, as it takes place entirely before Fuller is murdered and all hell breaks loose. It is difficult to say whether Ashton and Fuller have anything more than a purely work relationship. Ashton’s interactions with Fuller come at the bar, where he does his job - lights Fuller’s cigarette, pours him a perfect martini, and offers to set him up with a pretty cigarette girl. It can be assumed that this is the basic outline of Ashton’s relationships with all his patrons. He functions as a servant to the decadent whims of the Los Angeles aristocracy.
The fact that Fuller leaves the most important item in the film - a letter revealing the secrets of the simulation - with Ashton does hint at something more than a strictly professional relationship. Fuller seems to believe that Ashton can be trusted to deliver the letter to Douglas Hall. This faith is misplaced, as Ashton in fact reads the letter himself, and then denies that he knows anything about it when Doug asks. It is possible that Fuller mistakenly attributed Whitney’s unfailing honesty to Ashton.
However, Ashton’s denials to Doug, refusing to help him find his missing friend, also suggest that discretion is a huge part of his job. When the situation appears to be only that Fuller’s wife wants to know where her husband is, Ashton politely tells Doug that he can’t help “concerned wives”. Obviously, what Fuller does at the hotel must stay at the hotel.
Douglas Hall
Doug comes into Ashton’s life initially in the guise of a customer, and Ashton relates to him as he would to any patron, pouring him a drink and trying to tempt him with the services of the pretty dancing girls nearby. When Doug shows his hand by asking about Fuller and the letter, Ashton deliberately continues to play the role of the bartender, pleading ignorance and continuing along his theme of directing Doug’s attention to alcohol and girls. However, he also registers Doug as being a potential threat.
Ashton talks to Doug’s 1937 alter ego, John Ferguson, and follows him to ascertain that he is - as he suspects - dealing with two quite different people. He has also travelled to the end of the world and has realised that nothing in his world, including himself, is real. By the time he next meets Doug, his demeanour has changed entirely. He is no servile, dumb bartender. Instead, he lures Doug into the darkness of the locker room below the bar, and into his own territory. Once there, he holds Doug at gunpoint. Ashton is unsure of what threat Doug poses, but he comes prepared.
Due to his limited knowledge of why and how his world has come into existence, Ashton holds Doug responsible for the emotional trauma he is going through. He demands answers from Doug and, when Doug is unable to give him any solace, shoots him twice. Whether Ashton really intends to kill Doug is a matter for speculation. However, after Doug gains the upper hand and shoves the gun in Ashton’s mouth, the conflict definitely changes to being a matter of life or death. Ashton shoves Doug underwater and holds him there, presumably trying to kill him (although we later discover that Doug’s alter ego, Ferguson, survives).
At this point, the two men barely have a relationship. Doug is simply the focus of Ashton’s anger, fear, and physical violence. They are, quite literally, on different levels, and have nothing in common. Neither of them is well-disposed towards the other: when Doug returns to the real world, he tells Whitney of his intention to shut down the project - an action that would essentially kill Ashton.
It is only when Whitney dies in the program, catapulting Ashton into his body in 1999, that the two men can even hope to relate as equals. By this point in the film, Doug also knows that he is a simulation on a computer. Neither one of them, as Doug explains, is a god. Doug has no stomach for violence towards Ashton, and Ashton - almost reduced to tears by the realisation that he is still not free - makes no realistic threats. The two of them may never have managed to be friends, but by the end of the film they do at least understand one another.
Jason Whitney
Whitney and Ashton never meet in the course of the film, although they both end up inhabiting each other's bodies by virtue of the quirks of the program. However, they do have a very real relationship. The most superficial reading of the film shows that these two men have a fundamental connection - that between creator and creation. A slightly deeper investigation of this bond (or, as the film puts it, "link") suggests a firmer psychological reasoning behind Whitney's coding of Ashton's character.
One question unanswered by the film is why Whitney created Ashton. The virtual world depicted in The Thirteenth Floor seems to require that the "user" in the real world downloads into a "link unit" in the virtual world. These link units, apart from differences in haircuts, facial hair and wardrobe, appear identical to the user. This explains Ashton's appearance. It explains neither his occupation nor his personality.
