Introductions

This episode we are going to be looking at the 2006 film Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuarón (qwar-on, lol). This episode will include spoilers, so if you’re itching to watch the film and haven’t yet, I suggest you do so before listening. 🙂

Episode Goals

First, let’s refresh our memory on the basic narrative of the film, as well as go over some key plot points and themes. Next, we’ll give a bit of historical and production context, then go into a bit of analysis on some particular scenes from the film, and talk about why these contexts are matter to the film as a whole

Narrative Summary

• Briefly summarize the story. What is the opening scene/situation? How does the story develop? What happens at the end of the film? What are the three most important scenes in the film? Why? What is/are the main theme(s) in the film? What scene constitutes the climax? Does the film leave any disunities (loose ends)? If so, what does that suggest?

– In the year 2027, all women have become infertile due to unknown causes, resulting in a world where no children have been born for 18 years. Britain has become one of the only remaining civilized societies, leading to a huge wave of immigration that resulted in the nation ‘s violent, militant state placing immigrants in inhumane refugee camps.

-Theo, an ex activist, once again finds himself involved with the dangerous revolution against these harsh immigration policies, to try and save the last pregnant lady on earth, in hopes of delivering  her and her infant to an unknown program that may be able to  find a way to bring children back into the world. Throughout the film, we watch as Theo loses everyone close to him in his efforts to deliver this woman, only for he himself to die just before the woman and her child make it to their destination.

Personally I would say the most important scenes in the film are:

-LONG TAKE  Julian was killed in the beginning, her last words were “cover kee”, I think this moment specifically really set up the world around them. There is no guarantee these characters are going to make it to their goal, or even stay alive. The film is set in a world where every moment is dangerous, and everything is so unpredictable that death looms over them all constantly. Julian’s death emphasises this, you cannot be attached to the characters as individuals. There is a common theme of Theo leaving behind or losing everyone that is important to him, or has the potential to be later on. (Lady and the boat for example, Jasper)

-after Kee gives birth, which seems like an obviously important moment. Though more important than that I think is just after, when the resistance takes Kee and the baby despite the obvious danger they are putting them in. It shows the desperation of these people, since they are willing to risk the life of the most important and simultaneously helpless person in the world. (The baby Dylan)I would definitely say this is the climax of the film, as not only is this the most important plot event, but the intensity and energy in this scene is much more dramatic than any other point in the film. Especially as the people fighting saw the child they fell into awe, some even started praying, (Theme hope)

-Finally, I would say the ending scene,  Theo dies just before the boat comes to hopefully take Kee away, just after she tells him she will name the baby Dylan.( I loved that detail, as Theo lost a son named Dylan, and that little element gave Theo’s character some resolution before he died, since he couldn’t save his own Dylan, he saved this baby  Dylan, who can help fix the world that . ). The ending was so striking to me, I think the open ended nature of the films ending is important for the overall themes of loss and hope and being able to move on despite the difficulties. In a way, this lack of resolution felt almost like closure. Seeing Theo finally die, as he had to watch so many of his loved ones go throughout the course of the film sort of spun that theme of loss into one of optimism and hope as a result of the hardships faced by the characters.

Cultural and Historical Background

• Where is the story set? When is the story set? Is the setting important for the development of the main theme(s)?

The film is set in the year 2027, this future setting is important to the storyline as it shows that this infertility plague they have been dealing with has been going on for a while, but is still close enough to the time the film was released in 2006 that the setting looks is similar to the world as it did at the time of its release, but with a dystopian twist as the world had fallen into  a violent, warlike state with some elements of futuristic technology.

• When was the film released? Which events, philosophies, etc. influence this film, and what do we need to know about them?

The film was released in 2006, and though it is based on the 1992 novel of the same name, the terroristic and war  elements of the film seem influenced by contemporaneous world events,  such as the Iraq war and the several London terrorist bombings in the year before the films release.

One of the heaviest elements about this film is the topic of immigration, many of the visuals in the film are symbolic imagery of events such as the holocaust, this idea reinforced by a particular scene in which an eldery, German speaking immigrant woman is held in a cage packed with other refugees. The means by which the immigrants are hunted, detained, and even killed is allusive to the round up methods implemented by Nazis.

• What do you know about the culture or society for which this film was created?

The culture and society at the time of the film’s release.

• Are social ideologies, historical events, personal experiences, etc. influencing the film?

Production Context

• What studio produced the film? How did the come to this idea?
• Strike Entertainment and Hit and Run Productions produced the film. The film was distributed by Universal Studios. Directed byAlfonso Cuarón, the story is based off of the 1992 novel by the same name, written by P.D. James. (Full name is Phyllis Dorothy James.)
• What was the film’s budget? Where did funding come from? Did it have a large or small production crew? How/where was the film exhibited?
• The film had a budget of 76 million USD. The funding came mainly from Universal, as they would be the ones to receive the bulk of the revenue once it was released. As a feature film that was expected to reach audiences internationally, the difficult and highly stressful content, and the plethora of violence and casting, the film had a fairly numerous production team. The film premiered at the 63rd Venice Film Festival on September 3rd 2006. It was widely released in the UK, and within the month it was number one in theaters, and had grossed 2.4 million USD and had 368 screenings. It was released in the U.S. initially in only 16 theatres, in December of 2006, and had expanded to 1,200 theaters by January. By February of 2008 it had grossed $69,612,678 globally, with a revenue of  $35,352,383 to the U.S.  Although these numbers sound incredibly high, it was unfortunately considered a box office flop as the studio didn’t reach the expected revenue and lost money on the film.
• How was the film received when it was released? (nationally and internationally)
• Even though monetarily the film wasn’t that successful, the acclaim was. Rotten tomatoes rated the film 92% with the reviews of 247 critics. It was rated by numerous sources such as the NYT, the Independent, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Slate, the Washington Post, and Rolling Stone as either number one or two for best film of the year, and several as best film of the decade. Additionally, many sources have revisited this film today and stress the relevance and importance of the themes and style in our current political state nationally and globally. The film was nominated for 3 academy awards, (Best cinematography, adapted screenplay, and film editing.) It was nominated for 3 and won 2 BAFTA awards, for cinematography and best production design. The film has aged incredibly well, and is still considered by many to be painfully relevant. Here is a quote from Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (who ranked it number 2 on his list of best films of the decade): “I thought director Alfonso Cuarón’s film of P.D. James’ futuristic political-fable novel was good when it opened in 2006. After repeated viewings, I know Children of Men is indisputably great … No movie this decade was more redolent of sorrowful beauty and exhilarating action. You don’t just watch the car ambush scene (pure camera wizardry)—you live inside it. That’s Cuarón’s magic: He makes you believe.”
• Which genre/tradition does the film belong to?
• The film is considered to be a dystopian action thriller, but it feels like a sincere distant reality.

Individual Close Readings

Lost ya again but invited you back I| It looks like it still isnt recording   i paused it when you disconnected can u see the invite?

Choose a scene from the film (preferably, each group member chooses a different scene). How does this scene illustrate the main idea of the film? How/Does this scene reflect the social and historical circumstances from which the film was made?

Strawberry Cough Scene- Theo and Jasper smoking a joint and Jasper starts making a joke about the human project. Theo goes off about the project and how hopeless the world is no matter how hard they try to fix it. The part I want to highlight though is very very small, but Jasper begins talking about government handing out suicide kits and anti-depressants, but cannabis is illegal. Then goes on to say one of the buyers of his product is an immigration officer that smuggles it into a refugee camp despite his position and it being an illegal act. At the time of the film’s release, cannabis was still mostly illegal as well.

Final scene in the film: The ending scene in which Theo and Kee finally make it to the boat is one of the most impactful scenes for me. They have escaped the chaos of the riots and military warfare but are now on a tiny boat surrounded by fog. You can sort of make out the boat in the distance, but the sheer isolation of Kee and her child (especially when Theo dies) makes for a unique ending. We never see her get on the rescue boat, and the fate of Kee and the child rests uncertain, but hopeful.

• Based on the historical factors that you identified above – political, economic, religious, social, ideological – how does the film reflect the factor that you identified?

To me, this is not only  a parallel to life before and at the time of the film’s release, where people in certain positions still hold their own agenda and are not fully consumed by their jobs or the acts their job has them do. But also highlights this fact early on that a lot of people in the film are not who they say they are, and some have alternative motives to what you may think. Like Luke and his position with the resistance.

• Does the scene/film attempt to reflect historical events? Does it attempt to promote a particular idea? If so, how does the scene impact the viewer’s understanding of those historical events or that idea? If we’re looking at this film in a historical sense, no it does not directly relate to a specific event that has happened in the past. However, this film feels uncannily familiar. There is nothing that is mystical or far fetched about it. The reaction humanity has to becoming unable to reproduce is extremely realistic. The chaos and inhumanity unfortunately is something I think we’re all very accustomed to in  a sense. The intense military presence and mistreatment of refugees is something that is happening in this world today.
• What does the film tell us about the historical period with which it deals? This is a unique question for this film as it is technically set in the future. But the history of the world is still present in the film. It is historically accurate as the viewer is left to assume that the reality of the film prior to women becoming infertile is identical to ours, and the reaction humankind has is indeed very human.
• What does the film tell us about the period in which it was made/released? The early 2000s were a strange and scandalous time for politics. In the U.S. there was of course 9/11 which shook the entire world. There were also massive immigration protests due to a new change of bill that would penalize illegal immigrants in a more forceful way. This is in the US and the story is set in Britain, but there is a universal theme here of the concept of an “alien” and the mistreatment and fragility of mankind.
• Does this film hold up as a piece of historical analysis?

