Allegory

The 'War of the Worlds' film from 2005 can be considered a 'post 9/11 cinema'. This ic because throughout the film there are in many scenes references to the 9/11 attacks. For example during the first Tripod attack scene we are set in the suburbs of New York. This is already a signifier of the attacks as many people who lived within these suburbs would of seen the attack on the twin towers first hand, so the setting of the scene is very important as it contributes to the after effects of 9/11. During this scene when the public are trying to see all of the commotion of whats going down where the lighting's struck, we see a person trying to record the awakening of the tripod with a camcorder. This is a visual signifier to the events of 9/11 as most footage caught of the attacks were from the publics views, this is also why the majority of the scene contains low angles, again to visual signify that the footage is mainly from the publics view. Also during this scene when the alien attacks the civillians instead of big explosions they cause individuals to die by turing into grey ash. Another visual reference to the attacks, from when the towers crumbled and collapsed they released a wave of grey smoke onto the streets and this scene tries to create the same atmosphere.

The Media scene starts off when Ray walks out from the basement to see a plane engine to be facing at him and then continuing to show the crashed and destroyed plane, this is a reference that transportation such as planes can be used as destructive weapons as the plane during it's crash shows the amount of damage it's caused around itself. This reference to transportation being used as a weapon was at 9/11 again another visual reference to these devastating attacks and how much damage a plane can cause to anything. Also we're shown how much the news van (The media) keep up with recent news and all the tragic events throughout the US another reference to how quickly news spread around the world in a quick rush.