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The Day the Earth Stood Still: A Prophetic
Original and a Mixed Up
Remake
The remake of the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still elicited a torrent of
negative reviews when it came out. That isn’t surprising since the movie has
a lifeless and sensationalized quality that seems to contradict its own
message in support of ecology and living things.
These limitations
are particularly disappointing because the original version of the movie is
one of Hollywood’s science fiction masterpieces. The original, which came
out in 1951, is everything the remake isn’t: it has an engaging story and
characters, it is full of humanity, and it has an ethical vision that has
rarely been matched.
The original also does something that the
remake tries to do clumsily: it lets us look at the human race through the
eyes of an outsider who doesn’t share our foibles and emotional
vulnerabilities. Its goal -- and this makes it one of the more ambitious
movies that have ever been made -- is to radically shift our perspective and
point the way to a higher level of ethical awareness.
In fact, it is
no exaggeration to say that the movie speaks with a prophetic voice. At the
most obvious level, it warns us about the threat that humanity poses to
itself with nuclear weapons. But barely below the surface, it does something
even more interesting and tries to put us in touch with a universal vision
of the kind that spiritual figures throughout history have tried to get us
to see. It is partly successful at that, although it also ends up
undermining its own message and raising some questions about whether the
utopian ideas it champions are really good for people.
The movie
tells the story of an alien, “Klaatu”, played by Michael Rennie, who lands
in Washington D.C., while humanity looks on with fear and fascination. It
seems he has come to Earth with a message: the way humanity is combining
space travel and atomic energy will soon threaten the peace-loving
inhabitants of other worlds. The only solution is for the Earth to abandon
its warlike ways and join a peaceful federation of planets or be destroyed.
Klaatu wants to deliver his message to representatives of all the
nations of the Earth, but that effort fails due to suspicions and jealousies
among nations. Instead he finds himself being held prisoner by a U.S.
government that seems remarkably unaware of the risk it is running by
treating the alien in an adversarial fashion.
But the alien can’t be
held by mere human contrivances such as a locked door. So he escapes and,
since he looks human, he goes incognito in Washington D.C., to learn about
humanity and the suspicious attitudes that set people against each other.
While a sensationalistic media vilifies Klaatu as the monster from outer
space, and panic sweeps the country, he stays quietly out of sight in a
boarding house, where he befriends a single woman, Helen Benson, played by
Patricia Neal, and her young son.
He also develops an alternative
plan: with the help of a scientist, Professor Jacob Barnhardt, played by Sam
Jaffe and modeled after Albert Einstein, he will deliver his message at his
space ship to an audience of scientists and great minds from around the
world. But before he can make it, he is hunted down and killed by the armed
forces.
The oversized robot “Gort” that accompanied him on his trip
to Earth then carries him back to their saucer-shaped space ship and uses
advanced technology to temporarily bring him back to life. He then gives his
speech, which is the thematic climax of the movie and the message that the
movie itself has for humanity:
“The universe grows smaller every day
and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be
tolerated,” Klaatu tells his audience, as he stands on the rim of his ship.
He goes on to say that he represents a federation of planets that utilizes a
police force of robots to stop all violence.
“Their function is to
patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In
matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. This power
cannot be revoked.
“At the first sign of violence they act
automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action
is too terrible to risk.
“The result is we live in peace without
arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and
war, free to pursue more profitable enterprises. Now we do not pretend to
have achieved perfection. but we do have a system and it works.
“I
came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your
own planet. But if you threaten to extend your violence, this earth of yours
will be reduced to a burned out cinder. Your choice is simple. Join us and
live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall
be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”
As he
speaks, we are shown the world’s intellectual leaders and great minds looking at each other,
disturbed, as Klaatu describes the consequences if Earth refuses his offer.
They are learning something momentous that will take the human race to
a new level of development or result in its extinction.
The movie then ends on a note
of wistfulness and tragedy. We have been told that there is no way to know
how long the resurrected Klaatu will now live. In the final scene, the door
to his flying saucer seamlessly closes with Klaatu and the robot inside, and
his craft departs for outer space as we are left uncertain how much time he
has left or if humanity will take his warning to heart and save itself.
