During the second Red Scare in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, American’s were fearful that communism would permeate throughout their country and eventually rule their governments and entire lives. When Invasion of the Body Snatchers was directed by Don Siegal in 1956, he wanted to produce a film that creatively captured the fear of McCarthyism. The movie was inspired by the novel written by Jack Finney in 1954, which also aimed to depict what fears society had in the 50s. The film was recreated three more times, each with an original spin on the first movie and novel, but still effectively capturing the attention of the audience. The primary hope was of increasing awareness over the fear of Communism and losing one’s personal autonomy to Communism while each adaptation reflects the struggles and mindset during the time period that it was set in. Each of these films and novel, despite their numerous differences, reflect the period that they were created in through themes of losing one’s individuality, gender roles, and paranoia. The novel that inspired the production of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was written in 1954 by Jack Finney titled The Body Snatchers. Finney used this novel to convey the fact that individuality is beneficial to humanity because if everyone is the same then there is a universal loss of identity (Sloan 183). Finney’s novel explored the loss of individuality through the main characters, Miles and Becky, and the fears that humanity had in the
The 1946 film The Killers is a renowned film noir based off of Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same title, focusing on the detailed backstory and investigation for the motive of the murder of Pete Lund/Ole Anderson, commonly known and referred to as “The Swede.” A film noir is a term made originally to describe American mystery and thriller movies produced in the time period from 1944-1954, primarily marked by moods of menace, pessimism, and fatalism. Although the film does not focus on the war itself at all, it still puts forth interesting new ways in how gender relations can be stereotypical as well as divergent proceeding the Second World War.
The late 1940′s were a time when much change happened to the American society. As a result to the expanding threat of the Soviet Union, or its Communistic ideals, America took a stand that lead it to the Cold War. Although the war didn’t involve fighting directly with Russia, it still affected the American society and domestic policy. The war affected America so much that it lead to a fear of livelihood; precisely when Joseph McCarthy began his “witch hunt”. The Cold war lead to an enlarged fear of nuclear war; as well, it affected many of the domestic policies.
The First and Second Red Scare of the United States paved the way for a long standing fear of communism and proved to be one of America’s largest periods of mass hysteria. Throughout the years authors and analysts have studied and formed expository albeit argumentative books and articles in an attempt to further understand this period of time; the mindset held during this period however is shown to be completely different compared to now.
The parallels between the theme of the film and rising fears of communism and related topics of concern during that time are captivating. Communism was an ideology originating in the Soviet Union with the ideas of establishing a
At the end of the 1940’s and the beginning of the 1950’s, the United States were in the midst of the Second Red Scare and a fear that Communism might over throw the American way of life. Cold War tensions were at an all time high, which only fueled the widespread fears of Communist subversion. It was here that Senator Joseph McCarthy became a public face when he began making claims that the U.S. Government, as well as many other areas of the country, including the entertainment industry, had been invaded by Soviet and Communist spies, looking to destroy America from within. Hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Hollywood Blacklisting, and anti-communist activity from the FBI soon followed. McCarthy was under intense analysis
In the 1950’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy turned Americans against each other by installing fear in the people regarding toward Communism. During this time, in fact, people were getting blacklisted even if they weren't communist. In an incident at the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, McCarthy delivered a speech. The situation involving the Senator escalated when he stated that the State Department is infested with Communist. In this point in time, due to the false allegations, people went on a decade long period of witch hunts. Sam Roberts, the author of “A Decade of Fear” stated that in fact, “...thousands of alleged Communists in the U.S. were arrested and deported during what became known as the Red Scare.”
Since the late 1940s, American cinema has been obsessed with the idea of the atomic bomb and what it stands for; whether that be destruction or absolute power depends on the film. This symbolism would then come to define the 1950s, and later on American cinema as well. This symbolism then must be addressed from the lenses of, both, history and socio-political commentary. Then the question must be posed why specifically these two lenses? The answer to this question, then, lies in the films of the 50s, and beyond. Whether this answer lies in the apocalyptic imagination present in the films or the politics of the time, McCarthyism would influence American culture far beyond the 50s, depends on the historian who is asked. The answer, then,
During the Cold War, America and the Soviet Union were competing to develop more sophisticated weaponry than each other. Because of this, Americans dreaded the Soviet Union. They also feared communism– which according to Achieve 3000’s passage,“Case Against Rosenberg Falls Apart”,“It is the political theory that the Soviet’s lived by” (1). Also according to Achieve 3000, “The Americans thought that the Soviet Union had spies that were in the midst of the American people” (1). This fear lead to many precautions that the government made to prevent the American people from fearing the Soviet Union which was called the “Red Scare”.
Beginning in the early 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy released a monumental rampage across the United States. For fear of governmental infiltration by Communists, an outbreak of accusations swept the nation as a result of the Wisconsin senator, and helped create what is known as the second Red Scare (“McCarthyism”)
In an effort to capture the effects of paranoia of the Red Scare in 1950s America, The Manchurian Candidate is filmed with the intentional techniques of character-following shots, plays on lighting, and mise-en-scene. These film techniques are utilized to make the argument that paranoia can be used to control others with the use of force as one tries to make sense of the chaos around themselves. Throughout the film, audiences fall into a sort of confusion when trying to determine the characters on the side of good or evil. Just as the audience gets trapped in the confusion of the film, the American people fell into pandemonium during the Cold War and were forced upon by the government to be on the side of freedom and democracy or be forced
Setting is also important, as it refers to the period this book was set in, the 1950’s. Ultimately, it is a reflection of what was happening in American society at the time, and what American society expected from each other. McCarthyism, as started by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was the most prevalent movement of the 1950’s, where there was great momentum for anti-communism and the suppression of the Anti-communist party. Freedom of speech was suppressed, just like speech and actions were inside the hospital. Here, the
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is widely dubbed an anti-Communist film by those who have seen it. The plot of the movie is that unfamiliar, extraterrestrial “body snatchers” are taking over the bodies of people in a small town in California while they sleep, and replacing them with clones that lack emotion. For the most part, a general consensus has been reached that the mass hysteria about the “pod people” in the film is reflective of the red-scare consumed society of the 1950’s. However, the article that I read that was written in response to this film suggests that it is instead a cynical representation of post-WWII, traditional American domesticity.
The purpose of this analysis is to show how the themes of the novel are loosely based on the events in the soviet union, and the similarities between the world of big brother and Joseph Stalin’s communistic leadership.
There are many arguments whether Invasion of the Body Snatcher is an allegory to the Communist Movement. Jeff Saporito from ScreenPrism takes a closer look at the film and how it relates to communism. He states that there were themes of hysteria
Before analysing individual science-fiction films from the 1950s, it is important to gain a clear understanding of the social, cultural and political background against which these films were set. Paranoia is a term frequently used to describe an acute, anxiety dominated medical condition (Paranoia, 2009), however in the context of 1950’s America, this term can be used more accurately to describe the general, delusionary mood of the nation. The first important event that influenced a paranoiac filmmaking atmosphere was the Cold War. As opposed to the ‘hot war’ (WWII) that involved active military hostilities, the Cold War was based on heightened tension and suspicions between Western Bloc (USA) powers and Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union) powers (The