12.09.1996

Crude attempt

Breon James reviews Independence Day (directed by Roland Emmerich, 1996)

Independence Day is currently the top grossing film at the British and US box office. This relatively low-budget blockbuster, made by the Murdoch-owned Fox studio, is attracting millions to the cinema and will no doubt spawn several films with a similar story line, as other studios attempt to cash in on its phenomenal success.

The story line itself should be easy to replicate. It can be summarised easily: evil alien forces attack Earth, bent on domination and destruction; on the brink of destruction, Earth forces rally, fight back and destroy the invaders.

The message of the story is clear. In the face of annihilation humankind is united in common purpose, all previous divisions and dissent shown to be demonstrably trivial. That this unity is behind the US president, and the common purpose the defence of American freedom on July 4th goes some way to explaining the chauvinistic appeal this film has for American audiences.

In the absence of the traditional villains - the USSR, commies, reds, etc - we have ruthless, uncommunicative aliens - cosmic locusts. Or, rather, a collection of loose-limbed visceral prosthetics from the special effects department. For the forces of good we have the familiar device of Hollywood’s view of a cross section of American life: the president; a maverick Jewish scientist; a black fighter pilot; a drunken crop sprayer, who provides the comic buffoonery, but who ultimately saves the day by his loyal sacrifice in the final battle.

There is a crude attempt to introduce a ‘green’ subtext, promoting recycling as a means to solve the world’s (ie, capitalism’s) problems, but this soon loses focus and is itself subverted by the unfolding events.

This, then, is the material which, augmented by standard special effects, has proved so lucrative for Murdoch’s studio and raised its standing amongst the major studios purveying Hollywood hokum.

This deeply reactionary film might be better named ‘Dependence Day’, since it ultimately says, ‘Support the status quo - things could be a lot worse’. Film industry circles have, not surprisingly, praised the film for bringing people back to the cinema in such numbers. It would surely be better to see cinema brought back to the people, rather than presenting them with poorly constructed apocalyptic propaganda of this type.

Breon James