The movie, which was based on a short story by Harry Bates, and directed
by Robert Wise, who went on to do other well known hits, including The Sound
of Music and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, is certainly one of the most
brilliant science fiction creations in any genre. It knows how to ratchet up
the suspense and use irony to great effect, even if there are a few plot
holes large enough to fly a spaceship through. Adding to the effect, the
music is eerie and unnerving, and many of the frames can function as
individual works of art.
And the movie certainly knew how to exploit
the tensions of the time for dramatic effect, since it was made when flying
saucer “sightings” were relatively new. And the Soviet Union had only
recently developed nuclear weapons.
Of course, on the surface, the
political message of The Day the Earth Stood Still is perhaps a little too obvious, since it takes a
set of political ideals from its time and projects them onto an interstellar
arena. It doesn’t merely support the United Nations and world control of
dangerous weapons; it offers a vision of interplanetary government and
disarmament. In fact, according to a New York Times article, the prime mover
behind the movie, producer Julian Blaustein, said that his goal was to
support a strong United Nations (which had just been created in 1945). That
makes the movie a brilliantly conceived political argument, as well as a
work of art.
But what gives the movie its depth and resonance is the
nature of the conflict it depicts, since this isn’t a conventional story
about good versus evil, and it doesn’t have a conventional villain. The main
antagonist for Klaatu – the government – isn’t really a villain at all since
it is chasing him in a misguided effort to protect the country.
In
place of good versus evil, the movie gives us a conflict between a small
group of characters who are emotionally wise and intelligent, on one side,
and the mass of humanity, which is depicted as driven by negative emotions
and desires, including fear, aggression and blind ambition, on the other.
It is Klaatu who is at the center of the emotionally wise
characters. In fact, Klaatu is downright transcendental in his peaceful
manner and equanimity. He is clearly modeled after humanity’s spiritual
leaders who preached nonviolence and asked humanity to ascend to a higher
level of development. As others have observed, he is a Christ-like figure
who descends to Earth, walks among us, dies and is resurrected, while he
carries a message of peace. When he hides out among humanity he goes by the
name Mr. Carpenter, an allusion to Jesus. Among others, it appears that
Klaatu is also based on Mahatma Gandhi, the practitioner of militant
nonviolence, who was assassinated in 1948, a few years before the movie was
made. On another level, Klaatu is a fictional image of what Freud referred
to as the ego ideal. He is our own idealized and perfected self as we would
like to see it, reflected back to us on a black and white screen.
Throughout the movie, we are invited to see a fallen humanity through his
eyes. In a number of scenes we see his wry amusement at the foibles of human
beings. In other scenes, such as the speech to the world’s intellectual
leaders, he describes the way humanity’s pettiness looks to him as an
advanced outsider, which is the movie’s way of trying to shock humanity into
seeing itself in a new light.
In an early scene, for example, Mr.
Harley, secretary to the president, in explaining why it is difficult to
meet with representatives of all the nations, tries to create a bond with
Klaatu by talking to him as one good person to another, while distancing
both of them from the evil in the world. “I’m sure you -- you -- recognize
from our broadcasts the evil forces that have produced the trouble in our
world….” he tells Klaatu.
But Klaatu’s response makes clear that he
isn’t interested in siding with one group against another. He has a
radically different perspective: “I’m not concerned, Mr. Harley, with the
internal affairs of your planet,” he says. “My mission here is not to solve
your petty squabbles. It concerns the existence of every last creature on
Earth.”
Later, in speaking to Professor Barnhardt, Klaatu once again
gives us an outsider’s perspective on our violence, in which we appear small
and petty: “So long as you were limited to fighting among yourselves, with
your primitive tanks and aircraft, we were unconcerned. But soon one of your
nations will apply atomic energy to space ships. That will create a threat
to the peace and security of other planets. That, of course, we cannot
tolerate.”
In addition to Klaatu, Professor Barnhardt is another of
the emotionally intelligent characters. Like Klaatu, he is separate from
most of humanity, because he is an Einstein-like egghead who has himself
achieved a state of equanimity. When Klaatu introduces himself as the alien,
Professor Barnhardt reacts not with paranoia and violence but, after the
initial shock, with curiosity and humor: “Sit down please,” he says. “There
are several thousand questions I’d like to ask you.”
But Professor
Barnhardt’s finest moment comes when Klaatu gives humanity a demonstration
of his power, so it will understand the stakes if it ignores his message.