We see two other user / link unit combinations in the film. Fuller's link unit is a respectable and highly moral antiques dealer named Grierson. Grierson's occupation seems fitting, since Fuller, too, is obsessed with the past. However, the two men differ considerably in their moral outlook. Fuller uses the virtual world to let him sleep with prostitutes, but Grierson has never cheated on his wife. In a similar fashion, Douglas Hall's link unit is Ferguson, a bank teller, equating with Hall's financial background. However, Ferguson is a much more extroverted character than Hall.
Ashton, however, is almost the diametric opposite of Whitney. It is difficult to see, initially, what they could possibly have in common. Ashton takes meticulous care of his appearance - Hall tells Whitney, "He's got a much better haircut than you. Much better". Ashton is clean shaven, with neat hair and dapper clothes. He has a job which requires him to be sociable and charming - the two skills Whitney most lacks. Ashton is also much more capable in a fight, overpowering Hall and almost killing him. In contrast, when Hall punches Whitney by accident, Whitney backs off and is visibly frightened.
One review of the film asked, "Is Whitney really as mellow and harmless as he appears? He didn't write his Sim character that way." Just as Fuller could fulfil his fantasies of going back to the age of his youth and having sex with beautiful women, Whitney perhaps intended to discard his shy nature and have some fun in the "role" of Ashton. It is not such a stretch of the imagination to say that the creation of Ashton is a reflection of Whitney's perfect self-image: confident, charming, and seemingly invulnerable.
USER PROTOCOLS
"This is your world? I never imagined it could be so beautiful."
I've taken a fair bit of flak for being so engaged with The Thirteenth Floor and with the character of Jerry Ashton. The trouble, of course, is that there's one 96-minute film featuring him and that - excluding interviews, production notes, and DVD extras - is pretty much it. Unlike the characters I admire in other fandoms, I can't watch Ashton develop over five or six seasons of 22 or 24 episodes each. When I stick my DVD in the player and press play, the usual response from those around me is, "haven't you already seen that a dozen times?" And, yes, yes I have. But I never get bored.
I would, of course, prefer the hours of character development that television drama usually provides. But the lack of much material leaves me with a very important benefit: questions.
The greatest favour the makers of The Thirteenth Floor did was to leave the fans with hints. Never underestimate the power of hints. Director Josef Rusnak has spoken of his frustration with the time limits of the feature film industry, and of the cuts that had to be made - after all, this was a story that could have been told over an entire novel (Simulacron-3) or a mini series (Welt am Draht). However, neither Rusnak nor D'Onofrio nor any of the other crew members tasked with bringing Ashton to the screen resorted to making him into a dull stereotype.
D'Onofrio said that his approach to his characters was "broad strokes - well thought out, hopefully, broad strokes." So we get neither undemanding cardboard cut-out characters - the bartender, the geek - nor characters who are explored so thoroughly in the course of the film that they brook no further interest. Instead, we're left with the hints.
What is Ashton's background? Is he gay? Are those fascinating rings for some purpose other than decoration? What went through his head at the end of the world? How might he have coped with the 1999 world if he had been stuck there permanently? What if he met Whitney, his creator?
I never think for a moment that there simply aren't answers to these questions. Watching the film, I've come to realise that it isn't just about the film itself - those 96 minutes of flashing images. The film is only the tip of the iceberg. I've worked in film and in theatre, however briefly, and you very quickly learn that there is always a reason for a prop being in a certain place, or a line being written as it is, or delivered in a certain way. Of course, in most films these things are explained in the dialogue, or are simply inconsequential. In The Thirteenth Floor, we notice, and we wonder.
In Ashton's case, I consider a lot of these questions through the fanfiction I write about him. My fanfiction primarily investigates his relationship with Whitney, both as creator and creation, and in a hypothetical romantic and sexual relationship. Out of necessity, much of my writing is extrapolation from the canonical facts of the film, but it does allow me to think about the character from different points of view.
I'm hard pressed to think of anyone like him: this working-class gay man with a knack for making the perfect martini who stumbles onto the greatest secret of his existence. It's a good thing he's got a sense of humour. And a gun. However, the problem with defining Ashton is the very reason that made me love him in the first place. You can never be sure that you've got the real person, the one below all those layers of fine clothes and polished exterior. Nothing is as it seems.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
FANDOM GUIDE
"The whole thing's a giant computer game?"
