WEEK THREE:
THE LAST WAVE
1977
Terms:
Apocolypse: From the New Testament book of “Revelations” which contains prophesies about the end of the world. Indication is of the loss of an “old world”, and the coming of a “new one” often through a violent change. Many religions have similar concepts based on a NON LINEAL concept of time. The idea of time is often cyclical. The Inca, Maya and so on all have concepts of the “end of the world and the start of a new one”.
Australian Aborigines: Indigenous people of Australia who have been living there for about 40,000-50,000 years.
Rites of Passage or transition: A ritual or rite through which a person must go to mark a change of status. An initiation is a kind of rite of passge.
Tribal: Pertaining to a tribe – a specific level of socio-cultural integration –usually bands, tribes, chiefdoms, states.
Taxonomy: Classification
Taxonomy: A taxonomy is a classification system which is generally “nested”. The most well known is the Linnean system which gives us Genus and species (the Genus is always written with a capital letter, the species with a small letter.). Examples are Sus scrofa; Felis domestica; Homo sapiens; Tyrannosaurus rex etc.
The concept of genre (from the same stem as genus) deals with a similar problem especially in the some “genre” are considered super genres, sub genres etc. much the way one has sub families etc.
Classification of humans:
| Kingdom | animal |
| Phylum | chordate |
| Sub Phylum | vertebrate |
| Class | mammalia |
| Order | primate |
| Sub Order | catarrhine |
| Super family | hominoid |
| Family | hominid |
| Sub Family | hominine |
| Genus | Homo |
| Species | sapiens |
| Sub Species | sapiens |
Things which fall on the borderline of classifications tend to be interesting, often either telling us something about the history of the item or perhaps something of its future. Odd ball reptiles often tell us about where the reptiles came from (amphibians) or where they were headed (birds or mammals – depending on which odd ball reptile we are talking about).
Similarly genres have borders which are the most difficult places to look for the nature of the genre. War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Caught Fire and When Worlds Collide are clear examples of disasters. The world is potentially or actually destroyed in these films and the disaster is seen on screen. In Quatermass and the Pit, the disaster is evident but does not occupy much of the time of the film, which is more science fiction and possibly horror than disaster, but the unique fusing to the two with religion and science leads to interesting problems in the meaning of the film.
Last Saturday’s film, Seventh Sign, (1988) (Demi Moore, Michael Biehn, Jurgend Prochnow, director: Carl Schultz) a real apocalyptic end of the world is about to occur but is blocked. A feminist bible story in which a woman dies for her son to save the world, as opposed to the bible where God allows his son to die to save the world. The film is a convoluted reinterpretation of the bible like Frankenstein in which a man produces a “child” without a woman (parallel to the virgin birth of Christ – compare immaculate conception – in which Mary has a child without a father.)
While there are some small inklings of disasters – the fish die in the sea, the rivers run red, there is an earthquake) these are all the fulfillment of the prophesies of the real disaster yet to come – the end of the world.
Revelations or the Apocalypse, (which is both the last book of the bible as well as the last one accepted into the bible) is filled with wild imagery which plays an important role in many films. Most famous is the 666 “name of the beast” or anti-Christ which is found in revelations along with the breaking of the seven seals, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse (Four HorsemenThe Bible Four figures in the BOOK OF REVELATION who symbolize the evils to come at the end of the world. The figure representing conquest rides a white horse; war, a red horse; famine, a black horse; and plague, a pale horse. They are often called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse). and so on.
The film deals with Australian aborigines involved in a criminal justice case.
What kinds of people appear in the film? Is it typical of a disaster film?
The film, like Quatermass has been seen by many as “challenging”. Little is laid out and the audience is left trying to figure out a great deal as the film moves on. The confusion in the protagonists mind’s is often mirrored in that of the audience, the members of which are, like the characters, trying to understand what is happening. Both this film and Quatermass are often disliked by people who can not follow the story line and/or are looking for simple plot with all the loose ends tied up. Neither film does that, and in fact both (like many Kubrick films like The Shining, 2001, Eyes Wide Shut etc.) seem more interested in “exploring areas” rather than “solving” something which, in effect is insoluble.