 

Contagion Podcast Notes

Quinn Janes

Troy Munson

Luca Porzio

Paul Espey

Intro- 1 Minute

Episode Goals- 30 seconds 

Narrative Summary- 2-3 minutes

Cultural background- 10 minutes 

Historical Background- 10 minutes

Production context 8-10 minutes

Close Readings 5 min each x4=20 minutes 

Total Length: 45 min-1 hour 

Intro’s-1 minute 

Episode Goals- 30 sec

Narrative Summary 2-3 min

• A brief summary of contagion is, a novel virus of unknown origins with a high infection rate, infecting more each day and killing more people in the process, we follow key characters and their involvement in trying to stop the disease. The film opens with a black screen “Day 2” and we go to an airport bar with patient zero, Gweneth Paltrow, she is coughing and clearly visually ill. The camera makes a point to focus on the things she has been touching to focus on the spread of the disease she carries. The story unfolds simultaneously as the events of the disease unfold and we track the main events of the disease’s path, we follow the scientists struggling to come up with an effective virus while the public breaks out in anarchy looting and raiding. The film ends with an effective virus in production and slowly being distributed, the final sequence shows precisely how humans came into contact with the disease.  Three most important scenes of the movie are: 1) When the scientist in San Francisco played by Elliot GOuld goes against government protocol and begins testing the new virus in a lower level security testing center for diseases, but his deficiency inevitably helps put the CDC on a fast track to creating a vaccine for the disease, without him getting the vaccine would have taken longer. 2) When the CDC scientist whose soul job in the movie has been to find a vaccine for this virus, in a moment of desperation she self tests one of the many vaccines on herself, and it turns out successful resulting in an effective vaccine to be put in production for the public. 3) When Kate Winslet gets sick Bryan Cranston tells Laurence Fishburne he cannot fly back the doctor that flew out to deal with the virus’s aftermath in the special cdc plane because they are using it on a sick congressman and are closing airports after. May not be the most pivotal to the narrative but this scene tells a lot about how the government operates. Main themes are virus outbreak at an expedient rate due to global reachability and modern technology, shown in first 20 min of movie as Paltrow gets people sick in china, chicago, and minneapolis when she finally gets home.As well as the effect of mass media on events like these, especially unchecked blog sources. Climax is when she self tests the virus on herself. A couple loose endings would be what made Matt Damon immune to a novel disease (not possible), and did Jude Law ever truly have the virus.

Cultural and Historical Background-10 minutes

• The story is set all across the world in 2011. The setting is important in that it’s set 2 years after the H1N1 outbreak. One of the main themes is the influence that the media creates in regard to panic and pandemics.  This is important because many people believed the CDC overreacted to H1N1, which sets up the whole Forsythia storyline.
• The film was released in September of 2011. The director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns were inspired by pandemics such as the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and the 2009 flu pandemic. All we really need to know about these outbreaks is the widespread panic that they caused when they surfaced and the precautionary measures many people took during those times.
• The film wasn’t specifically targeted to a group of individuals, but rather was made as sort of a warning and a depiction of what is actually possible and how a pandemic could realistically play out.
• As previously stated past historical viruses and pandemics influenced this film and contributed to the accuracy of the events and people depicted in it. The writer of the film, Scott Z. Burns, also states that he had done research on pandemics six months prior to the 2009 flu pandemic and that the outbreak was “really helpful” to his studies, because it provided a glimpse of the societal apparatus following the onset stages of a pandemic. Burns also thought that it was very important to depict how society handles the situation of a pandemic and not just the virus itself.

Production Context-8-10 min

Contagion was not shot in a traditional studio setting due to director Steven Soderbergh’s directions to utilize location shooting to increase realism. Production companies such as Participant Media, Imagenation Abu Dhabi, and Double features Films were involved in the making. Steven Soberbergh wanted to make this film as realistic and convincing as possible, so he opted to shoot at specific locations within multiple different countries as opposed to recreating those places with inadequate sets. Major filming locations ranged across multiple countries such as China, the US, the UK, Switzerland, and Morocco. Specific, noteworthy filming locations include the Jumbo floating restaurant, the Princess Margaret Hospital, the CDC of Atlanta, the Hong Kong International Airport, O’Hare International Airport and Midway Airport in Chicago, Illinois.

The film’s Budget was 60 million dollars,and the production crew was quite large. The main contributors were Zakaria Alaoui as the line producer for the Casablanca location, Chen On Chu the line producer for the Hong Kong location, Jonathan King, Michael Polaire, Jeff Skoll and Ricky Strauss as executive producers. Additional producers such as Gregory Jacobs, Michael Shamberg, and Stacey Sher contributed greatly. Additionally, there were 15 members of the production management crew and many other assistants and technicians to make the production run smoothly, and put less pressure on the actual filmmaker. Also, the director Steven Soderbergh hired many workers for set decoration, costume design, makeup, art, sound, and special and visual effects to ensure the highest quality and ease of shooting.

Contagion was originally premiered on September 3, 2011 at the 68th Venice International Film festival in Venice, Italy. The film was made available to International markets the same week as the American release although revenues were fairly stagnant internationally until it reached multiple additional foreign markets which it became popular in. International grosses totaled $60.8 million, and notable markets were the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy. In the United States and Canada, Contagion was shown in 3,222 theaters, of which 254 screenings occurred at IMAX venues. On it’s first day in the US, September 9th, it made a tremendous 8 million, and 23.1 million for the entire weekend, in which 2.3 million or 10% came from IMAX screenings, becoming the highest-grossing film of the week. During the second week following release in the US and Canada, Contagion did well, generating 14.5 million box office revenues, but came in second to the re-release of the Lion King. In following weeks sales declined drastically, resulting in the removal of screenings in over 500 theaters nationally. The film completed all theater screenings on December 15, 2011 capping out at $75.6 million domestic gross. This obviously doesn’t include sales of physical and digital copies, merch, streaming service loans, and other related products. In addition to theater revenues, Contagion also did fairly well in selling physical copies. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North American on January 3, 2012 and in the United Kingdom on March 5, 2012. In the first week following release, the film topped the DVD chart with 411,000 copies sold, bringing in $6.16 million. It also topped the Blu-Ray charts selling 274,000 copies for $4.93 million. Much like the theaters experienced, after the first week sales declined drastically, by over 50%. By July of 2012, Contagion has made $12.01 million from DVD/Blu-ray sales, selling a total of 802,535 copies. Although DVDs are not the mainstream form of media these days, streaming sites such as iTunes, Warner Bros, HBO now and piracy websites have all seen substantial increases in viewing of this film amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. By March of 2020, Contagion was ranked the 7th most popular film on iTunes, Warner Bros had it listed as number two in popularity compared to 270th in December, 2019. HBO now even reported Contagion as their most viewed film for two consecutive weeks recently. Piracy sites have saw increases of daily activity of around 5600% compared the previous month.

Overall, the film received a large majority of positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes said that 85% of critics gave a good review and average score was 7 out of 10. Many film analysts said the film felt “serious, frightening, smart, and spooky.” In the wake of this global COVID-19 pandemic, Contagion has experienced a lot of recent viewings and comments, some even saying that this film predicted the current crisis we are living in today. But regardless of what you believe, the scientists involved in developing the story, along with the similarity of the Covid-19 and the virus depicted in Contagion, is quite coincidental 10 years after the filming took place. Some say scientists predicted this and were trying to warn society, but people do not realize, understand and/or care enough to make change until it directly impacts their lives.

This film falls into the Thriller/Drama genre of movies, although it is action packed and veers away from classical Thriller themes using unrealistic, almost Science fiction elements to over dramatize and get a point across. Specifically, this is a Disaster film, with implicit drama messages and a thrilling soundtrack and acting to make the viewing of it intense but also seem realistic. Additionally, this film is scientifically backed and many film critics are impressed by its blend of reality and disaster.

Individual Close Readings 5 min each, 20 min

• Choose a scene from the film (preferably, each group member chooses a different scene). How does this scene illustrate the main idea of the film? How/Does this scene reflect the social and historical circumstances from which the film was made?
• Based on the historical factors that you identified above – political, economic, religious, social, ideological – how does the film reflect the factor that you identified?
• Does the scene/film attempt to reflect historical events? Does it attempt to promote a particular idea? If so, how does the scene impact the viewer’s understanding of those historical events or that idea?
• What does the film tell us about the historical period with which it deals?
• What does the film tell us about the period in which it was made/released?
• Does this film hold up as a piece of historical analysis?