"No, not at all. It doesn't need a user to interact with it to
function."
General Information and Helpful Links
The Thirteenth Floor: You See Anything You Want? My fansite for the film, including interviews, production information, galleries, video and sound clips, and fanfiction.
The Thirteenth Floor: Review A review of the film by lauramerle, including some intriguing meta discussion of Vincent D'Onofrio's dual performances, and the backgrounds of the two characters.
The Thirteenth Floor @ imdb.com Good general site for information and links.
Scifi Scripts A transcript of the film. Not 100% accurate.
The Editing Room - The Thirteenth Floor A short parody script of the film.
Fanfiction
Much as I am loath to rec my own stories, at present I am the only person writing fanfiction based on the film. All of my fanfiction can be found at my website, which also includes information and articles about the film as a whole.
The introductory fic on the Whitney/Ashton pairing is:
The Other Man NC-17. A month before the events of the film, Whitney jacks into the program for the first time and finds more than he had ever dared expect.
I have also written a lengthy re-interpretation of the film from the points of view of Whitney and Ashton:
The End of the World R. Fuller is dead. Doug has returned. Jane wants to shut down the program. Whitney and Ashton's fledgling relationship is thrown into chaos. Will anything survive the end of the world?
AUTHOR: lonelywalker
AUTHOR SITE: World On A Wire: 13th Floor Resources // Lonelywaker's Fanfiction
CHARACTER: Jerry Ashton
FANDOM: The Thirteenth Floor
SPOILERS: The entire film The Thirteenth Floor, and the book Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye, on which the film is based.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters and I'm not making any money.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
It's all smoke and mirrors, Ashton. Like your world...
We're nothing but a simulation in some computer.
- Douglas Hall, in The Thirteenth Floor.
THE FILM
“Hey, what’d you do to the world?”
“Turned it off.”
Synopsis
The Thirteenth Floor (1999) is a science-fiction film based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye. It focuses on the mystery of who killed Hannon Fuller, a computer genius who had devoted six years of his life to creating a virtual world. This virtual world, a replica of 1937 Los Angeles, is entered through a complex computer system located on the thirteenth floor of a corporate building in modern day LA. The film confronts philosophical issues of reality, creation, morality, and metaphysics in the quests of its main characters to solve the murder.
The Main Characters
Douglas Hall: a returning employee of Fuller’s.
Hannon Fuller: creative genius and owner of the company.
Jason Whitney: primary technician / programmer on the thirteenth floor.
Jerry Ashton: bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in the virtual 1937 Los Angeles.
Jane Fuller: a visitor from the ‘real world’ masquerading as Fuller’s daughter.
Larry McBain: a homicide detective with the LAPD.
JACKING IN
Caught the last 50 minutes of The Thirteenth Floor, which was indeed rather unintelligible, but turned out to be better than I thought it would be. However, Vincent doing that trick with the martini shaker was seriously the coolest thing in the movie. Had I tried to do that, I would've probably knocked several people unconscious.
- my journal, December 7th, 2005.
In retrospect, I should never have become hooked on The Thirteenth Floor. The odds were against it. When it was shown on Israeli cable television, twice in two days, both showings significantly overlapped with my university classes. However, I raced home, dumped my bag and coat on the floor, and hurried to switch on the television.
There he was.
The Thirteenth Floor has a complex plot, weaved around multiple characters and spanning time from 1937 to 2024. Missing the first 45 minutes or so of the film was not particularly helpful in terms of having a clue what was going on. And, indeed, I was totally lost. But, within a minute or two of switching on the television I knew I was irrevocably in love with the film, and with one of its central characters: the morally ambivalent bartender Jerry Ashton.
In the summer of 2005 I had started watching the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, starring the actor Vincent D'Onofrio. I became interested in D'Onofrio's extensive and varied body of work in film, particularly because of his "chameleonic" ability to portray widely differing characters. Here was a man who would go from a mentally unbalanced, overweight and maniacally grinning marine recruit in Full Metal Jacket to a slim, muscular and confident garage mechanic in Adventures in Babysitting without, apparently, pausing to blink. In many of his roles he was quite simply unrecognisable - as a man possessed by an alien bug in Men In Black or as the many incarnations of a schizophrenic serial killer in The Cell.