AFTER THE FILM
1970’s is a time of “other cultureness” as it were. By the late 1960’s music from India, Zen Buddhism, and a lot of experimentation with integrating materials from other cultures into life styles here. There is a development of mysticism, New Age Religions, and interest in “primitives” as people who have mystical connections. There is a belief in alienation of people from the mystical through civilization. Use of mescaline, peyote and other psychedelic drugs from “Indians” is growing during that time. Much a precursor to “post modernism”
The linear nature of time is questioned in some form.
QUESTION: DOES THE FILM HAVE A LINER STRUCTURE?
Bone pointing – explanation later in film. Events happen with explanations later, rather than the other way around. Like mystery story – resolution at the end often goes back to show what happened.
Is there an attempt to introduce an aboriginal aesthetic into the film?
Shadows, visions, premonitory dreams (vision)
Shadows of aborigines coming after Billy
Attempt to retie Europeans into the mystical (lawyer actually Murcural)
Cultural conflict (may be a disaster on its own) between “civilization” and “primtiveness” What does it mean to be tribal? Sites etc.
Analogy with people who have “lost their sites and holy places” i.e. Westerners. Arguments about tribalness – are they really about westerners.
Bone pointing – explanation later in film
Questions about whether doctor could tell whether bone pointing was “cause of death”
(Nature of belief and symbols – can chemist tell if water is holy or not? Can geologist tell whether a piece of earth is public or private?) Throws into question western analytic techniques.
Wife is first to crack. Frightened of aborigines – why? Lack of understanding?
Special effects: water in house; hail, rains of black materials and frogs,
People in film:
1. Police
2 .Military
3. Fire department
4. Scientists
5. Religious practitioners (priests, ministers, shamans)
6. Politicians
7. Media (newspaper, radio and T.V. reporters)
8. Civilians
Criminal Justice: – lawyers, judges, some police
Miliary: none in evidence
Scientists: forensics people
Religious: aborigines traditional religious beliefs, stepfather who is a minister
Politicians – minor – perhaps petty bureaucrats.
Media: some not too important but report things
Civilians – less interesting.
SOUND
Music: Use of electronics to produce “Water drop music”. Aboriginal instruments.
Silence: lots of silences and pasues in the film.
Repetition of phrases; “Who are you?” Mesmerizing - relate to trances
Imagery
The disaster is water. The world will end in flood – not fire, not ice, not plague but water. What is the imagery of water?
How is it shown? In house, in vision, in final wave?
Storms: rain, hail, clouds. Peculiar sunshine effects on buildings contrast nature with man made things.
What does the water stand for? Birth? Association of water with birth – Noah’s Ark and flood, Iroquois World appears from water. Common sign in many but not all parts of the world.
Intiations:
What is the problem with Billy Corman? Like woman who was killed, in tribal setting he and she are uninitiated and saw sacred things only the initiated can see. David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) also uninitiated and sees sacred things, but through dreams, not by “stealing” them. No conscious effort to get into “mystery” only to understand what it means.
Is the film a Rite of Passage for Chamberlain?. Chamberlain is "reborn" as a "person of knowledge" in a spiritual sense. Are there a number of "birth" symbols in the tunnels and pipes through which he travels to the light (enlightenment) of the outside world on the beach? Is the wave his purification by water?
Rites of passage often reproduce being born into a new status or a quest for something.
Birth symbolism at end of film? Is David initiated now? Is he reborn? Is the wave the end of him and his rebirth as a “person of understanding” (See the awful “Sayings of Don Juan”)
"Primitive" vs. "Civilized"; "spiritual" vs. "materialistic"
Magic and science and primitive and modern often in opposition. Trial, weather vs. buildings. What can we make of this?
People more and more dressed in trial – aborigines with less and less. Materialism is associated with civilized – spiritualism with primitive.
Compare PRHISTORIC PEOPLE FILMS More primitive wear furs, less primitive wear cloth.
Visual look of the film:
Dark foreboding. premonitory
IS THE FINAL SCENE A VISION OR REALITY.
Will the world end? Or just David. Is he reborn?
HOW DOES THE FILM FIT AS A DISASTER FILM?
Borderline – why interesting? Like Frankenstein which borders horror and scie fi at a time when perhaps the two genre are not clear, and Quatermass which borders horror, sci fi and disaster, The Last Wave similarly combines different strains and genres to produce something more interesting and dramatic.