Klaatu makes technology around the Earth come to a standstill (hence the
title), except for machines that have to keep running for the sake of
safety. As cars are stuck on roads and the lights are out, and humanity
scrambles in fear and bewilderment, Professor Barnhardt asks his housekeeper
and assistant how it makes her feel.
“Tell me, Hilda, does all this
frighten you? Does it make you feel insecure?” he asks.
“Yes sir, it
certainly does,” she says.
“That’s good, Hilda. I’m glad,” he
replies, with more than a hint of teasing irony in his voice, as she looks
at him with surprise.
At the literal level, Professor Barnhardt is
saying he is happy the demonstration is working, so humanity will understand
the risk of turning down Klaatu’s offer. But it is clear that Barnhardt, as
a fellow outsider not taken in by humanity’s foibles, is enjoying the
spectacle of humanity cut down to size. The movie invites us to join him and
become one of the elect who see humanity from a larger perspective.
A third character who displays emotional maturity and insight is the single
mother, Helen Benson, who helps Klaatu. She’s the implied love interest,
although nothing happens between them since that might have damaged the
audience’s image of Klaatu as a spiritual leader beyond human frailty. Her
attitude of openness to the alien is contrasted with others in the boarding
house where Klaatu is staying who, like the government, aren’t villains so
much as they are small-minded people prone to irrational fears.
But
there is one Judas-like character who does come close to being a villain
(although he isn’t the main antagonist), because he is motivated by blind
ambition. This is the man who wants to marry Helen Benson and who ignores
her entreaties to protect the alien, instead telling the government where it
can find him. He believes that, by doing so, he will become, as he put it,
“the biggest man in the country,” and advance his career.
Of course,
by depicting these weaknesses, the movie shows us why humanity would be a
threat to other worlds. In effect, Klaatu comes to Earth to tell humanity it
can’t be trusted with powerful technologies, and humanity’s response is to
demonstrate why he is right, which is one of a number of ways the movie
embodies its message in its characters and story.
Needless to say,
The Day the Earth Stood Still isn’t exactly a populist movie. It offers a form of elitism in which
most of humanity is reduced to playing the role of teeming masses of
frightened and foolish people. To save ourselves, the movie tells us, we
need to look to the few who have evolved to a higher state of wisdom and
maturity. It gives us this message by inviting us to identify with Klaatu
(and his supporters) and imagine ourselves as an otherworldly saint who can
bring peace on Earth.
The problem, of course, is that we have
learned from the bitter experience of past examples (the French Revolution
and the Soviet Union come to mind) that utopian dreams can turn into
violent, oppressive, nightmares. In Klaatu’s federation, robots -- machines
-- have the ultimate control over violence. And if humanity refuses to go
along with this system, then humanity will, Klaatu says, “face
obliteration!”
So maybe humanity’s fear isn’t so mad after all. Even
though this appears to be a benign federation, it looks like humanity is
about to be assimilated.
And what about Klaatu’s comment to Mr.
Harley, secretary to the president, when he says, “My mission here is not to
solve your petty squabbles,” as well as his statement to Professor
Barnhardt: “So long as you were limited to fighting among yourselves, with
your primitive tanks and aircraft, we were unconcerned. But soon one of your
nations will apply atomic energy to space ships. That will create a threat
to the peace and security of other planets. That, of course, we cannot
tolerate.” His comments suggested there was a moral equivalence between
America and its enemies, an idea the movie was able to get away with because
Klaatu’s observations were phrased in a general way and embedded in an
almost religious fantasy. But statements like these may also reveal why
Klaatu is insensitive to the difference between good and evil on Earth.
After all, his federation of planets isn’t really motivated by a desire to
help humanity. It is merely trying to protect itself by disarming us.
So, in some ways, the 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood
Still deconstructs itself. It can be taken as a
vision of what we can become or as a cautionary tale about believing in
spiritual gurus and utopian dreams of universal disarmament and world
government. Or both.
Despite these imperfections, and despite the
passage of time, the original still has the capacity to enlarge us, and it
remains one of Hollywood’s finest creations. Its depiction of technology as
something that can destroy us (in the robot as well as nuclear weapons), and
its depiction of how helpless humanity is when machines stop working, places
it in a long line of worthy science fiction creations, even while it tries
to fascinate its audience with the prospect of incredible alien
technologies.
