Any movie, piece of artwork, or work of fiction can be taken out of context and be made to be more than it was intended to be. Sometimes these people’s interpretations seem very believable, but many times these people have a personal or political agenda. These people want to prove their point or make their opinion seem like the right one. It is clear to see that the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” was made to scare people and had no intention of containing hidden meanings of communism and McCarthyism.
This movie was made during the time of McCarthyism and communism, so naturally people read their point of view into the movie and thought that was what the movie was trying to say. People saw different meanings when they watched it. Some people thought “Siegel’s film addressed the dehumanization of individuals—a sensitive subject in an age filled with tales of political brainwashing of American soldiers by the Koreans” (Whitehead). Although the aliens did take over people’s bodies and mind, you have to sit back and wonder if this is what Don Siegel was trying to say. If Don Siegel had made the alien’s come to earth and brainwash the people themselves (similar to what was being done to the soilders)then it would be more believable that he made the movie about communism. Instead, Siegel made pods come to earth and make a replica of the person’s body and take over their lives, this concept is too veiled to be a picture of communism. Some interpretations of this movie are laughable, Tim Dirks said one of the themes could be “the spread of an unknown malignancy or virulent germ” (Dirks). This is a very far out interpretation because he is trying to compare the pods (something that takes away your body and makes you a different person) with a virulent germ (something that makes you sick), they don’t even compare. All these different crazy interpretations are just another reason to make you believe that Siegel did not make this about communism and McCarthyism.
I read many reviews and different interpretations of this movie before I saw it, so I was ready to watch this movie that was going to be full of many symbols of McCarthyism and communism. As I was watching I was looking really hard for these themes and couldn’t find one thing that related back to them. All the criticisms and reviews I read were blown way out of proportion. It seemed as if someone had too much time on their hands and decided to compare this movie with what was happening in real life around them. I could have watched the movie and said that Siegel was trying to relate this to 9/11 and terrorists taking over, or the pods being democrats and trying to make us one mindless politically correct town. These ideas are just as crazy as the ones relating McCarthyism to the movie. Siegel himself “denied an anti-Communist motive” (Whitehead). This proves he made the movie to be a horror movie and that is exactly what it will remain.
If you are watching this movie, and not trying to find some type of symbolism, it’s an enjoyable movie. Trying to put this movie in a certain genre is hard to do because it doesn’t fit into just one genre. It doesn’t really fit the bill as a horror film because there are no gory scenes. There are a couple of scary parts in the movie which qualifies it a little as a horror movie. It also has some sci-fi movie qualities in it like when the humans grow out of pods that have bubbles. I would put this movie in a genre called “Scary Scientific”. This is one of those movies that if you watched it home alone at two in the morning you would be kind of scared, but if you watched it with a group of friends you would probably get a good laugh out of it. Invasion of the Body Snatchers isn’t a waste of time to watch though, it might be a little cheesy and lack any type of special effects but it is what is expected from a movie in the 1950’s. I find it fun to watch movies that were made a long time ago because you see what the audience expected from a movie compared to what we watch now. You can tell by all the remakes that the main idea of the movie (pods taking over people’s bodies) makes for an interesting movie.
Works Cited:
Whitehead, John. “A TALE FOR OUR TIMES.”
Gadflyonline.com. 01 October 2007
http://www.gadflyonline.com/11-26- 01/film-snatchers.html.
Dirks, Tim. “Invasion of theBodySnatchers (1956).”
Filmsite.org 01 October 2007
http://www.filmsite.org/inva.html.
4 comments:
Emily,
I really enjoyed your paper. I happen to agree with you about the film. As far as my critique goes, you have some really strong areas and some weaker ones. As far as the stronger goes, your content was very appropriate and well thought out. I can tell that you took time to research the differing views and ideas, while still compiling your own. I feel that you validated your claim with sufficient evidence through quotes and citations. They fit very well in the paper and helped prove your point. I also loved the last sentence in the third paragraph, quoting the director completely proves your point! I feel that you still have some areas you can improve upon to make this paper even better than it currently is. One piece of advice I can offer is to add a short one or two sentence summary of the film in the first paragraph or the beginning of the second. For a reader who hasn’t seen the film, the second paragraph might confuse them. Also, in your third paragraph the first sentence is a little too long in wordy. I would suggest breaking it up into two sentences for easier reading and clarity. Also, in the first paragraph you say “they” but never define who “they” is. You might want to say critics or whoever you are talking about. My last and final suggestion is to make your language more formal. At times you tend to use a lot of informal language which takes away the content. This can easily be fixed through your revision. Great job overall!
The first half of the main body paragraph does a great job of describing how the time period that this movie came out in affected critic’s interpretation. I think there are a lot more examples that could be used to help lengthen your paper and also help develop your point better in this paragraph. Another thing I liked was your topic and the risk you took not picking a side. Some things you could improve upon besides small grammar and subject verb agreement (I only noticed one in your conclusion) mistakes is making sure your points are in the correct paragraphs. I think the second half of your first body paragraph from “Some interpretations of this movie are laughable” down could be either part of the next paragraph or a completely different paragraph talking about how easy it is to make outlandish interpretations. Also tie your conclusion more to the main point of your essay because you seem to get off track trying to describe the genre of the movie. I would like to see a lot more examples, or even an example you make up to help demonstrate how easy it is to compare this movie to almost anything going on today. The length of your paper could also affect your development of a strong point, but I like your analysis of the examples the paper does contain.
The two areas where I find you have the most trouble with this paper are your word choices in some paragraphs as well as the style and structure of some of your sentences when arguing your point for the paper. Your word choice when describing the reviews that you read for the movie as well as the paragraph that you talk about watching the movie without looking for any kind of symbolism is questionable, and in some cases not clear as to what you are trying to say. To go along with your word choice, your sentence structure and style in your second and third paragraphs made it hard for me as a reader to pick out what you are arguing.
I thought that your organization and the way you constructed your argument were two things that you did very well in this paper. While those two things kind of go hand-in-hand, the way that you organized your paper in terms of what paragraphs go where I felt made your paper more effective. Describing McCarthyism and what people look for in the movie when relating it to McCarthyism was effective as the second paragraph because it set up the rest of the paper. To go along with that I felt that the way you constructed your argument made your paper flow along smoothly and prove your point very well.
I think that you should focus most on your word choice and sentence structure when writing papers. In some instances throughout this paper I lost track of what was going on and what you were arguing because of the lack of structure and clarity to some of your sentences.
Your paper is a very good paper, meets the guidelines and such and also is able to successfully convey your opinions to your audience. My main grief with the paper is the fact that it seems over opinionated in some instances when it should be relating to facts. These particular sentences bothered me, “This is a very far out interpretation because he is trying to compare the pods (something that takes away your body and makes you a different person) with a virulent germ (something that makes you sick), they don’t even compare.” These are two valid comparisons, especially for what the movie was about. The genre you placed the movie in also bothers me “scary scientific” and this sentence, “It doesn’t really fit the bill as a horror film because there are no gory scenes. There are a couple of scary parts in the movie which qualifies it a little as a horror movie.” The movie was meant to be a psychological thriller and seems to me that it was quite scary in its unedited and edited forms for the 1950s (you have to consider the time). Overall the paper did its job and would be widely accepted among people who had never viewed the film, but I think you would run into a snag when anyone who is “informed” read your paper. My advice to you is to focus on more of an informed audience instead of a blind audience when rewriting your paper, other than that the only thing that really needs work are your sentence transitions from paragraph to paragraph.
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