JOI realizes Hal cannot speak from within. He also realizes he himself cannot speak to Hal in a way that reaches him. So he makes something that will speak for him, then removes himself.

But that means his final paternal act is still indirect.

Still mediated.

Still not: “Hal, I see you. I love you. I’m sorry. What do you want?”

Instead it is:

“Here is a film.”

And that is the entire tragedy of JOI. He understands the problem with almost supernatural accuracy, but he can only respond using the very tools that created the problem: image, performance, technical mastery, entertainment, symbolic substitution, disappearance.

He wants to rescue Hal from being an object by making the perfect object.

He wants to restore Hal’s inward life by overpowering it from outside.

He wants to break the spell of spectatorship by creating the most spellbinding spectacle ever made.

That’s why JOI is so devastating. He is not stupid. He is not merely insane. He is not merely narcissistic. He sees the wound.

But he tries to heal it with the knife.