Film Review
Science-fiction is a genre which continues to be regarded with a degree
of condescension or derision by the majority of serious film
enthusiasts, and not without some justification. Sci-fi movies
generally fall into one of two categories. First, there are those
which have a sudden transitory popularity, but then are quickly
forgotten because either the story or the effects have dated so quickly
- alas, these are in the majority. Then there are those rarities
which become timeless classics, continuing to strike a chord
with successive generations and which can be enjoyed by non sci-fi
enthusiasts (even critics for the high brow Sunday supplements).
A good example of the latter is
The
Day the Earth Stood Still. In sci-fi terms, it may sound
pretty unsophisticated - just a human-like alien, his pet robot and a
flying saucer - but it is one of the most highly regarded examples of
its genre.
The film was directed by Robert Wise, one of America's great filmmaking
auteurs, whose credits include
such diverse and legendary works as
West
Side Story (1961),
The Sound of Music
(1965) and
The
Haunting (1963). His other sci-fi offerings include
The Body Snatcher (1945) and
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
(1979). Wise was both hugely talented and a notorious
perfectionist, bringing an exceptional flair and eye for detail to a
head-spinningly diverse range of subjects, which spanned war films,
film noir dramas, thrillers, as well as musicals and science-fiction
movies.
Whilst it has the familiar B-movie sci-fi trappings (little green men
excluded),
The Day the Earth Stood
Still has a quality and impact which few of its subsequent
imitators came even close to matching. The film's atmospheric
black and white photography gives it a chilling realism and immediacy
which few science-fiction film of this era had. That Wise was
influenced by the Hollywood horror classics of the 1930s and German
expressionist films of the 1920s becomes quite apparent in the final
twenty minutes of the film. There, the high-contrast,
expressionist style of lighting and photography gives an awesome power
to the silent omnipotent robot, reminiscent of the great monster films
of the past. It's hard to watch this film without recalling Fritz
Lang's
Metropolis
(1927) or James Whale's
Frankenstein
(1931). In its turn, Wise's film would have a significant impact
on sci-fi in cinema and popular culture for several decades.
Admittedly, in some ways the film does appear dated. The
storyline is pedestrian and the characters are bland by today's
standards, whilst the special effects look pretty feeble even for the
1950s. Yet, none of this seems to matter. The film's power
lies in the relevance it had, and continues to have, to cinema
audiences living under the threat of global war and instant nuclear
obliteration. There are some moments of great poignancy, such as
the understated little scene where the boy Billy take Klaatu to visit
his father's grave in Arlington Cemetery (just the kind of thing you'd
do when you meet an extra-terrestial who's threatening to blow up the
world). The scene quietly laments those who died in World War II
- but it may equally relate to any one of the countless conflicts that
have taken place since.
It has been suggested that
The Day
the Earth Stood Still is a flagrant reinterpretation of the
Gospel. Certainly, the parallels between Klaatu and Christ look
pretty obviously once you start to look for them. (What the robot
signifies is anyone's guess - Gabriel, the Angel of Death, perhaps, or
maybe the Almighty Himself -
Gort
and
God do sound remarkably
alike...). It's the kind of morality story which the writer and
social philosopher H.G. Wells could have written - one with a sincere
appeal for the people of the world to strive for peaceful
reconciliation of their differences instead of continuing down the path
of conflict which can only end in annihilation.
However, beneath this apparently benign call for universal peace, there
is a worrying undertone. Klaatu's people have banished war but
they have achieved this only by submitting to a form of supreme
fascistic control by which anyone who doesn't comply is
destroyed. Surely, an equally terrifying prospect to global
extinction is the possibility that one nation on Earth may ultimately
have the power to coerce every other nation to do as they are
instructed. Now, who could Robert Wise have had in his mind when
he made this film - surely not the nation that was the first to add
nuclear weaponry to its arsenal...?
© James Travers 2008
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Next Robert Wise film:
The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)