Individual Close Reading – Troy

The scene I chose to analyze was the scene of one of the doctors getting a drink at a bar very early on in the movie (around the 34 minute mark). This scene is relatively short but I think it very effectively illustrates the main idea of this film which is panic and the way a disease can rapidly spread if people aren’t precautious. In this scene the doctor notices all the other people in the bar coughing into their hands and then touching glasses, food, and their faces. This instils an obvious feeling of panic in the doctor before he decides to leave. This scene reflects the social and historical circumstances from which the film was made because it was inspired by previous viruses like SARS and the 2009 Flu Pandemic.This film reflects the social historical factor because this is very similar to how people acted during the SARS outbreak but to a lesser degree. I don’t believe the film tries to specifically reflect historical events rather it tries to make its own story with inspiration from previous events like the aforementioned SARS outbreak. However I do feel like this scene mimics events that are happening right now as people are a lot more apprehensive around people who are coughing. For example one of my friends had to go to a dentist appointment recently and he coughed so they just sent him home and wouldn’t see him at all. I don’t think it necessarily promotes a particular idea because both sides of the arguments are seen in the movie, there are the seemingly overcautious people who don’t want to come in contact with anyone and there’s also the conspiracy theorists who think the virus is a hoax and that the CDC has the cure for it and won’t give it out. This film tells us that the historical period with which it deals a lot of the people in that time didn’t really listen to the warnings about the virus. I thought this had to do with the fact that social media doesn’t really have a presence in the movie and since its set in 2011 social media didn’t really have the reach and impact that it does today. I feel like especially now, social media is one of the biggest ways people get information rather than watching the news so with the absence of that, it isn’t taken as seriously and people are less informed. I think this movie does hold up as a piece of historical analysis because we are even using this movie to compare it to the pandemic we are in currently so it is still relevant.

 

Individual Close reading Quinn-

The ending scene in Contagion shows the origin of the virus for the first time, makes many connections that were not specifically addressed previously and imposes an intrinsic warning to society. Bulldozer sounds are heard destroying trees that are bat habitat. The same bats migrate, continuing to eat and excrete fruit, dropping it into a pig pen, where one of the pigs is then shown eating the fruit. The next shot shows the infected pig being prepared by a chef who does not wash his hands after preparing the pig; the chef is then shown shaking Beth Emhoff’s hand. Beth becomes the first person to contract the virus and consequently dies from it. The scene continues by showing how the virus spreads incredibly quickly throughout the world. This scene encapsulates the major events that take place in the film, but also directly portrays the message of how dangerous and fatal poor human choices can have on the world as a whole. This film makes references to social and historical circumstances such as the Spanish flu, although I think it is more important to look at this scene and movie as a scientifically accurate warning and overdramatized situation in which people can learn from. As coincidental as it may seem, the final scene of this movie reflects how the novel coronavirus is thought to have originated, from bats infecting livestock in Wuhan, China. I think most importantly, this movie is attempting to make a direct connection between ill-advised human activity and major world epidemics. Dr. McNamara, a professor at the Western University of Health Sciences in California, who also helped discover the West Nile virus of 1999, helped in developing the plot to ensure it stayed factually accurate and realistic.  This was something that director Steven Soderbergh was tenacious and adamant upon carrying out for the duration of the film. Dr. McNamara said “‘There have been many Hollywood movies that are so catastrophic, they’re easy to dismiss, but this one is now sticking with people because it really is mirroring what we are seeing now.” In response to the Covid-19 epidemic, and recent popularity of Contagion due to the coronavirus epidemic. This is important because it emphasizes the importance of ethical human choices as well as showcasing the detrimental effects that can arise over time with poor choices. In addition, it also reiterates the idea of how delayed governmental and human action is, especially when they are not directly affected. McNamara also says, “At least in the US, I think that the reason why there hasn’t been change is because we haven’t been personally impacted.” Which is potentially why the US has handled the initial spike of the coronavirus so poorly and the rapid de-civilization and purging that occurs in COntagion. People are finally being affected personally hence, they are looking to find answers to their questions and with this film being so scientifically accurate and relatable to the current situation we are living in, people are realizing the impact this epidemic could have if not dealt with in a reasonable, effective manner. This film will definitely continue to be used as a method of historical analysis. I think the director was able to very effectively portray the result of insecurity and survival as well. This results in the very dramatic, intense portrayals of a collapsed political and social system. I feel as though society needs to be searching for more sustainable daily practices and ways to moderate human activity and decrease the probability of major health crises’ occurring, as well as speaking up and standing against corrupt governmental and political systems. Scientists have been warning society about the probability of global epidemics for over 20 years, but it has reached the point where intervention and change is critical to maintain the health of society and our earth. In conclusion, regarding both the film and today’s epidemic, in addition to the idea of ethics and human activity, we also see the dramatic result of poorly managed political and governmental systems which should serve as a image of what our own society could become if we continue to go about our daily lives without concern for our environment and the longevity of earth. Again, I think this film is most useful as a warning to people that are ignorant towards lockdowns and social distancing, our only solution to preventing the collapse of public health systems.

Works Cited 

https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/09/contagion-scientific-expert-reveals-last-five-minutes-film-crucial-warning-show-easily-viruses-can-spread-12533692/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/

 

Introductions: 

Hello welcome to the End of World Podcast these are your host: Athena Boysen, Cobie Conger, Kenize Mayhack, and Aisha Ruzicka

Intro the film Soylent green director Richard Fleischer, distributed by MGM 1973 

We are here to explain how soylent green is people.

Episode goals: Good time! To inform the audience about a classic film which stays every pressingly relevant. Also create human interaction in these troubling times.

 

Summary: 

• Year 2022 
• After overpopulation and pollution causes climate disaster 
  • Creates lack of resources (food)
• Society becomes divided (class system )
  • Wealthy higher up officials can afford real food 
  • Others are left with soylent supplements 
    • Newest supplement is soylent green which is said to be made of plankton
• After the release of soylent green one of the board members of the soylent company is assanisted 
  • Made to look like a murder 
• Detective Frank Thorn is put on case to check out what’s wrong 
  • • There he meets Shirl ( a woman who is referred to as furniture ) and the bodyguard 
  • With the help of his elderly friend Sol, who is a data analyst, they continue to search for suspects and clues as to why the board member was killed 
    • Even after the governor told him to drop the case 
      • In order to prevent Thorn from finding out the truth the assassin attempts to kill him during a riot, but the assassin is killed by the scoop.
• Throughout the case he begins a relationship with Shirl who aids in giving him information into what her and the board member did before he died 
  • • This leads Thorn to the priest as he continues his investigation 
      • The priest then is murdered in order to try and stop Thorn in his investigation 
  • Roth takes the two volumes of oceanographic reports to the supreme book exchange, where it is confirmed there is no plankton in the oceans anymore, It is inferred that it is made of some inconceivable protein. 
  • Sol then decides that life has changed too much and he goes to the euthanization center. 
  • Thorn follows Sol but is too late to save him, he watches the screen with Sol, as Sol dies peacefully.
  • Thorn jumps onto the garbage truck looking truck, and goes to the recycling plant
  • There Thorn finds out that Soylent is made out of people
  • He is caught and is chased by the guards of the Soylent factory and is shot
  • He goes church and is badly injured screaming the truth of soylent green
  • The movie ends on Thorn in a stretcher yelling about Soylent green is people. We are left to infer if Thorn dies or not. 

 

Historical and Cultural background 

Setting and Time of the film

• The film is set in futuristic apocalyptic 2022, in New York city.  
• 2022, was far away but it always gave them a close and urgent timeline
• New york city is a growing city known for its crowded streets is given a darker twist in this apocalyptic film about overpopulation.

The release of the film. Events, philosophies influenced the film

• Soylent Green was first released in may 9, 1973

• Concerns about overpopulation in the 60s (world pop. reached 3 billion) Times jan 11,1960 magazine the population explosion. 
•  Greater concerns of the environment, pesticides (Silent spring, Rachel Carson, 1962), air pollution ( clean air act of 1963, later amended in 1970) , Overpopulation (the Population bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich, American biologist at stanford)  
• The first Earth day was April 22, 1970. With a  very apocalyptic tone and jarring images.
• In the middle of the cold war, concerns of nuclear warfare.
• Atomic dumping was more prevalent 
• The EPA was formed December 2, 1970, in response to people’s concerns 
• The most significant of these new laws included the Clear Air Act of 1970, the Pesticide Control Act of 1972, the Ocean Dumping Act of 1972, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, the Clean Air Act of 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976. The endangered species act of 1973

Production background 

• • Soylent green was produced by the company Metro Goldwyn Mayer debuting in 1973
  • Was one of the more successful films released recently to the company 
    • Talk about years leading up in 50s and 60s 
      • Peak in 40s decline in 50s 
      • Man named Kirk Kerkorian bought 40% of company in 1969
        • Slapped name on other stuff (hotels and casinos) 
        • How MGM began to branch out more from film 
      • Continues with James T. Aubrey Jr. (supervisor) 
        • Put MGm into other means besides films 
        • Filmmaking became downsized 
        • Decline to 4 -5 films per year (no longer main priority) 
      • New head of production 
        • Dave Melnick brought back successful films 
          • One example being Soylent Green 
    • Funny enough the author of the book the movie was based on was denied control of the screenplay 
      • Was not aware MGM bought the rights until after 

 

• Make Room! Make Room!  Name of book 

 

