WEEK TWELVE
1959
Gregory Peck .... Cmdr. Dwight Lionel Towers, USS Sawfish
Ava Gardner .... Moira Davidson
Fred Astaire .... Julian Osborne
Anthony Perkins .... Lt. Cmdr. Peter Holmes, Royal Australian Navy
Donna Anderson .... Mary Holmes
Before the Film
Stanley Kramer is the producer/director of a number of "social issue films" including:
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Ship of Fools (1965)
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World ( ... aka It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) (USA: promotional title) (1963)
Judgment at Nuremberg (... aka Judgement at Nuremberg) (1961)
Inherit the Wind (1960)
The Defiant Ones (1958)
The Pride and the Passion (1957)
Not as a Stranger (1955)
Caine Mutiny (1954)
The Wild One(1953)
We have not discussed that genre of films called "War Films" this term, and except for the initial offering of War of the Worlds, there have been no war films shown until this week (today and Saturday when we show Things to Come 1936).
On the Beach was something of a sensation when it was released. Like the British film The War Game a TV film that was virtually blocked from being on TV because of its ability to touch on the fears of the time, On the Beach also touched some nerves.
The story, follows a disaster. Remember that one needs to consider the positioning of the disaster in the narrative. In this case the disaster occurs before the film starts although the ramifications of the disaster persist throughout the film, and indeed are the focus of the film. Just when a disaster starts and ends are often difficult to decide. Remember that in some sense we talked of disasters as single events impact negatively on the lives of large numbers of people and affecting the very fabric of society itself.
1959 is still part of the cold war period when there was a great deal of tension about the nuclear arms race. The proliferation of weapons and the knowledge of the potency of nuclear weapons (since the end of WWII when the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan) was well known. It would appear that as people grow up with such things they are less tense about them since perhaps they can not imagine a world without them.
Throughout the '50s there was a great deal of concern about how to deal with the problem and people were building atomic bomb shelters (equivalent of tornado shelters - see Blast from the Past) and there was a great deal of discussion about the problems of people being in these shelters and being attacked by people looking to take them over. Similar statements have been raised about today's police carrying masks to protect against certain chemicals and the expectation that a mob would simply take them from the police and ultimately destroy them fighting over who gets them. Children in schools were taught to "duck and cover" that is to hide under desks to protect themselves from atomic blasts. It was an age of anxiety more than an age of innocence proclaimed by movies like Pleasantville.
. One of the more important things to be aware of was that the tensions about the atomic bomb were lessening in the early 1950's, but 1954 saw the start of the testing of the hydrogen bomb. This sparked a new wave of tensions about the situation and in 1955 the book, appeared followed 4 years later in 1959 by the Kramer film.
The film is made in 1959, but takes place in 1964. There is an interesting problem here to consider about time and performance. A script, set in any time period current or past may have been written at the same time in which the play takes place, or it may be written later. In effect Our Modern Maidens is written in the 1920's about the 1920's, but Thoroughly Modern Millie is written much later but is about the 1920's. Actors, preparing to play roles in such plays have the same difficulty - that is they are either playing people who are in the period they themselves live in our in periods which are different. Finally there is a question of whether the audience sees the film at the same time it was made or not.
In effect An author in 1920 writes a play about ancient Rome which is made into a film in 1960. Assuming the author wanted to, and succeeded is creating ancietn Rome accurately, an actor in 1920 (and 1960) will have to find a way to make the audience believe they are in ancient Rome. This may take a different kind of performance for both actors. If this is done on the stage, then the audience's viewing of the play is contemporary with the actors performance. If in fact the audience is watching a film, then the viewing may well be in a time radically different than the time of the performance. These things are all relevant to how the film "holds up", or how willing the audience it to adjust to the period in which the film was made.
It is clear that the problem in "futuristic" films - even those that move only a short distance into the future, that there is one additional problem. This film, which is made in 1959 and seen by audiences in 1959 dealt with the future- 1964. After 1964, however, the film dealt with a real past. This can in many ways impact on the film's message (for example in this film, we realize that the events depicted did not materialize, so is the film wrong in its warnings?)
A quote from a Mohawk Indian may be of interest before the film. The Mohawks, an Iroquoian people, live on reservations in upstate New York and S.E. Canada. Many of the Mohawk men are high steel workers who travel back and forth each week from the reservtaion (on Sunday night) to work in NYC, Boston, BUffalo etc. during the week, and then on Friday nights drive back to the reservations. The trip is often done at high speeds with drivers who have been drinking and there are a number of accidents yielding high fatalities. When asked why they do this one of the Mohawks said "We no longer have control over our lives, but at least we still have it over our deaths". How does this relate to this film?
After the Film
The film is reasonably depressing as there is no salvation in the film. Everyone is dead. It is like Ragnarok or Goetterdaemmerung where in Norse mythology when the final cosmic conflagration occurs nothing, not even the gods are left.