For The Thirteenth Floor, the four lead actors - D'Onofrio, Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol and Armin Mueller-Stahl - were all charged with the unusual task of playing two different characters in the same film (Bierko played three). Producer Ute Emmerich explained:
Casting was a long process because we tried to find actors who could play both parts convincingly. Some actors we saw were great in one [half] of the characters but not as good with the other. Also, we wanted actors who would bring a certain sympathy to one of their characters, to balance the [darker] side.
Josef Rusnak, the director and co-writer of the film, said that D'Onofrio was the only actor considered for the dual roles of Ashton and Whitney. All concerned were well aware of his reputation as an actor who could deal with even the most challenging roles. D'Onofrio seemed like the perfect man to play both 1930s bartender Ashton and 1990s computer genius Whitney - even if he had to dye his hair blond for the parts.
As it happened, it was Ashton I saw first, standing behind the bar of a swanky hotel in 1937 Los Angeles. The scruffy, idiosyncratic detective I was used to seeing D'Onofrio portray in Criminal Intent was nowhere to be seen. Ashton was a picture of confidence and composure: an immaculately tailored and pressed uniform; cropped, tidy hair; clean shaven; and tossing a martini shaker above his head with an air of nonchalance that had to make me smile. On the face of it, he was the perfect, servile bartender, existing only to provide alcohol, cigarettes and women to the rich members of the Wilshire Grand's club. However, D'Onofrio's performance began to hint at the depths of the character.
I finally saw the entire film, from start to finish, in January 2006. Witnessing the development of Ashton, from that first physical impression to some of the deeper psychological issues the character presents, made me well and truly hooked on him, and on the film as a whole.
PERSONALITY PROFILE
"How about Ashton, my bartender?"
Jerry Ashton: History
The character of Ashton is originally from The Thirteenth Floor's main source material - Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye. However, Galouye's Phil Ashton bears only a perfunctory resemblance to the Jerry Ashton of the film. In Simulacron-3 Ashton is a "tall thin man" who is used by Douglas Hall's company to keep tabs on the simulated 1937 New Orleans. Ashton, as in The Thirteenth Floor, is a simulated character himself, but unlike the other characters he knows that he is a simulation. This knowledge is slowly driving him crazy. In an attempt to get to the "real world", Ashton somehow uploads into the body of Chuck Whitney, a computer technician. However, he is caught by Hall, his memory is erased, and he is sent back to 1937.
A draft script of The Thirteenth Floor, by Josef Rusnak and Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez, describes Ashton in more-or-less the way he would eventually appear onscreen.
Ashton's a suave 'mixologist' in his late twenties. The kind of guy who knows his clients by name and their favorite cocktails by heart.
He is later also referred to as, "the hip, sharp, cool cat version of Whitney." In The Thirteenth Floor, unlike Simulacron-3, there is an explicit relationship built up between Ashton and Whitney. In Simulacron-3 the fact that Ashton uploads into Whitney's body is purely coincidental. In The Thirteenth Floor, the two men look alike, and Ashton has been designed as Whitney's "link unit" to enable the programmer to download into the 1937 world by inhabiting Ashton's body. In the draft script, it is made clear that, despite appearances, Ashton and Whitney could not be more different.
The differences between the Ashton of the draft script, and the Ashton who appears onscreen in the finished film are mainly cosmetic - a result of the casting of D'Onofrio and the collaborative efforts of D'Onofrio, director Josef Rusnak and costume designer Joseph Porro in determining Ashton's appearance.D'Onofrio said in the production notes:
I worked closely with Joseph Porro, the costume designer, initially, because the wardrobe accentuates their physical differences. Whitney wears baggy pants and loose t-shirts but Ashton wears this fitted suit, and you automatically move differently in a suit.
D'Onofrio was 38 when he played Ashton - a decade older than the Ashton of the script - although the age difference was mostly irrelevant to the role.
Jerry Ashton: Biography
Jerry Ashton is Unit SJT6548555, a character in the virtual 1937 created by Fuller, Whitney, and Hall. However, like all of the units in the program, Ashton is initially unaware of his artificial nature. He functions like a normal human being, and presumably has memories of living his entire life, even though the program is no more than six years old.