• • • Idea came form indian man he met (after WW2 1946)
      • Overpopulation was not talked a lo about back then 
        • Talk about that*
• Can somehow then lead into Aishas info and we can answers questions as they come up 

 

Production info continued: 

• Charlton Heston, the star of the film, is the one who brought the idea to MGM.
  • He had been trying to get the book converted to a film for about 4 years.
  • One main concern was the amount it was going to cost MGM to hire all the extras for the film. By that point though the script was already being produced.
  • They changed the name from “Make room! Make room!” to Soylent Green because there was currently a television show called “Make Room for Daddy” and they didn’t want to cause any confusion.
• Heston is also the reason that Edward G. Robinson (the actor who plays Sol) is in the movie. He pushed for him to be casted since the beginning.
  • The film was Edward’s 101st and ended up being his last.
  • He had cancer and didn’t tell any of the cast or crew besides his close friend Heston.
  • He had gone mostly deaf so they would have to run through scenes several times so that he could get the timing and rhythm right.
  • He died 12 days after filming ended.
  • While Heston and Robinson filmed Sol’s death scene they were the only two who knew the truth. If the viewer is aware of this it makes it much more emotional.
  • The scene is Edward G. Robinson’s onscreen farewell to the world.
• When the movie was released it wasn’t an overwhelming success.
  • Heston still considered it a success. He felt like the movie was important because he believed that overpopulation was a real concern.
  • He said that all the other issues in the world don’t really matter unless we find a way to handle the population.

 

Summary of the pandemic being explored 

 

Individual 5 min readings 

 

Aisha: In the film Sol represented the elders who remember how things used to be. I have lived in Eugene my whole life and have grown up with parents who would point to buildings and say “I remember when that was a field.” They are the ones who remember how it used to be. When Sol goes into the facility to be euthanized, Thorn runs to try and stop him. Thorn arrives just in time to see the beautiful show that Sol is viewing as he lays on his deathbed. The screen shows beautiful videos of large empty expanses of land (something that Thorn has never seen), vibrant flowers, timid deer (which don’t exist anymore), and an orange sunset. There are tears in Sol’s and Thorn’s eyes as the different scenes come across the screen. There is a classic melody playing as well to add to the beauty of the scene as a whole. The images on the screen are things that Sol used to know and Thorn has never seen. There are only two classes of people in the film and that is people who are either excessively wealthy and people who are in poverty. The majority of the people are in poverty, like Thorn, and not only do they not have access to food but they don’t have access to knowledge. The majority of people don’t know what life was like before overpopulation and they have know way of knowing. Books are no longer made and the movie doesn’t outright say it but there doesn’t appear to be any sort of education system. The wealthy keep the people in poverty “out of the loop” to decrease their knowledge and probably their motivation to riot. Most people have access to information in today’s society about how things used to be less crowded and less polluted but at the same time I believe that we are still kept out of the loop as much as possible. That is another reason as to why Soylent Green is still relevant today. 

 

Kenzie:

• The first thing I noticed was the opening scene
• Immediately paid attention 
  • Seemed almost like a subtle way of giving a brief history of how the world ended up the way it did 
• Starts with a slow instrumental song
  • Balck and white pictures fading in and out of screen 
    • Coming and going as the history of the evolution of people began 
• Each new invention, evolution, creation led to more of a frenzy 
  • The music start to build up 
    • faster 
• As society evolves more pictures are coming in 
  • • Rapid pace covering each other 
  • Moving into 20th century 
    • Music is rampant as pictures fly over the place 
      • People, places, pollution, creations, resources, waste 
• This opening leads into the film by showing the viewer what society has managed to accomplish for themselves 
  • The overwhelming mass production economy people now live in 
    • How its ruining the world 
    • Mounds of trash, wastes, pollution 
• How through visual cues alone manages to capture the essence of the fast paced, ever expanding life style of humans 
  • Never slowing down always growing 
• How the pictures moved from people to be focused on the waste and pollution 

 

Cobie:

-One of the scenes that caught my attention was where all the women aka “furniture” were hanging out and actually not being treated like objects for once, until Thorn comes in

-All in colorful and bold clothing

-Start with a close up with tarot cards

-Risque and Sultry music playing in the background

-Drinking or having what looks like tea

-playing with each others hair or doing each other’s nails

-Thorn knocks on the door 

-we get multiple shots of the women’s faces and their reactions

-they know they are doing something risky and it is wrong

-long shot of Thorn and his reaction to different objects that he isn’t used to

-i.e. Ice because it is hot and he has never really had it before

-we see him walk around the room until we get to him grabbing a cigarette from one of the “furniture” and stating he would have 3 of those a day if he had the money

-this scene is useful to show how the objectified women in the movie actually are human and don’t need a man to dictate what they do or say.

 

Athena 

The scene that caught my attention the most is the scene where Throne finds out the truth. He is led to a factory after Sol’s death, The scene is entirely without dialogue except for the ambient sound of machines whirring and Throne’s footsteps. Throne sees bodies in whit bags on conveyor belts, and Thorn looks at the bodies in shock, Thorn follows the conveyor belt down. The camera cuts to Thorne in the Hallway and he pokes head over the staircase and you see the bodies being dumped into the water. This scene made my stomach churn, the suspense was kept at the edge of our seats. Because I think we all knew but know we are meet with that horrific knowledge. The camera cuts again to Throne in a hallway but this time running with much more urgency. Throne walks up factory stairs and is met with the sight of soylent green. Both the audience and Throne suspicion was proven right much to all of our horror. This society and business used up so much plankton and other life forms that we had to go to the next most abundant thing humans. And things make sense why soylent greens took time to make, the lax mood to death ( murder every day, and Euthanization). And Throne looks both shocked and disgusted like he couldn’t believe what is right in front of his eyes. I believe this scene reflects two things in society, one to deal with overpopulation, as the need of consumption grows so much that we start consuming ourselves. Discussion about animals becoming endangered was happening around the time of the film being made, the endangered species act was put into effect December of 1973. People were and still are worried about the disturbance of life in the ecosystems which we rely on. How far can we rely on a certain source until that source becomes us? Another emphasis in this scene could be both class or business greed, the Soylent company has sole power over the food chain, and they were the ones who sucked the ocean clean of plankton and gave it to people who can only afford what is offered to them. In the ’60s and ’70s companies were getting backlash from poisoning water and polluting the oceans, and even today many environmentalists call on business environmental regulations vs. blaming the consumer. And this film questions how far our businesses are willing to go? To the point where they are able to process people as long as they make a profit? 

Outro: And always remember Soylent green is people! 

 

Dr. Strangelove Podcast

Connor Patterson, Elle Coleman, Sadie McBride, and Brett Shapiro

Tags: Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick, Dark Satire, War Comedy, Context Episode

Introductions:

(something along the lines of:)

“I’m Connor.”

“I’m Elle.”

“I’m Sadie”

“And I’m Brett.”

In this episode, we’re going to delve into the world of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a satirical war film (of sorts) directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1964…

Summary: 

   The first scene begins on an American military air base, where the Leading General by the name of Jack Ripper has issued a code red protocol to Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, essentially placing the base on lock-down and authorizing a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The rest of the film develops as the U.S. President and his military officials frantically attempt to stop the right wing bombers from attacking the USSR’s “Doomsday Machine” and instigating nuclear war. The President’s frequent “friendly” calls with a Russian Ambassador over anxieties of their mutual detonation, General Ripper’s monologue on communist infiltration being the cause for the fluoridation of water, and an ex-Nazi mad scientist’s proposal of a new super race in front of a War Room council are all scenes that serve as dark comedic commentary on American hysteria during the Cold War period. In the end, all of their ludacris attempts to stop a world-ending-war turn out to be futile, and the film concludes with a lovely montage of nuclear destruction. 

Episode Goals: We will discuss the historical and cultural context of the film, the production context, and finally we each picked a scene from the film that we are going to close read and chat about!

Historical and Cultural Context:

Elle Coleman

Where is the story set? When is the story set? Is the setting important for the development of the main theme(s)?

Dr. Strangelove’s story takes place (for the most part) in three main settings: The War Room of the Pentagon, General Ripper’s military base office, and inside an American nuclear bomber set to attack the Soviet Union. The story is set during the Cold War, which started in 1947 and lasted until 1991. In fact, the film was released two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 19621. Dr. Strangelove offers a dramatized and rather hilarious depiction of the anti-communist and nuclear paranoia that plagued American ideology and politics for decades during the Cold War period.

When was the film released? Which events, philosophies, etc. influence this film, and what do we need to know about them? 

