"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"
I've discussed with Richard Leigh and Heather Bertrand why I regard the movie "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" so highly. I'm sure there are many cinephiles who would agree with me that it is a remarkable movie in the field which we would class as "sci-fi".
Now this field, sci-fi, like any other field of human activity, embraces many different styles and qualities. Heather has said she doesn't care for the "cowboys in space" version of sci-fi and I agree with her in that judgment.
Sci-fi ranges for me from really dark territory to really light and flippant territory. It is often dytstopean as if "mourning for the future"! It has so many recurring themes such as time travel, revisiting a past time to prevent an event occurring in our present time. Or the invasion of the Earth by beings from "outer space" whether these creatures might be from Mars, or much further out, e.g., Planet X or Andromeda.
It also includes creatures which originate from the Earth itself as in transmogrifications resulting from nuclear experiments gone wrong.
It also includes those wonderful "medical" sci-fi works which got a huge kick-off from Mary Shelley Woolstoncraft's "Frankenstein", creating new life out of dead bodies.
But who was the real monster? The good doctor Victor, or his creation?
I'm not going to try and list all the various categories of sci-fi, the purpose of this post is to bring to mind "Invasion of The Body Snatchers" (Dir. Don Siegel) 1956
This film is available to hire or purchase through Amazon Prime, but here's a link to a free source, and free download:
https://archive.org/details/invasionofthebodysnatchers1956_201911
This link may not provide a high quality copy of what I recall as beautiful stark, crisp, B&W cinematography.
I'm not going to discuss all the attributes of this film, they have been well covered in many sources.
This is meant as nothing more than an invitation for any of our friends to view and discuss it via comments.
It is also a request for you to consider selecting any movie which you would like to put up for discussion.
At this stage I'm thinking "sci-fi" but some of you might not care to limit yourselves to that field.
So let's say, any movie which you would like to put forward as being most important/significant/formative to you in you filmviewing experience.
Have fun!
pt
Are Zombies 'scifi' or horror? Dystopian usually...
ReplyDeleteIt's a good question Fred, I had not thought about the Zombie class of films, but they could be seen as in the same vague territory as Frankenstein or other "re-vivify" films. And in discussions with Heather yesterday the question came up about films which might include natural disasters such as locust plagues, attacks on humans by other species, e.g., ants, birds. Is Hitchcock's "The Birds" a sci-fi film? My own working definition is that anything which examines reality from "hypothetical" point of view, might qualify... here's one: Franju's film "Eyes Without A Face"... when it was created transplants of faces had not at that stage been carried out successfully,
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_Without_a_Face
and no heart transplants had then been done. So I think the definition of sci-fi is incredibly wide Fred. I also think it goes over to the schlock-horror genre, so that could include Zombie films.
pt
The definition of what constitutes a sci-fi film does tend to be very personal, and it certainly crosses into both horror and mythology for me. The best sci-fi both written and film takes something from our known science and explores its limits/consequences, often from a moral point of view, I can't pick just 1 film for this, but lets take Forbidden Planet which is essentially the Dr Jeckle/Hyde story with a twist. So is it horror or sci-fi. The action takes place from a spaceship and on a planet other than Earth, so I guess its sci-fi. but its still just a love story with a father who doesn't want to let go, lots of Fruedian psychology and a coming of age story.
ReplyDeleteAnd its far from a new idea, as I said its obviously based on Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. But its still a powerful film with a message about the risks of going too far with science and things we don’t really understand yet. Sci-fi is a genre that allows us to examine and explore the consequences of our science and actions on life as we know it. So it has endless possibilities.
Heather
Thanks you for that Heather, much appreciated. I tried to write a response but lost the whole bit I wrote owing to a bug which has caused me to change passwords for my Gmail account.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I agree with much that you have written. Yes, another version of Jekyl/Hyde, yes another movie which crosses over from kitsch and futurism to mythology, the Professor is like a king, his daughter is like a princess, the Planet is a "psycho machine " which taps into the subconscious of some of its "visitors" and the "realised" dreams of those persons become expressions of nightmarish revenge in the real world. And of course there's also Robby the Robot who can make the crew alcoholic drinks in glass bottles "out of nothing". You have summarised the genre very well in your last statement: "that allows us to examine and explore the consequences of our science and actions on life as we know it. So it has endless possibilities." I'm glad that we have started this discussion Heather and I'm hoping it will draw some comments from other friends.
As I stated prevously via email, I welcome any of you who may like to create a whole blog about a particular film, or a group of films. Just send me an email and I'll enable a blog page for you.
ReplyDeletept