Ashton works as a bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles. It is probable that he is head bartender. Although this is never explicitly said, Ashton implies it when he says "I just opened" [my emphasis], and from his knowledge of the customers. He also appears to be excellent at his job. He recalls Fuller on the basis of what he drinks - "Perfect gin martini up, one olive and likes them frigid as an Eskimo" - and encourages Hall to try "something fancy".
Ashton also serves as something of a pimp for the dancers and cigarette girls employed at the hotel. On two occasions he attempts to set up male customers with girls. In addition, one of the dancers - Bridget - refers Douglas Hall to Ashton when she thinks Hall is after sex. It is unclear whether this 'business' is one approved by the hotel, or merely Ashton's own enterprise. Despite Ashton's hazy morals, he is apparently liked and trusted by Fuller, who leaves a letter revealing the secret of the virtual world in his care. The fact that Ashton reads the letter is not so surprising, and the way he opens the envelope, so that it can be re-sealed, suggests that he has done this before. He also successfully tails Hall: another indicator of his shadowy business life. To confirm this aura of criminality, Ashton owns a pistol and knows very well how to use it.
When he discovers that his world is artificial, Ashton's reactions are both violent and fearful. He attacks and shoots Hall, before attempting to drown him in the hotel swimming pool. Ashton does not, in fact, kill him, which suggests that he is not completely without mercy. However, his actions from this point on are increasingly unbalanced, and it is unclear to what extent they are an accurate reflection of his previous character.
In the Los Angeles of 1999, where Ashton is transported after Whitney is killed in VR, he views everything with a sense of childish wonder, and even regards Hall as "a God". However, when Hall tells him that the 1999 world is also a simulation, Ashton reverts to his violent/scared actions, threatening Hall with a gun. It is possible that the Ashton of 1999, in Whitney's body, is affected somewhat by Whitney's residual memories and personality, but this is unclear.
Random facts: smokes; owns and drives a car; has a driver's licence; lives at 1463 Mill Street; and may be ambidextrous. No one ever calls him by his first name, and we never see him drinking (although it may be that a cop at one point smells alcohol on his breath). He wears four ornate rings, two on each hand, the significance of which is unknown.
Jerry Ashton: More Than Meets The Eye?
Ashton is, for almost the entirety of the film, the nominal bad guy. From the very first scene, he is shown to be morally ambiguous, trying to pimp out a young woman to Fuller, and then reading the very letter he had told Fuller he would keep safe. Through the twists and turns of the plot, we are led to believe that Ashton may have had something to do with Fuller’s death, and this idea is only confirmed when Ashton attacks and tries to kill Douglas Hall.
However, from this same first scene, we also discover that Ashton is far from what he appears to be. He is, for all intents and purposes, a bartender. He may be exceptional at his job, but he seems insignificant in a broader context. He is certainly depicted as neither the social nor the intellectual equal of Fuller, Hall, and Whitney, all of whom are presumably very well educated and well paid. Ashton’s function is only to pour drinks, light cigarettes, and match up bored old men to eager young girls. It’s not such a taxing job.
From the perspective of his occupation, Ashton is expected to be servile and to do what is expected of him. This is also true from the perspective from which Fuller, Hall and Whitney look at him, as a simulated character in a simulated world - a cog in a machine. However, Ashton is unwilling to be taken at face value. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Hall!”, he says, frustrated that Doug isn’t taking him seriously as an intellectual threat (in an earlier draft, he rebukes Doug for thinking of him as a "dumb bartender"). In fact, his actions prove him to be extremely clever, resilient, and resourceful.
There are suggestions in the film that Ashton is a poor boy who has clawed his way up into polite society through brains, talent, and sheer effort. He may dress in very good clothes, and wear expensive jewellery, but he's nothing like the upper classes he serves. We see his disdain for the petty concerns of these men, only interested in drinking and smoking and having sex with prostitutes. Ashton is a man who works, and he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.
