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Danse MacabreThere is a wonderful moment near the begining of George Pal's adaptation of The War of the Worlds when three men, one of whom is waving a white flag, approach the first of the alien spacecraft to land. Each of the three appears to come from a different class and a different race, but they are united, not just by their common humanity, but by a pervasive sense of Americanness which I don't believe was accidental. As they approach the smoking crater with their white flag, they evoke that Revolutionary War image we all grew up in school with: the drummer, the fifer, the flag-bearer. Thus their destruction by the Martians' heat ray becomes a symbolic act, calling up all the ideals Americans have ever fought for. The film 1984 makes a similar statement, only here (the film being largely stripped of the rich resonance George Orwell brought to his novel) Big Brother has replaced the Martians. In the Charlton Heston film The Omega Man (adapted from what David Chute calls "Richard Matheson's tough-minded, peculiarly practical vampire novel I Am Legend"), we see exactly the same sort of thing; the vampires become almost cartoon Gestapo agents in their black clothes and their sunglasses ...» |
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