CAST AWAY (mainstream film)

CAST AWAY (two words). Robert Zemeckis, dir., one of several producers. Steven Spielberg, exec. prod., uncredited. William Broyles Jr. (sic: no comma before "Jr."), script. Tom Hanks, star; Helen Hunt, featured. USA (with location shooting in Russia and near Tahiti): 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks, Image Movers, Playtone (prod.) / 20th Century Fox Film Corp., UIP (dist.), 2000 (from IMDb).

Mainstream variation on the theme of Robinson Crusoe, relevant here for defamiliarizing everyday technology by stranding a thoroughly modern, time-obsessed Federal-Express man on a very lovely but totally deserted island. A classic railroad man's watch becomes solely a picture-holder for a photo of his beloved, VHS tape becomes just tape for wrapping things, a pager is totally useless; and even as the artifacts of high-tech culture get changed, natural items get made into a solar calendar and primitive communications technology. Returning to civilization, the Tom Hanks character finds an electric fire-maker an object of mild wonder.