Although there is no explicit statement made about Ashton's sexuality, there are several hints in the film that he is either gay or bisexual. He has dyed blond hair - something that would be very unusual for a straight man in the 1930s - and otherwise a very meticulous appearance (although this may be attributed more to his profession). When he tells Douglas Hall that Fuller "really goes for the girls", there's a derisive edge to his voice. It seems eminently reasonable that the hotel would hire a gay man as a pimp - at least he's not going to sample the merchandise. He also blows kisses at Doug twice. They're meant as taunts, but it seems unlikely that a straight man would choose that method over a simple "fuck you!" or similar. In the draft script, Ashton actually assumes that Doug is gay, and offers to set him up with a hotel busboy, so he's certainly not a homophobe.
After witnessing the strange behaviour of "Douglas Hall", he follows Ferguson and ascertains that, despite appearances, Ferguson and Hall are not the same person. Since this amazing realisation gives credence to the letter Fuller gave him (saying that his world is a simulation), Ashton tests his hypothesis by attempting to drive to Tucson. He in fact reaches the end of the world. The fact that he dismisses none of the extraordinary things that happen to him as the acts of madmen suggests that he has a finely calculating mind. This is only bolstered when he calmly lures Doug to the basement with the intention of making Doug get him to the "real world".
When he confronts Doug, his precise, smooth tones of the bar peel away into something much more raw and scared. Without thinking, he slips into language the upper classes would no doubt be embarrassed to hear: "it ain't real" being the most obvious. He's also perfectly prepared to get into a fistfight, even if it messes up his perfect clothes and perfect hair. Ashton's proficiency at taking down Doug suggests that the rings on his fingers aren't purely for decorative purposes.
One of my favourite scenes in the film takes place when Ashton finds himself in a 1999 corporate tower, in the body of Whitney. Wandering through the building, he walks into a clear glass door. It's a funny moment, as Ashton tries to puzzle out how to unlock the door - there are no handles, no locks, but it's immediately obvious to the audience that the door is opened by the keycard hanging around Ashton's neck. However, the scene shows that Ashton is determined to think through the problem, and to get to the other side of the door. Even when the card brushes past the sensor by accident, opening the door, Ashton doesn't go through it. He waits until it closes again, and thinks about it, and eventually figures it out. The idea of a card that opens a door must be completely alien to him, but he takes his time, and he solves the problem.
For a man from the 1930s, in a world that had never heard of virtual reality, Ashton acts with intelligence and logic throughout - despite the fear and anger perpetually bubbling under his cool exterior.
Dumb bartender, my ass!
LINK UNITS
"In the end, they're just a bunch of electronic circuits."
The Thirteenth Floor takes place over a relatively short time period - two or three days - and there is little capacity for seeing much of Ashton’s “normal” life. There is no reference to him having any family, and we are only shown how he relates to other people in his work environment. Despite the likelihood that Ashton’s persona at the bar is a much more charming, polite and affable version of his real personality, he does seem to be generally extroverted and confident in social situations.
Hannon Fuller
Ashton’s relationship with Fuller sets the standard for his normal behaviour, as it takes place entirely before Fuller is murdered and all hell breaks loose. It is difficult to say whether Ashton and Fuller have anything more than a purely work relationship. Ashton’s interactions with Fuller come at the bar, where he does his job - lights Fuller’s cigarette, pours him a perfect martini, and offers to set him up with a pretty cigarette girl. It can be assumed that this is the basic outline of Ashton’s relationships with all his patrons. He functions as a servant to the decadent whims of the Los Angeles aristocracy.
The fact that Fuller leaves the most important item in the film - a letter revealing the secrets of the simulation - with Ashton does hint at something more than a strictly professional relationship. Fuller seems to believe that Ashton can be trusted to deliver the letter to Douglas Hall. This faith is misplaced, as Ashton in fact reads the letter himself, and then denies that he knows anything about it when Doug asks. It is possible that Fuller mistakenly attributed Whitney’s unfailing honesty to Ashton.
However, Ashton’s denials to Doug, refusing to help him find his missing friend, also suggest that discretion is a huge part of his job. When the situation appears to be only that Fuller’s wife wants to know where her husband is, Ashton politely tells Doug that he can’t help “concerned wives”. Obviously, what Fuller does at the hotel must stay at the hotel.