Unfortunately, the 2008 remake by the same name can’t aspire to the
original’s moral and aesthetic impact. The remake offers a different message
about saving the environment that expresses new circumstances and a
contemporary sensibility. But it seems like the message has been tacked onto
the story with a Post-It note, instead of emerging naturally from the
characters and their actions.
Keanu Reeves plays an updated Klaatu,
who is adjusting to having taken human form for his visit to Earth, where he
intends to save the ecosystem by destroying the humanity that is threatening
it. Instead of being in a state of equanimity, this contemporary anti-hero
is awkward and lacking emotion.
But the remake does unfold with a
dramatic pace that will keep many people reasonably absorbed in the story,
despite its limitations. And it offers a variation on the original theme. In
the original, the people who have insight and emotional wisdom help Klaatu
get his message to humanity, so the Earth can be saved. In the remake,
emotionally intelligent people try to convince the alien that humanity
should be saved, as they are contrasted with a terrified and fleeing
humanity and a government that only seems to know how to use force.
Unfortunately, the message about emotional wisdom isn’t effectively embodied
in the remake, partly because the remake itself lacks emotional
intelligence. It bears the imprint of some of the negative trends of the era
in which it was made since, instead of a story full of humanity, it gives us
emotional deadness combined with action, technology and special effects. The
movie takes one element of the original, namely the idea that the aliens
might decide to harm the Earth, and uses that to spin out a story seething
with violence, dehumanization and despair. Its ethically ambiguous central
character is a one-person (or one-alien) apocalypse, which may be exciting
from a certain perspective but doesn’t give the audience much to work with
beyond the adrenaline rush of simulated action. It is as if the bright light
of the original had traveled from a great distance and reached the remake,
so that the outline of a shape is still visible but most of the illumination
has been lost.
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This excerpt provides some good background information:
The Cold War Sci-Fi Parable That Fell to Earth
By J. HOBERMAN
New
York Times
Published: October 31, 2008
…In the
meantime, Klaatu makes contact with Dr. Barnhardt, the smartest man on
earth, played by a wide-eyed, wild-haired Sam Jaffe as an obvious stand-in
for Albert Einstein.
This was not an innocent choice. America’s most
famous brain was a proponent of world government and opponent of loyalty
oaths, reviled as a Communist fellow-traveler for being a co-sponsor of the
Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace held at the
Waldorf-Astoria in 1949. Encouraged by Klaatu, Dr. Barnhardt organizes an
international peace conference similar to the Waldorf conclave — a gathering
frequently invoked during the House Un-American Activities Committee
hearings on Hollywood that took place while “The Day the Earth Stood Still”
was shooting second-unit scenes on the Mall. (The name of Jaffe, a liberal
activist in Actors Equity, came up as well; subsequently blacklisted, he
would not appear in another movie until 1958.)
Obviously and
unfashionably progressive, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” was the
brainchild of the producer Julian Blaustein, whose first film was the 1950
brotherhood western “Broken Arrow.” As with “Broken Arrow,” which opened
while “The Day the Earth Stood Still” was in pre-production (a few months
into the Korean War), Blaustein had a purpose; the movie, he told the press,
was an argument in favor of a “strong United Nations.” While the film’s
director, Wise, was also politically liberal (years later, he described
himself as a left-wing sympathizer who had not joined enough front groups to
come under government scrutiny), his main contributions were stylistic. Wise
had directed two low-key atmospheric chillers for the producer Val Lewton
and before that served as Orson Welles’s editor. “The Day the Earth Stood
Still” shows the influence of both: the movie’s relative naturalism is
accentuated by adroit location work and, in some scenes, real radio
reporters. The premise, of course, was Wellesian, and Wise recruited
Welles’s brilliant composer Bernard Herrmann to provide a moody,
theremin-enriched score.
Variety would praise the locations that gave
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” “an almost documentary flavor,” but Wise was
documenting something more than Washington landmarks. The movie exudes
topical hysteria; paranoia is palpable, and the spectacle of the nation’s
capital under martial law seems all too probable.
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Image above of Gort, the robot: By 20th Century Fox (20th Century Fox)
[Public domain], via
Wikimedia Commons
Copyright © 1996-2011
Ken Sanes
On file with the U.S. Copyright Office
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