The film was released in 1964, and remind you, this was two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, so the wound was still pretty fresh for the American people. The discovery of the Soviet Union’s ballistic missiles had solidified people’s fears and the feasibility of nuclear war. There was a strategic term that was often thrown around during this period called Mutual Assured Destruction, the acronym being (ironically enough) M.A.D. This meant that both the U.S. and the Soviet Union acknowledged that the launching of one bomb would prompt a nuclear war and inevitable annihilation of both sides, thus discouraging them from ever “making the first move”2. Mutual Assured Destruction, however, spread hysteria throughout the country, and even political and military officials were not exempt from these anxieties. The Cuban Missile Crisis introduced the possibility that the President, being Kennedy at the time, may have to decide the fate of millions of people in the span of a few minutes. This heightened doubts of the president’s ability to take on such responsibility, and solutions like presidential succession were constantly considered and enacted (so if the president went crazy or something, the vice president would take over, and if the vice president was deemed unfit, the responsibility would get passed down a clear chain of command, and so on).3  An urgent desire to have an organized chain of command amidst potential nuclear warfare is more than understandable, especially considering General Ripper’s dramatic rogue attack on the Soviet Union without the authorization of the President in the film. Although the film is a “fictional” satire, General Ripper’s hyper-masculine and hysterical protection of “democracy” (again, heavy quotes on that one) reflects the majority of Americans’ mentality during the Cold War. Protecting democracy from who, exactly? That would be the communists, or as Major Kong so eloquently put, “nuclear combat, toe-to-toe with the Ruskies!”

 

Historical and Cultural  Context Continued:

Brett Shapiro

What do you know about the culture or society for which this film was created?

At this point in America, the 1960’s specifically communism was a big red flag no pun intended, The US was coming off the back end of McCarthyism aka the second red scare, which was just a super anticommunist time in which Senator McCarthy launched investigations and hearings during the 1950s in an effort to expose supposed communist infiltration of various areas of the U.S. government but it extended far beyond that in which anything McCarthy deemed communist was blacklisted Hollywood suffered a lot from this, people such as Orson Welles, Lucille Ball, and Charlie Chaplin. Almost everybody was affected by this, even Albert Einstein. The end of the world nuclear threat was bigger than ever, There were high tensions between the US and Russia, communism versus capitalism. The Vietnam war was nearing its peak and just two years before the Cuban Missile Crisis had happened, in which two nations, America and Russia were pointing nuclear weapons at each other about to end the world until the Russian president Krushchev (who didn’t trust any of his advisors) through many different proxies got in touch with Kennedy and they both called it off saving the world from nuclear catastrophe, sound familiar? There was also a lot of dehumanization of Russian communists, as there is in times of war. This movie was also a dark comedy, some saw it as communist propaganda (McCarthyism) which is entirely beside the point of the film, my point being tensions were so high when this anti-nuclear bomb movie came out people saw it as communist propaganda. There was lots of fear about Russia like Jack D. Ripper’s whole spiel on communists with the fluoridation in the water and the bodily fluids, which was a great satirical bit on America’s state of mind.

Are social ideologies, historical events, personal experiences, etc. influencing the film?

Believe it or not, The Cuban Missile Crisis was a huge influence on the film, as they both happened to be about two nations with nukes pointed at each other. (talk about my grandpa and his cold war experience). Jack D. Ripper’s whole character is based on communist attitudes in America, one thing I found funny was the criticism that the events in the film could never happen but similar events did two years before the release of the film. Something else interesting was Dwight D. Eisenhower had signed a bill that would essentially let a commander take nuclear action if the president was unreachable or worse. There were also dozens of American nuclear weapons, ones that were hundreds of times stronger than the bombs that went off at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stored in Europe barely being handled by Americans with very low security. The book that Dr. Strangelove was based on “Red Alert” by former R.A.F. Pilot Peter George was sent to officers all around the pentagon and was looked at as a what could go wrong manual. There were even two commanders removed from their posts because neither appeared to be a stable person you’d want with a finger on the trigger, there was a straight-up real Jack D. Rippers in high military positions. There was also a real Doomsday machine called The Dead hand, now instead of being a giant bomb it was a perimeter system that would go off if there were to be an American missile strike and the response would be a full volley of missiles heading for the United States and just like The Doomsday Machine, it wasn’t revealed until after the war, so as Dr. Strangelove said: “The whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret.” The movie was way more accurate than previously thought.

Production Context: 

Connor Patterson

What studio produced the film? How did they come to this idea?

The Director, Stanley Kubric collaborated with Hawk films to create Dr. Strangelove and the Idea came from a couple of different places, starting with the thought of making a thriller about a nuclear accident that built off the fear of the cold war. But as Kubric did more and more research, he began to realize the balance of terror between both sides of the war and how he could build on that. Then a guy named Alistair Buchan recommended a book called Red Alert which he turned out loving. From then on, Kubrick looked in on how he could get the film rights and start production that would be heavily inspired by the book. During film production Kubrick originally had intended on making the film a more serious drama, but in early development, he really wanted to add comedic elements because he wanted to make the scenes seem more ridiculous and outlandish, but still serious enough to make it believable. 

What was the film’s budget? Where did the funding come from? Did it have a large or small production crew? How/where was the film exhibited?

The budget for this film was around 1.8 million dollars and seemed to come from Columbia pictures who helped to make the dream a reality. Compared to some major blockbuster films today, the crew seems to be on the side of more independent with around 25 people. Finally the film debuted on January 29th of 1964 in theaters around the UK and the US and basically had box office numbers of around 9.4 million dollars in the United States creating a lot of buzz and even Academy Award nominations at the time.  

Production Context Continued:

Sadie McBride

Which genre/tradition does the film belong to?

As Connor previously mentioned, the film was actually intended to be a drama, based on the novel Red Alert. However, while Stanley Kubrick was writing the script, he couldn’t shake the idea that it had a comedic tone to it.5(and when you think about it, it does seem kind of absurd that there was a possibility that the end of humanity and everything else inhabiting the planet could be caused by nuclear war, something we could control)  So, the genre of this movie shifted to have satirical elements within it. The American Film Institute states the genre of this film is a “black comedy”, which means that the film makes light of subjects that are considered serious (which it certainly does).6 This film can also be considered a war movie (the whole plot is centered around the cold war), a thriller (Kubrick was still able to keep the elements of the original thriller novel Red Alert into the film itself), and in some aspects a fantasy (although what was happening in the movie could have very well happened in real life). This film is essentially a nuclear war satirical thriller. 

How was the film received when it was released? (nationally and internationally)

Due to the fact that the genre of this movie was satirical it was divided on those who liked it and those who hated it. Bosley Crowther, a film critic for the New York Times at the time of its release in 1964, wrote that the film was “the most shattering sick joke I’ve come across”. 7(that quote definitely explains itself) Other reviewers also compared this movie to Soviet propaganda. However, there were also those who loved the film like Brendan Gill, who wrote in the New Yorker and called it “the best American movie I’ve seen in years”. 8A social philosopher by the name of Lewis Mumford wrote a letter to the New York Times after Bosley Crowther’s negative review and stated that “This film is the first break in the catatonic cold war trance that has so long held our country in its rigid grip”7 . (which I think is the reason why most people liked the film at a time, everything was so scary and serious, but this film does a great job of making light of such a dark reality that surely haunted everyone’s mind daily).  A unitarian minister named Rev. Donald W. McKinney was quoted in the New York Times, shortly after the film’s release, that “beneath all the absurdities of a film fantasy like ‘Dr. Strangelove’ there is enough truth to convince anyone that some such nonsense could bring about doomsday, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.”9 ( and in addition to both the good and bad reviews of this film this quote demonstrates that the film does give some food for thought: Could what ensued in this movie actually happen? This film definitely sparked conversations about what was going on at the time of the Cold War and whether or not any of it was really worth it. ) 

 

Close Readings:

Brett’s: 

Scene: 0:20:57

The scene I’ll be talking about is the scene were General Jack D. Ripper, love that name, explains discusses some of his thoughts he talks about how his war to win the war is by sending nuclear warheads to Russia, he reasons that the higher-ups will realize there is no stopping the bomb, so they’ll have to be totally committed, he brings up what Clemenson said about war, “war is too important to be left to the generals.” Ripper says 50 years ago that may have been true but now, now the war is too important to be left to politicians. He explains that they have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. Ripper then says the most McCarthyist thing I’ve heard in awhile, he says: “I cannot allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

• This scene reflects communist fears at the time, the fears of a crazy communist plot and the fear that anyone you know could either be or become a tool of the commnist regime
• The film addresses this very seriously there are no jokes in his speech only the fears of a man driven over the edge, setting up the deterioration of the character made other scenes where he was so far off the edge his state of mind was practically standing in midair.
• The film definitely reflects historical events, the world almost ended in 1962 with the CMC and all of the other stuff I addressed earlier, but this specific scene really focuses on the insane militaristic mind of General Ripper
• Unfortunately some parts of the film don’t really hold up, but it’s just because the cold war isn’t still happening but the messages are still very clear, nuclear war will end us all, and we gotta keep track of our weapons we can’t be stupid or careless.

Connor’s:

Scene: 0:40:53 

I found the president’s phone call scene toward the early-middle of the film quite intriguing. It occurs when the president tries to convince the russian ambassador to contact the Russian leader “Dimitri”. During this conversation I’ve noticed that it parallels the relationship between the leaders of the soviet union at the time and the president of the united states. I think that out of any war, the cold war was definitely the one that is most confusing because of the fact that most of it was either about preparation with big weapons against the other country, or the fact that there were just a bunch of races between the two for technological advancement but not much physical war between the two. And because of the fact that Stanley Kubrick is British, he seems to find it very funny to see the banter between both sides and doesn’t really have anything against satirizing Americains as kind of dull. And as Lyndon B. Johnsn was elected in 1964, they did a good job trying to make Pete Sellers look like him without making it too obvious who he was trying to impersonate.   