Douglas Hall
Doug comes into Ashton’s life initially in the guise of a customer, and Ashton relates to him as he would to any patron, pouring him a drink and trying to tempt him with the services of the pretty dancing girls nearby. When Doug shows his hand by asking about Fuller and the letter, Ashton deliberately continues to play the role of the bartender, pleading ignorance and continuing along his theme of directing Doug’s attention to alcohol and girls. However, he also registers Doug as being a potential threat.
Ashton talks to Doug’s 1937 alter ego, John Ferguson, and follows him to ascertain that he is - as he suspects - dealing with two quite different people. He has also travelled to the end of the world and has realised that nothing in his world, including himself, is real. By the time he next meets Doug, his demeanour has changed entirely. He is no servile, dumb bartender. Instead, he lures Doug into the darkness of the locker room below the bar, and into his own territory. Once there, he holds Doug at gunpoint. Ashton is unsure of what threat Doug poses, but he comes prepared.
Due to his limited knowledge of why and how his world has come into existence, Ashton holds Doug responsible for the emotional trauma he is going through. He demands answers from Doug and, when Doug is unable to give him any solace, shoots him twice. Whether Ashton really intends to kill Doug is a matter for speculation. However, after Doug gains the upper hand and shoves the gun in Ashton’s mouth, the conflict definitely changes to being a matter of life or death. Ashton shoves Doug underwater and holds him there, presumably trying to kill him (although we later discover that Doug’s alter ego, Ferguson, survives).
At this point, the two men barely have a relationship. Doug is simply the focus of Ashton’s anger, fear, and physical violence. They are, quite literally, on different levels, and have nothing in common. Neither of them is well-disposed towards the other: when Doug returns to the real world, he tells Whitney of his intention to shut down the project - an action that would essentially kill Ashton.
It is only when Whitney dies in the program, catapulting Ashton into his body in 1999, that the two men can even hope to relate as equals. By this point in the film, Doug also knows that he is a simulation on a computer. Neither one of them, as Doug explains, is a god. Doug has no stomach for violence towards Ashton, and Ashton - almost reduced to tears by the realisation that he is still not free - makes no realistic threats. The two of them may never have managed to be friends, but by the end of the film they do at least understand one another.
Jason Whitney
Whitney and Ashton never meet in the course of the film, although they both end up inhabiting each other's bodies by virtue of the quirks of the program. However, they do have a very real relationship. The most superficial reading of the film shows that these two men have a fundamental connection - that between creator and creation. A slightly deeper investigation of this bond (or, as the film puts it, "link") suggests a firmer psychological reasoning behind Whitney's coding of Ashton's character.
One question unanswered by the film is why Whitney created Ashton. The virtual world depicted in The Thirteenth Floor seems to require that the "user" in the real world downloads into a "link unit" in the virtual world. These link units, apart from differences in haircuts, facial hair and wardrobe, appear identical to the user. This explains Ashton's appearance. It explains neither his occupation nor his personality.
We see two other user / link unit combinations in the film. Fuller's link unit is a respectable and highly moral antiques dealer named Grierson. Grierson's occupation seems fitting, since Fuller, too, is obsessed with the past. However, the two men differ considerably in their moral outlook. Fuller uses the virtual world to let him sleep with prostitutes, but Grierson has never cheated on his wife. In a similar fashion, Douglas Hall's link unit is Ferguson, a bank teller, equating with Hall's financial background. However, Ferguson is a much more extroverted character than Hall.
Ashton, however, is almost the diametric opposite of Whitney. It is difficult to see, initially, what they could possibly have in common. Ashton takes meticulous care of his appearance - Hall tells Whitney, "He's got a much better haircut than you. Much better". Ashton is clean shaven, with neat hair and dapper clothes. He has a job which requires him to be sociable and charming - the two skills Whitney most lacks. Ashton is also much more capable in a fight, overpowering Hall and almost killing him. In contrast, when Hall punches Whitney by accident, Whitney backs off and is visibly frightened.
One review of the film asked, "Is Whitney really as mellow and harmless as he appears? He didn't write his Sim character that way." Just as Fuller could fulfil his fantasies of going back to the age of his youth and having sex with beautiful women, Whitney perhaps intended to discard his shy nature and have some fun in the "role" of Ashton. It is not such a stretch of the imagination to say that the creation of Ashton is a reflection of Whitney's perfect self-image: confident, charming, and seemingly invulnerable.