However, the film basically maintains order through out. Unlike The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and When Worlds Collide where the films depict riots in the street and some breakdown of social order, this film does not. People work right through the film at their jobs. The waiter at the club is in uniform at the end of the film, and the now Admiral Towers is taking his men home in an orderly way.
The film does let people look for what they want in their last moments Julian Osborne (Fred Astair) wins his race and commits suicide in his car. Moira (Ava Gardiner) and Cmdr. Dwight Lionel Towers (Gregory Peck) go trout fishing and find love (although they part); and so on. What does one do with the last days, hours, minutes one has? There is no abrogation of responsibility here, phones are working, lights are on until the end. The film is only partially about this aspect of the problem, in the way that it is also showing some of the concomitant problems of lack of gasoline (return to horse and buggy) etc.
The film also 'justifies" suicide - a something that was not approved of as something to show in films. Yet the film has at least 4 suicides, and the "murder" of a child by its parents which are done by sympathetic characters who are not "blamed" in the film.
Blame
How does the film handle blame? What caused the war? Not important. What is important in the film is that it happened. A mistake? scientists? military? DOes the film offer a solution relative to how to defend one's self without an arms race? Is it typical of such films to be critical, but not helpful?
Blame seems less important than "hope" which the film equates with "self delusion". Do we "hope" that people will resolve their issues and prevent this disaster or is this "self delusion"?
Check Ibsen's play The Wild Duck for a look at the importance of self decption in life.
Consider also the line from Gozzi's play Trandot (later made into an opera by Puccini) that says "Yes, hope that always deludes you".
What does the film have to say about "hope" and "self deception" or delusion? How is this shown in the characters (Mary, Towers etc. in their attitude toward things?)
Social statuses
The film deals very little with the normal cast of characters. The media are virtually absent. Religion appears only briefly. This is not a film about a disaster to the social fabric in terms of a tear or a rip, but its total destruction.
Timing
The film runs 2 hours and 15 minutes. The first view of the sailors headed to check out the cloud occurs one hour and seven minutes, half way through the film. Of the final 67 minutes roughly one half (31 minutes) are spent on the trip with the sub. The remaining half is back in Australia. The film in effect divides in half and then into quarters in the last half.
The film is cyclical. It begins and end with the sub in the film. In the opening shots it rises from the water, in the closing it submerges. In the course of the film t completes another cycle, from Australia to Pt. Barrow in Alaska and back. Even further back, before the film starts it leaves the US and as the film ends it is headed back that way. Do these cycles represent evolutionary moves of things appearing and disappearing?
Photography:
Shots of empty San Francisco and San Diego
Close-ups of faces looking through the periscope showing deserted San Fransisco.
Perspective: Lines that come together in the distance give feelings of great 3 dimensional depth (standard in recent painting). Streets narrowing to the horizon with no sign of life.
High angle shots showing great expanses of deserted space (compare ...28 days later).
the walk through the dock area of San Diego looking for the "telegrapher" who is a kind of hope that someone might still be alive lead to increase depression that no one has ben saved.
Large number of "two shots" with couples almost constantly in the frame.
Dwindling numbers of people are religious rally - not from lack of interest but more from deaths of people. Final time we see the place of the rally it is empty
Final shots of totally empty streets now showing that there is no one left at all. Fallen sign post and paper blowing in the wind. The final shot, way over the top, of the sign "There is Still Time...Brother" leaves little doubt that the film has a "message".
Sound:
There are several mechanical sounds which play a role in the film: the horn from the submarine, and especially the sound of the telegraph. What purpose is served by using these?
Music:
Waltzing Matilda as primary music is an extremely popular Australian song that deals with a "swagman" - a man who carries his belongings rolled up in a bag and his adventures (largely stealing a sheep, getting caught at it and vowing not to be caught alive. The song ends with his ghost singing "Waltzing Matilda by the billa-bong or water hole in the dry bed of a river, by a Collibah or Eucalyptus tree). Some people thought might become the national anthem from the country. The choice of the music auditorily locates the film in the southern hemisphere and particularly, Australian. The text is full of Australian dialect terms not well known outside of Australia. The ghostly imagery at the end of the song has implications for the death of the human race.
Verse I:
Once a jolly swagman camped beside a bilabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy* boiled
"You'll come a waltzing Matilida with me"
Chorus:
Waltzing Matilida, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy* boiled
"You'll come a waltzing Matilida with me"
Verse IV:
Up jumped the swagman; sprang into the billa bong
"You'll never catch me alive"said he.
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billa-bong
"You'll come a watzing Matilda with me".
Chorus
Waltzing Matilida, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billa-bong
"You'll come a watzing Matilda with me".
*billy = a tin can used as a kettle
Film is a long "death scene" for human race. Its is prolonged and protracted to give it more impact. It asks both "What would one do knowing that not only are they going to die, but this is the end of humanity?" The answer is a peaceful people living out their own last desires - a nasty contrast to the "bellicose" people who presumably fought the war that destroyed everyone. Yet even those warlike people probably reacted from feeling of threat which may not have even been there. Relative to the 5,000,000 years people have been on Earth, a five month death scene isn't overly long!