Sadie’s:

Scene: 1:20:40 

The scene I want to discuss is when Major Kong, played by Slim Pickens, volunteers to go down to where the nuclear bombs are in order to fix the electrical wiring (the wiring got ruined from the missle that hit the plane easier in the movie). He sits on top of one of the two hydrogen bombs, fixing the wiring that will allow for the doors to open below, when he finally gets it to work. However, when the doors for the bombs’ release finally open, he goes down with them. As the bomb falls down towards the soviet target, Major Kong rides the bomb like a cowboy rides a bull, until it detonates on the ground. 

-This scene reflects the main idea of the film which (I think) is how absurd the cold war was. → This scene reflects the social circumstances from which the film was made and how the war was centered around the idea of who was good (the US) and who was bad (the USSR). There was definitely a sense in American culture at the time of the cold war to feel a sense of patriotism and Americans should feel proud that they are fighting the “evil communists”. 

-This scene reflects the absurdity of American’s to “win” : not only does the Major Kong volunteer to fix the electrical wiring in order to release the bombs, but he does it while wearing a cowboy hat. ( certainly poking fun at individuals representing american values the most: cowboys). The way the Major Kong rides the bomb down to the ground, with no fear but excitement really conveys this idea of winning, being patriotic while doing so, and also how absurd it is. (absurdity in the whole war and how extreme americans became). 

-Along with this scene, the whole film reflects the idea of the absurdity of the war and how far Americans were willing to go to win. The film does a great job of this through its use of satire all throughout the film. The film’s ability to make the audience laugh demonstrates the humor in how unnecessary the cold war really was. 

-This film attempts to promote the idea that humanity’s destruction can be caused by our own stupidity and stubbornness. This scene in particular impacts the viewers into understanding that although we could “win” and drop hydrogen bombs on the USSR, it would ultimately cause the destruction of everyone and everything. 

-Dr.Strangelove tells us that the historical period with which it deals was so caught up in the cold war and the fear surrounding it that neither country wanted to admit how insane and pointless it was. Thanks to this movie, Stanley Kubrick was able to shine a light on how underlining funny and crazy this time really was. 

-Although I wouldn’t say this film would hold up as a piece of historical analysis, I do think it shows a good insight into how people felt at the time of the war and the cultural beliefs surrounding the war.

Elle’s:

Scene 1:20:05

I want to talk about a scene toward the end of the film, in which President Merkin Muffley is told that one of the four bombers that were allegedly shot down by the Soviets is only damaged, and is still on course for the Doomsday Machine. The President asks General “Buck” Turgidson if there is any chance that the damaged bomber can make it past Soviet defenses. Naturally Turgidson goes on a rant about the unreliability and incompetence of the Soviets, referring to them as “ignorant pee-ons” (whatever that means) incapable of “understanding a machine like our boys”. The President asks once more if the bomber has a chance of getting to the machine, and the General answers with juvenile enthusiasm about the proficiency of the pilots and the impressive size of the plane. With boisterous pride, Turgidson hollers “Hell yeah they’ve got a chance!”, but his elated demeanor quickly dies when he realizes that a successful attack is not a call for celebration in the least. 

I think that this scene encapsulates the overarching themes of the film as well as the cultural ideologies during the Cold War and in America in general. That is, during the Cold War, the masculine “American” identity faced severe emasculation from communist infiltration and the inability to engage in active warfare in fear of nuclear detonation. In the film, we witness a bunch of military big shots well versed in waging and strategizing war trying to prevent war, something they’re not too keen on or used to. Feeling lost and unsure aren’t the most masculine traits, thus the characters in the film are constantly depicted in a juvenile, almost pre-pubescent light. Wrestling in the War Room, calling the enemy silly nicknames, and frantic and immature behaviors are all associated with boy-like tendencies. The military officials crave to exert masculine power in the fight for democracy, which explains why General Turgidson gets so swept up in describing the attack on the Soviets despite it being the exact opposite course of action that needs to happen, which is no action at all. This scene definitely speaks to the threat of emasculation and feebleness many American men faced during the Cold War, and satirizes this fear by making General Turgidson out to be an arrogant, war-obsessed little boy4.  

 

Bibliography

Achter, Paul J. “McCarthyism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 27 Jan. 2020, www.britannica.com/topic/McCarthyism.

“AFI CATALOG OF FEATURE FILMS.” AFI, catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/23082.

Bromwich, David. “Dr. Strangelove: The Darkest Room.” The Criterion Collection, 28 June 2016, www.criterion.com/current/posts/4119-dr-strangelove-the-darkest-room.

Bunch, Sonny. “Opinion | How ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love the End of the World.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 11 July 2016, 

www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/07/11/how-dr-strangelove-taught-us-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-end-of-the-world/

“Black Comedy.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/black-comedy?s=t.

“Dr. Strangelove.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Release.

“Dr. Strangelove.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 29 Jan. 1964, www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/.

“Dr. Strangelove (1964) – Financial Information.” The Numbers, www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dr-Strangelove#tab=summary.

“McCarthyism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism.

“MINISTER PRAISES ‘DR. STRANGELOVE’; Unitarian Sees Harsh Truth Beneath Film’s Fantasy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Feb. 1964, 

www.nytimes.com/1964/02/17/archives/minister-praises-dr-strangelove-unitarian-sees-harsh-truth-beneath.html.

Nicholson, Ian. “‘Shocking’ Masculinity.” Isis, vol. 102, no. 2, June 2011, pp. 238–268. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/660129 

Rebecca C. Lubot, “A Dr. Strangelove Situation”: Nuclear Anxiety, Presidential Fallibility, and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, 86 Fordham L. Rev. 1175 (2017).

Schlosser, Eric, et al. “Almost Everything in ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Was True.” The New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true.

Schlosser, Eric, et al. “Almost Everything in ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Was True.” The New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true.

Shafizadeh, Nafis. “Then and Now: On Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Senses of Cinema, 13 June 2015, sensesofcinema.com/2015/book-reviews/dr-strangelove-peter-kramer/.

Swanson, David. “Watching Putin Watch Dr. Strangelove.” Foreign Policy Journal, Foreign Policy Journal, 10 June 2017, www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2017/06/09/watching-putin-watch-dr-strangelove/.

The New York Times, The New York Times, archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/film/013094kubrick-strange.html.

“17 Facts About Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Mental Floss, 29 Jan. 2019, www.mentalfloss.com/article/63436/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-dr-strangelove.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Introductions- ( 1 min. )

Episode Goals- ( 30 sec. )

Narrative summary-  ( 2-3 min. )

Cultural and Historical background- ( 12-20 min. )

Production context- ( 8-10 min. )

Close readings-  ( 5 min. each x4 )

_______________________________________________________________________

SCRIPT  

Introductions: 

Hi! We are group one and the movie that we will be analyzing for this episode and the next is Invasion of the Body Snatchers, released in 1956 and directed by Don Siegel. 

Our group members include Mia Fisher, Maxwell Jurgensen, Bella Davies, and Maggie Nixon. 

**as well as pre recordings taken from the introduce yourself exercise**

 

Episode Goals – ( 30 sec. )

Our goal for this episode is to talk about the cultural and historical context of the film’s national cinema, briefly describe the development of that nation’s film industry and style, and provide a summary and explanation of the pandemic being explored.Then, each of us will share an individual close reading of a how a scene of our choice reflects the films film’s cultural and historical context.

Narrative summary –  ( 2-3 min. )

The 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by Don Siegel, takes a close look into a small town named Santa Mira where doctor and confidant to many, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), seems to have been struck down with a case of hysteria. The film starts with Dr. Bennell telling the story of what happened to him, to make him end up admitted to a mental hospital and in a room to be interviewed by police and a psychiatrist. It all started when his patients approached him with concerns that their loved ones seem to have been replaced by emotionless impostors. A son didn’t think his mom was his mom and a woman didn’t think her uncle was her uncle. Due to the outlandish nature of their accusations others dismiss them but Dr. Miles Bennell and former girlfriend Becky (Dana Wynter) have reason to believe that they are telling the truth after friends Jack and Nancy find a body that resembles Jack but is not him at all.  After further investigation Dr. Bennell finds plant like pods that births human look alikes and they take over people’s bodies when they sleep. Both Becky, Dr. Bennell, Jack, and Nancy do their best to warn people but Jack and Nancy end up falling prey to the alien species. At this point everyone in the town has been taken over by the aliens and they are now trying to take over the World. The aliens have to get Becky and Miles to fall asleep so that their minds and bodies will too be taken over. But will their efforts be enough? Can they stay awake for long enough? The answer is no, or at least Becky couldn’t. Dr. Bennell runs hysterically in the streat to warn everyone that their minds are at risk. The movie returns back to the psychiatric office where Bennell finishes telling his story. The doctors and investigator don’t know what to believe at first until a patient is brought in that was said to have been found buried under hundreds of plant like pods. He finally is able to convince them, takes a sigh of relief and then the movie ends. The pandemic that the movie is portraying is described by one of the characters as “an epidemic of hysteria” but really the infestation of these plant life pods. This movie is a good example of how one person’s hysteria is easily transferable resulting in mass hysteria.  