USER PROTOCOLS
"This is your world? I never imagined it could be so beautiful."
I've taken a fair bit of flak for being so engaged with The Thirteenth Floor and with the character of Jerry Ashton. The trouble, of course, is that there's one 96-minute film featuring him and that - excluding interviews, production notes, and DVD extras - is pretty much it. Unlike the characters I admire in other fandoms, I can't watch Ashton develop over five or six seasons of 22 or 24 episodes each. When I stick my DVD in the player and press play, the usual response from those around me is, "haven't you already seen that a dozen times?" And, yes, yes I have. But I never get bored.
I would, of course, prefer the hours of character development that television drama usually provides. But the lack of much material leaves me with a very important benefit: questions.
The greatest favour the makers of The Thirteenth Floor did was to leave the fans with hints. Never underestimate the power of hints. Director Josef Rusnak has spoken of his frustration with the time limits of the feature film industry, and of the cuts that had to be made - after all, this was a story that could have been told over an entire novel (Simulacron-3) or a mini series (Welt am Draht). However, neither Rusnak nor D'Onofrio nor any of the other crew members tasked with bringing Ashton to the screen resorted to making him into a dull stereotype.
D'Onofrio said that his approach to his characters was "broad strokes - well thought out, hopefully, broad strokes." So we get neither undemanding cardboard cut-out characters - the bartender, the geek - nor characters who are explored so thoroughly in the course of the film that they brook no further interest. Instead, we're left with the hints.
What is Ashton's background? Is he gay? Are those fascinating rings for some purpose other than decoration? What went through his head at the end of the world? How might he have coped with the 1999 world if he had been stuck there permanently? What if he met Whitney, his creator?
I never think for a moment that there simply aren't answers to these questions. Watching the film, I've come to realise that it isn't just about the film itself - those 96 minutes of flashing images. The film is only the tip of the iceberg. I've worked in film and in theatre, however briefly, and you very quickly learn that there is always a reason for a prop being in a certain place, or a line being written as it is, or delivered in a certain way. Of course, in most films these things are explained in the dialogue, or are simply inconsequential. In The Thirteenth Floor, we notice, and we wonder.
In Ashton's case, I consider a lot of these questions through the fanfiction I write about him. My fanfiction primarily investigates his relationship with Whitney, both as creator and creation, and in a hypothetical romantic and sexual relationship. Out of necessity, much of my writing is extrapolation from the canonical facts of the film, but it does allow me to think about the character from different points of view.
I'm hard pressed to think of anyone like him: this working-class gay man with a knack for making the perfect martini who stumbles onto the greatest secret of his existence. It's a good thing he's got a sense of humour. And a gun. However, the problem with defining Ashton is the very reason that made me love him in the first place. You can never be sure that you've got the real person, the one below all those layers of fine clothes and polished exterior. Nothing is as it seems.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
FANDOM GUIDE
"The whole thing's a giant computer game?"
"No, not at all. It doesn't need a user to interact with it to
function."
General Information and Helpful Links
The Thirteenth Floor: You See Anything You Want? My fansite for the film, including interviews, production information, galleries, video and sound clips, and fanfiction.
The Thirteenth Floor: Review A review of the film by lauramerle, including some intriguing meta discussion of Vincent D'Onofrio's dual performances, and the backgrounds of the two characters.
The Thirteenth Floor @ imdb.com Good general site for information and links.
Scifi Scripts A transcript of the film. Not 100% accurate.
The Editing Room - The Thirteenth Floor A short parody script of the film.
Fanfiction
Much as I am loath to rec my own stories, at present I am the only person writing fanfiction based on the film. All of my fanfiction can be found at my website, which also includes information and articles about the film as a whole.
The introductory fic on the Whitney/Ashton pairing is:
The Other Man NC-17. A month before the events of the film, Whitney jacks into the program for the first time and finds more than he had ever dared expect.
I have also written a lengthy re-interpretation of the film from the points of view of Whitney and Ashton:
The End of the World R. Fuller is dead. Doug has returned. Jane wants to shut down the program. Whitney and Ashton's fledgling relationship is thrown into chaos. Will anything survive the end of the world?