exam question

There are many different elements, which contrasts and relate in the two films WOTW and IOTBS. There are key messages that are taken from events that have happened in real life, they are used throughout both films to portray these events and give out a message. In the film WOTW Spielberg almost replicated many of the scenes that were taken from the terrorist attack 9/11, this was very significant in the film, and allowed the audience to relate to what was happening in the film. WOTW focused mainly on the fear of annihilation, this was apparent from very early on in the film, instead of building more on the fear of paranoia Spielberg emerges the two components of the film (humanity and the aliens) very early on. This however is very different to the film IOTBS, this film focuses more on the paranoia aspects, it slowly develops however we are aware that something unusual is taking place. The fear of paranoia was very apparent at the time of the film IOTBS, it was a time were McCarthy and his ways were infiltrated into society. And the film relates to McCarthyism through various techniques, such as the way in which he developed his followers, the pod people in the film start off as the minority but end up the majority, and it begins to ask the question to audience as to which side is the right one to take, we also start to doubt miles being the only sane person, this poses the question to the audience as to who are the protagonists, the way in which we see both sides (protagonists and antagonists) mimics how McCarthy expanded his beliefs and infiltrated them into society, in the same way we see how the pod people’s beliefs soon become the dominant ideology. The perspective of Miles allows the audience to see the opposing side, this technique shows the binary oppositions the pod people and humanity, with WOTW following the same binary oppositions except it is against aliens. Portraying the events of real life, being McCarthy and non-McCarthy, and humans and terrorists. WOTW uses lots of post 9/11 techniques, such as the iconography; in the opening attack we see it through street level camera, almost replicating the scenes captured from 9/11. This gives the scene lots of realism, which again allows the audience to relate to 9/11.