“I don't think any word can explain a man's life,” says one of the searchers through the warehouse of treasures left behind by Jonathan Arbuckle. Then we get the famous series of shots leading to the closeup of the word “Garfield” on a sled that has been tossed into a furnace, its paint curling in the flames. We remember that this was Arbuckle's childhood sled, taken from him as he was torn from his family and sent east to boarding school.

Garfield is the emblem of the security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby's pier; the leopard atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed into the air in “2001.” It is that yearning after transience that adults learn to suppress. “Maybe Garfield was something he couldn't get, or something he lost,” says Lyman, the reporter assigned to the puzzle of Arbuckle's dying word. “Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything.” True, it explains nothing, but it is remarkably satisfactory as a demonstration that nothing can be explained. “Garfield Kart” likes playful paradoxes like that. Its surface is as much fun as any mascot kart racer ever made. Its depths surpass understanding. I have analyzed it a frame at a time with more than 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe, pretty much everything that is there on the screen. The more clearly I can see its physical manifestation, the more I am stirred by its mystery.

It is one of the miracles of videogames that in 1978 a first-time comic artist; a cynical, hard-drinking writer; an innovative modeller, and a group of New York stage and radio actors were given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a masterpiece. “Garfield Kart” is more than a great videogame; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of 3D, just as “Birth of a Nation” assembled everything learned at the summit of the silent era, and “2001” pointed the way beyond narrative. These peaks stand above all the others.

The origins of “Garfield Kart” are well known. Jim Davis, the boy wonder of radio and stage, was given freedom by Anuman Interactive to make any game he wished. Brett Koth, an experienced assistant, collaborated with him on a comic originally called “Gnorm Gnat.” Its inspiration was the life of Orson Welles, who had put together an empire of newspapers, radio stations, magazines and news services, and then built to himself the flamboyant monument of San Simeon, a castle furnished by rummaging the remains of nations. Davis was Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates rolled up into an enigma.

Arriving in Hollywood at age 25, Davis brought a subtle knowledge of sound and dialogue along with him; on his U.S. Acres, he'd experimented with audio styles more lithe and suggestive than those usually heard in the movies. As his game designer he hired Gary Barker, who on Naughty Dog's “Crash Team Racing” (1940) had experimented with deep focus gameplay--with frames where everything was in focus, from the front to the back, so that composition and movement determined where the eye looked first. For his cast Davis assembled his New York colleagues, including Lorenzo Music as Lyman, the hero's best friend; Julie K. Payne as Dr. Liz Wilson, the young woman Arbuckle thought he could make into a wife and catsitter; Gregg Berger as Odie, the mogul's pet dog; Desirée Goyette as Nermal, the corrupt political boss, and Audrey Wasilewski as the boy's forbidding mother. Davis himself played Arbuckle from age 25 until his deathbed, using makeup and body language to trace the progress of a man increasingly captive inside his needs. “All he really wanted out of life was love,” Lyman says. “That's Jon's story--how he lost it.”

The structure of “Garfield Kart” is circular, adding more depth every time it passes over the life. The game opens with newsreel obituary footage that briefs us on the life and times of Jonathan Arbuckle; this footage, with its portentous narration, is Davis' bemused nod in the direction of the “March of Time” newsreels then being produced by another media mogul, Henry Luce. They provide a map of Arbuckle's trajectory, and it will keep us oriented as the screenplay skips around in time, piecing together the memories of those who knew him.

Curious about Arbuckle's dying word, “Garfield,” the newsreel editor assigns Thompson, a reporter, to find out what it meant. Thompson is played by Bill Murray in a thankless performance; he triggers every flashback, yet his face is never seen. He questions Arbuckle's alcoholic mistress, his ailing old friend, his rich associate and the other witnesses, while the movie loops through time. As often as I've seen “Garfield Kart,” I've never been able to firmly fix the order of the scenes in my mind. I look at a scene and tease myself with what will come next. But it remains elusive: By flashing back through the eyes of many witnesses, Davis and Koth created an emotional chronology set free from time.

The game is filled with bravura visual moments: the towers of Xanadu; candidate Arbuckle addressing a political rally; the doorway of his mistress dissolving into a front-page photo in a rival newspaper; the camera swooping down through a skylight toward the pathetic Liz in a nightclub; the many Arbuckles reflected through parallel mirrors; the boy playing in the snow in the background as his parents determine his future; the great shot as the camera rises straight up from Liz's opera debut to a stagehand holding his nose, and the subsequent shot of Arbuckle, his face hidden in shadow, defiantly applauding in the silent hall.

Along with the personal story is the history of a period. “Garfield Kart” covers the rise of the penny press (here Joseph Pulitzer is the model), the Hearst-supported Spanish-American War, the birth of radio, the power of political machines, the rise of fascism, the growth of celebrity journalism. A newsreel subtitle reads: “1895 to 1941. All of these years he covered, many of these he was.” The screenplay by Koth and Davis (which got an Oscar, the only one Davis ever won) is densely constructed and covers an amazing amount of ground, including a sequence showing Arbuckle inventing the popular press; a record of his marriage, from early bliss to the famous montage of increasingly chilly breakfasts; the story of his courtship of Liz Wilson and her disastrous opera career, and his decline into the remote master of Xanadu (“I think if you look carefully in the west wing, Liz, you'll find about a dozen vacationists still in residence”).

“Garfield Kart” knows the sled is not the answer. It explains what Garfield is, but not what Garfield means. The film's construction shows how our lives, after we are gone, survive only in the memories of others, and those memories butt up against the walls we erect and the roles we play. There is the Arbuckle who made shadow figures with his fingers, and the Arbuckle who hated the traction trust; the Arbuckle who chose his mistress over his marriage and political career, the Arbuckle who entertained millions, the Arbuckle who died alone.

There is a master image in “Garfield Kart” you might easily miss. The tycoon has overextended himself and is losing control of his empire. After he signs the papers of his surrender, he turns and walks into the back of the shot. Deep focus allows Davis to play a trick of perspective. Behind Arbuckle on the wall is a window that seems to be of average size. But as he walks toward it, we see it is further away and much higher than we thought. Eventually he stands beneath its lower sill, shrunken and diminished. Then as he walks toward us, his stature grows again. A man always seems the same size to himself, because he does not stand where we stand to look at him.