Cultural and Historical background – ( 12-20 min. )

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an American science fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger and directed in 1956 by Don Siegel. 

Starting with the kind of film Invasion of the Body Snatchers is grouped under, This 1950s film combines the genres of both science fiction as well as well as horror, into a specific and unique genre that portrays both the emotional and psychological effects that are induced due to the combination and intersectionality of the genres into what we call, American science fiction horror films. More so, the terror and pandemonium that these films produce is a direct result of the complex plot. That is common in these sort of films, often times dealing with the a lack of control over scientific Exploration As well as illustrating humans innate fear of the unknown. 

As for the background behind the screenplay, and Don Sigel’s inspiration for the film, Daniel Mainwaring actually adapted this 1956 screenplay from Jack Finney’s 1954 science fiction novel The Body Snatchers. This science fiction novel was released in 1955, by American writer Jack Finney, And was originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954. The novel denotes a similar story taking Place in Mill Valley, California, the town in which Jack Finney grew up, however this town is referred to in the film by the fictional name of “Santa Mira”.    

American life in the 1950s was complex yet conventional for the common citizen. With Dwight D Eisenhower as president, life in the United States during the 1950’s was a time dominated by international war, a rise in capitalism and consumerism. Not to mention the civil rights movement, and an increasingly growing popularity in cinema. With celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elisabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley taking over the social scene, the 1950’s was an extremely dynamic time for American citizens, discovering their place in the world, and for many, their place in society and the household, two concepts that Understandably compliment the character relationships in the film. 

One of the most popular products in the 1950s was the TV, which when paired with the complexities that accompanied a consumerism lifestyle, left many American’s with a growing interest in cinema. Alongside many new cinema techniques and approaches which developed with breakthroughs in technology, many new styles of cinema blossomed during this area. One being the dominant genre of science fiction. Due to the panic and constant fear of international warfare, science was slowly brought into the entertainment scene as a topic American’s just could not escape from, this was then developed even further into the genre of science fiction, which played on the imaginations and creativity of directors as they pulled elements from space and mysteries and created a new genre with no limits. Another trend that was becoming increasingly popular in the film sector was paralleling issues and concerns of the present day and then exaggerating them to the point of fiction. One example of this was by focusing on the concept of suburbia and following the American dream of conformity and lack of individuality as a middle class. This specific use of citizen conformity is not only associated with American society under Eisenhower’s presidency but also can be blatantly recognized in the film, Invasion of the body snatchers. Regardless of the character conflict, the the storyline itself lends itself to the fear of losing one’s identity and the eeriness of uncertainty. Creating a monster paranoia film that lacks any mythical creatures raises the bar for what can be considered science fiction as Siegel re established that human fear is not restricted to unnatural species but can be accomplished through something as simple as clones. 

Production context– ( 8-10 min. )

Walter Wanger : The producer of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is Walter Wanger. Walter started his career in 1919 at Paramount and eventually working with every major studio of classical Hollywood except for Warner Bros.. 

Budget : 417,000

Box Office: 3 mil

Post production : Name of the film was decided on. Took only 23 days to film

Genre: Sci-fi

Distribution: Allied Artists Pictures

Locations: Bronson, Sierra Madre, and other places outside of Los Angeles that resembled Mill Valley which would make up Santa Mira.

Post production: They hadn’t had decided on a title for the film, but eventually divided on body snatchers

Film was successful in the U.S.- made about 2.5 million and in the U.K. Half a million Critics were skeptical about the film but now people praise the movie

Casting: Wagner considered many other people for the roles of Miles and Becky.

Pandemic and Society (3 min.)

When one thinks of a pandemic, usually they think of disease, which is technically the correct way to think of a pandemic. As Merriam Webster defines it, as an outbreak of disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population. However, in the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, would the pods not constitute a pandemic? After all, even though they’re not technically a disease, they are spread from person to person over a wide geographic area. The town of Santa Maria, California, although measures such as social distancing wouldn’t help very much against the pod people taking over the town. The film still illustrates how easily a disease can spread and evolve into a pandemic if nobody is willing to acknowledge it as dangerous until it’s too late. After all, the pod people weren’t able to take over because the doctors of the town knew they were there, even ignoring our modern pandemic. We can see this kind of behavior being done with pandemics all across the ages. The only reason the Spanish flu was called the Spanish flu is because Spain was the first country to report on it, because they were neutral in World War One, not because they had the first case. In fact, the origins of the 1918 influenza pandemic still aren’t known, although the doctors of Santa Maria, California, are justifiable in their misjudgement of the situation, considering that nobody was physically different. The film still shows what can happen when a pandemic is left to spread. A full 64 years before allegations of certain governments around the world being slow to the punch when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus, invasion of the Body Snatchers echoes both the future and the past when it comes to dealing with pandemics. Perhaps the ability to look both back and forward is indicative of how its creators viewed society’s ability to handle a pandemic. The mentality of downplaying everything is fine until something big happens is prevalent in both society and the film. In the real world, we have ignoring the Spanish flu because it makes you look weak during a war or ignoring the corona virus and calling it just the flu. In the movie world, we have culling the whole pod people situation a pandemic of mass hysteria. The connections between the film showing the downplaying of the pod people pandemic and the real life downplaying of viral pandemics is likely by design rather than coincidence. Everything is fine until it’s convenient to point out that it isn’t in the film. Miles is worried about the reports of people acting strange, but ultimately isn’t convinced enough by it until he sees the pod person lying on his friends table in the real world. People still gather in large crowds to protest social distancing measures or just start ignoring them and throw the party they were planning, thinking that even if anyone does get sick, it won’t be that bad. Likewise, the film also shows how the spread of the pandemic can be mitigated through diligence. Miles is never replaced by a pod person. And that’s because he’s diligent in keeping them away from him and staying awake until the very end. The only difference between Miles trying to stop the spread of a pandemic in his world and us trying to stop the spread of a pandemic and ours is that he has to try to convince people to get rid of those plant pods while in the real world. We have to convince people to wash their hands. A real world virus isn’t the same as a fictional growing group of pod people trying to take over the world. But the danger is still there and the spread is just as easy.

Close readings –  ( 5 min. each x4 )

Bella : Opening scene

The opening scene of any film is arguably one of the most important things to get right when directing a film as it is the first introduction to the characters and themes of the storyline however also establishes a powerful introduction to the tone which will be carried out throughout the film. 

That being said, Invasion of the body snatchers follows a widely used guide to directing any opening scene , as this film starts with none other than a powerful entrance.  A depiction of the protagonist in the midst of a character dilemma or crisis, which off the bat draws the audience in by establishing a connection and places the viewer in this experience as well. 

In this beginning scene the audience first sees police officers approaching a hospital, where a Psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Hill has been called to assist and investigate a screaming man by the name of Miles Bennell who is being held in custody. After Bennell insists that he is not insane or mentally ill and is also a doctor, Dr. Hill agrees to listen to his story and begins sharing the events that lead up to his arrest and arrival at the hospital.

Within this 30 second scene, Don Siegel, the director has not only established a direct and confrontational relationship between the film and the audience however has also displayed his impressive yet intentional production skills, establishing his film as sophisticated yet complex from the very beginning. 

The first character the audience is introduced to is Miles Bennell, or should I say Doctor, Miles Bennell, as he describes his current situation in a panic. However as he is being restrained and the doctors are reluctant to believe that he is intact sane, as he is yelling and screaming, Siegel’s apparent and strategic use of camera angles and differences in audio show the Dr.Hills understanding and patience with Miles Bennell, providing compassion and empathy for the Bennell in this scene before a scene blur which transitions into a flashback of Bennell’s with his narration of the memory. 

This scene already sets the stage for the duration of the film as there is a slight foreshadowing of what is to come, however also provides context  to what has occurred before this moment to this main character.

It creates drama and anticipation as to what has happened prior to this scene and establishes a relationship between the viewer and Miles Bennell by showing that he has experienced a lot and panic and frustration with being misunderstood, two feelings which are very commonly relatable to an everyday viewer of such a film. 

Within the first 2 minutes the audience is already able to establish a clear and relatively well rounded understanding of the character of Miles Bennell, but then his character profile is then quickly altered in the midst of his flashbacks which show the same man in a much more sane state of mind, when he was working as an admirable doctor back in Santa Mira. 

