Compare Two American Films - Peter Shock

Compare how key messages and values are explored in the two American films you have studied in reflecting the period they were made.

IOTBS- Invasion Of The Body Snatches 
WOTW- War Of The Worlds

Genre
The two films I have studied are Invasion of the body snatchers (1956) and War of the worlds (2005) for the reasons of them both clearly showing underlining issues of their era. For Invasion of the body snatchers I feel that it is based around McCarthyism and his recruitment of followers to his ways of thinking. For War of the worlds I believe it is largely based on the fear and paranoia of terrorism that 9/11 created. Both are under the Genre of Sci-fi this is made very clear by the code and conventions it presents with that being something extremely common, aliens, in war of the worlds it being the 'Tripods' and in Invasion of the body snatchers it is 'The pod people' both representing a pubic enemy of that day in age In IOTBS I very strongly feel the 'the pod people' are McCarthy's follower recruiting with anyone realising and doing it so subtly no one else see's the change apart from a few who try and fight back against them but look mad as they have now become the minority. WOTW when presenting us with the 'Tripods' this was supposed to be an allegory for the terrorist in fact there was a line in the movie that says 'Is it the terrorists' making it very clear that this was intentionally done. In both of these films it is a fight between good and evil as there is in most Sci-Fi films so this also adding to the clarity of it being a Sci-Fi. There is a lot of iconography throughout also adding to the fact that they are both Sci-Fi’s for instants the supposed dominant intelligence that is a lot more evolved then ours or also a race that is much older then ours and has a lot more experience and is wiser.

Narrative
Binary oppositions stands out and a strong one is Human vs. Unknown as in both they are fighting something they have no clue about or how to fight or resolve the conflict, they are completely rely on luck and in IOTBS you never find out if they defeat the aliens where as WOTW is one which has a resolution this ending representing how America want people to see them, unbeatable and strong emotionally as seen through is broken up family regardless of them being broken up but being one which provides for his children and save me

Representation


In both we see a shift in how men and women treat each other and how dominance changed

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.