 

Maggie: The ending scene

In my opinion the ending scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was both satisfying and terribly disatifying, which is what made it a good scene. At the beginning of the movie Dr, Bennell was in the Mental hospital telling the story of how his small town, Santa Mira, was infested with an alien human replicating species that looked and sounded like their loved ones but lacked emotion in an unhuman way. The story he is telling continues to be the plot for the rest of the movie. Just before you know it you’re back in the room where they are holding Dr. Miles Bennell. To maintain the temporality of the film and keep the audience aware that Bennell was telling a story the whole time, Bennell would do a voice over. The voice overs offered insight on the situation he was “describing” and reflection on what his current self felt in regards to what he had done. The camera shots and movements in the ending scene helped to portray the wide range of emotions that were seen in the film. The ending scene begins with a miragey, dreamy fade from Bennell screaming “you’re next, you’re next!,” into an extreme close up shot of Dr. Bennell sitting on the couch. The camera remains static as well as the doctor and investigator, this helps to capture the movement of Bennell frantically looking to the left and then to the right. The camera zooms out slightly to show what Bennell is looking at and just enough for the doctor and investigator to be included in the frame. The camera keeps Bennell in the middle of the frame to help capture his frantic movement against a backdrop of static static and/or calm characters. The doctor and investigator are on either side of him, listening intently but have appeared to not be completely convinced. Bennell’s movement helps to convey the panic that he feels in trying to convince them that what he said was true. Though he knows it’s crazy, it’s life or death. I mean when the fate of the world is on your shoulders it’s hard not to feel a sense of urgency. The doctor and investigator look at each other with a shrug and sigh while Bennell is inconsolable in the middle of them with his hands holding up his head. The camera then stays at a fixed position and tilts up to match the movement of the doctor and investigator standing up. In the same fixed position, the camera pans to the left to watch them walk out of the door and shut it. Cut to them outside of the door shutting it. Starting now the camera tracks the characters in order to avoid cuts and to keep the flow of dialogue. This is important because some very significant information is going to be revealed. The camera frames the doctor and investigator at a medium close up where they discuss how helpless and crazy Miles is. Then the camera pans to the left where another doctor enters with a patient on a gurney, talk about Bennell is put on pause when the camera starts to track the two doctors walking and discussing the peculiarities of the case that just came in. A man had run his car through a redlight and got hit by a truck, then he had to be dug out from under the most unusual of things. At this point the shot is set up where the doctor that just came in is in the foreground, the doctor helping Bennell is in the middle ground, the investigator just right behind him, and Bennell in the background. This creates a visual chain of command that the important information follows. With that being said, the conversation goes as follows: “what things?” says the lead investigator as the door to the room where Dr. Bennell is swings open. Everyone is silent waiting for the doctor’s answer, “they looked like great big seed pods.” The investigator asks “where they were coming from” “Santa Mira” says the doctor. The classic “Duh, Duh, Duh” hits as well as a series of fast cuts occur. The doctor looks at the other doctor where his head then turns to look at the investigator, cut to the investigator turning his head to look back at exhausted Bennell. This helped to further the sense of urgency that was originally felt by Bennell and is now transferred to everyone else. The camera follows the investigator to the policemen where he gives them orders, then the camera pans to follow the policemen walking out. The camera catches Bennell at a medium close up shot of him against the wall, beaten down. While you can hear the investigator in the background making phone calls and barking orders, a tremendous amount of responsibility is falling off of his shoulders and he is finally able to breathe. “The End” appears on the screen and it fades to black. The whole movie followed Bennell trying to warn people of this harmful epidemic that was occurring and it ended with this one moment of relief. The reason I said the movie was unsatisfying was because I was interested in seeing how the pandemic described in the movie would affect the rest of the world. But I guess Santa Mira is a good example of how people react to mass hysteria. The camera shots and movements in the ending scene helped to portray the wide range of emotions that were seen in the film.  

 

Mia: Greenhouse scene 0:40:00-0:47:00.

This scene is the start of the discovery of the pods and the start of the chaos. I think this scene is the turning point in the movie when Miles and the rest realize what is really going on. Panic arises and help is trying to be reached. This scene shows paranoia which I think is a central theme in this film. There were a lot of camera angles used in this scene to show panic and uncertainty like a lot of dutch angles. This film has a lot of political and social aspects to it based on the time it was filmed. There is a lot of speculation that it deals with the real life paranoia of communism spreading because at the time the film was made war was a big concern for a lot of people. There is a lot of conformity and emotionless characters that bring out how similar anti-mccarthy and anti-communism films are. The film kind of created a divide between conservatives and liberals. The conservatives worrying that soviet russia would spread communism to the states and the liberals claimed it was anti-communist. I do not think the film was intended to create that divide in politics and I don’t think it was trying to recreate a historical event. It was based off a book. The film could tell us when it was set that anything could take over society and when it was released which was at the height of the Cold War that fear and paranoia was something that a lot of Americans felt. This film could hold a piece in historical analysis but the director made it clear that the film was for entertainment purposes. 

 

Max : The scene where Miles and Becky are trapped in the Doctor’s Office (0:58:00-1:04:27)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a film that has no real meaning behind it. The creators of the film have said so multiple times in interviews and even the creator of the original book on which the film was based has said so about his work. However just because deeper meaning was never intended doesn’t mean it’s not there. Some of the greatest pieces of art only have the meaning the audience puts behind it. What the author says isn’t what the author always gets across and the same goes for movies. There’s a conflict between reviewers of the film. Some believe that the film has deeper meanings about McCarthyism and the communist witch hunt led by Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Other reviewers see it as an allegory for the loss of personality under communism. Both interpretations of the film are perfectly valid. But for the purposes of my analysis I’m going to stick with the communist one. That is to say the one about communism, not the one about McCarthyism, which would technically be the Communist stance because it’s because McCarthyism is anticommunism but the communist stance would be anti-anti-communist… You know what I’m going on too long about this. The scene that I believe best exemplifies the ideas of losing your personality and your personal identity under a specific system is the one where they outright say that people who get taken over by the pods lose their personal identity and what makes them human in the scene where Miles and Becky are trapped in the doctor’s office.

It’s explicitly told to us that those who are taken over by the pods lose some of their emotion and although they’re good at faking it that lack of emotion is heavily implied to be what sets them apart from human beings and makes them so easy to identify. To people who know them up until this point in the film everyone who had been found out as a pod person was found out by someone who had previously loved them before they got their bodies snatched. Well I guess technically they got their minds snatched the body is a completely different body should be invasion of the mind snatchers instead. The following audio is an excerpt from the film that tells us exactly what we need to know about the pod persons and their overwhelming lack of emotion. 

Tomorrow will I feel the same?

No need for love. No emotion

And you have no feelings, only the instinct to survive. You can’t love or be loved. Am I right. 

You say it as if it were terrible. Believe me it isn’t.

Looking at this film through an anti-communist stance allows us to look at this scene differently instead of a man afraid of some sort of alien he’s afraid of losing himself and losing what he loves or even losing the ability to love in the first place. Those kinds of feelings were a dime a dozen during the Cold War when this film was produced. The whole reason McCarthyism exists and is one of the potential meanings behind this film is because of those feelings that inability to know who to trust that person next to you could be a communist and you didn’t even know it until it was too late and they’ve already swapped you with a different you can’t even love the fear that Dr. Miles goes through during this film is reflective of the fears of everyday Americans. Back during the Cold War this entire scene encapsulates how Americans felt about communism without ever mentioning it even if it wasn’t intended. They did a damn good job. Seconds after the audio clip I played Dr. Miles says that he doesn’t want to live in a world that the pod people are suggesting and the response he gets.

You have no choice.

The ever looming fear that something major is going to happen and the average citizen will have no choice about whether they’re part of it or not was looming over America during the time of the Cold War when this film was made. Communism was what everyone was afraid of. And even if this film wasn’t intended to portray that it portrays it beautifully. Everyone around them is turning into these emotionless creatures that are all a part of the same collective; they’re all treating each other equally and using that equality to spread their word only their word isn’t a choice. There is no option whether or not you get to join this collective you’re either with them or you’re against them. You could apply this fear to a lot of things even to McCarthyism saying that I’m not actually against them they’re just pointing fingers at me and calling me a threat for no reason. Which is also built upon by this scene that I’ve already talked about. In the end even if there was no intended meaning behind the film the meaning that we put behind it can be just as powerful and looking at the film as it is. There’s a lot of different ways that you could go but almost all of them resort back to an in group versus an outgroup.

 

Work Cited: Chicago style  

“AFI CATALOG OF FEATURE FILMS.” AFI. Accessed April 15, 2020. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/51874.

Andrews, Evan. “Why Was It Called the ‘Spanish Flu?’.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, January 12, 2016. https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-flu.

Boddy, William. “The Studios Move into Prime Time: Hollywood and the Television Industry in the 1950s.” Cinema Journal 24, no. 4 (1985): 23-37. Accessed April 17, 2020. doi:10.2307/1224894.

History.com Editors. “Red Scare.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, June 1, 2010. https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” IMDb. IMDb.com. Accessed April 12, 2020. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 13, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers.

Jr, E.C. McMullen. “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers Movie Review.” Feo Amante’s Horror Thriller, 2001. http://www.feoamante.com/Movies/GHI/invasion_bsnatch_56.html.

Mirisch, Walter, and Sidney Poitier. I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History. University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.

“Pandemic.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Accessed April 16, 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pandemic.

Pfeiffer, Lee. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., December 17, 2013. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-film-by-Siegel.

Thompson, Ryan. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Analysis.” Celluloid Cinema. Celluloid Cinema, May 15, 2017. http://www.celluloidcinema.com/post/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers.

Wood, David. “Films – Review – Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” BBC. BBC, May 1, 2001. http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/05/01/invasion_of_the_body_snatchers_1956_review.shtml.

Music: Music stylings by Maggie’s boyfriend Avery Haines