13.07.2005

Worlds apart

Steven Spielberg War of the worlds general release

Comparing a film with the book upon which it was based is often a fairly dull enterprise. Indeed, such practices usually suggest a set of conservative proclivities on the part of those doing the comparing. To that end, witness the dull internet blogs compiled by irate Lord of the rings fans, as it became clear that Peter Jackson had the audacity to cut some sections of the book from his movie trilogy. However, if you can get beyond this, such comparisons can shine a useful light. Steven Spielberg's War of the worlds, an adaptation of the HG Wells novel of 1898, is a good case in point. The novel, in which the Martian invaders cut a destructive swathe through the leafy lanes of Surrey in order to invade London, was an attempt to map change and its effects on the human psyche. A rational, friendly old world is turned upside down. In the final pages the narrator remarks how strange it is for him to see the gadding crowds in central London after he has walked along the same streets when they have been dead to everything but his own morbid thoughts and the final cries of a solitary Martian invader (dying due to earthly bacteria). In Spielberg's film version, this scenario is somewhat revised. In a clear nod to contemporary post-9/11 paranoia, the alien fighting machines already exist in the bowels of the earth, their controllers riding lightning storms to enter into their vessels. Also, the pre-invasion comfort of Wells' 19th century England is reworked into a social landscape that has in large parts broken down. The chief protagonist, Ray Ferrier (played by Tom Cruise), has problems in establishing even the most basic contact with his two children (the products of a failed marriage, naturally). War of the worlds has none of the lightness and humour of Independence day (1996) - another alien invasion film. Its overriding motif is darkness. Many commentators have seen the ending as a typical 'happy families' response to the contradictions thrown up in the film. Actually, its a tad more ambiguous than that. Yes, Ray finally gets to embrace his slacker son and appears to have won the respect of his daughter (who has finally stopped screaming). However, the framing of these shots - autumn leaves strewn about by the wind and Ray symbolically placed some distance from his estranged wife and her parents - suggests this is not absolute reconciliation. Also, the voiceover at the end appears to suggest (I apologise for the fact I do not have a literal reading) that because of the suffering the human race has endured, it has somehow earned the right to its existence on its planet. Therefore, the ending suggests that humanity is stacked up for more of the dysfunctional same, with maybe just a smattering of compassion. Wells' modernist vision has been effectively swept aside. Writers in some British broadsheets have also claimed that the action sequences are little more than a vehicle upon which to hang a familial drama. This is nonsense. I would suggest that the majority of the audience for this film are rolling up precisely because they know they are going to see spectacular sequences of aliens causing mayhem. Of course, the intelligentsia likes to pretend it is immune to all this, but it remains the case that the action sequences are the spectacle upon which the production hangs. And it is a spectacle - the scenes where the alien tripod machines approach a group of refugees on a ferry is designed to make its audience cower. Spielberg could not have buried his audience more effectively if he had arranged for a trailer to dump a load of slurry along the cinema aisles. Any psychological involvement the audience may have with the characters is also null and void in such passages. This is Hollywood's greatest strength and its fatal human flaw. Some of these issues also carry over into the tempo of the film. In his novel, Wells loads all of the action into the first section, leaving the second free to deal with the psychological impact of the Martian invasion. Spielberg, constrained by a particular set of blockbuster production values, cannot do this. In Wells' work, the passing of the Martians on Primrose Hill is a poignant thing, surrounded as it is by thoughts of suicide on the part of the book's protagonist and an epic soliloquy on an empty city. In the film, the end of the aliens is marked by the addition of a US army squad with bazookas. Just to help things along. There is simply no textual space for the carefully layered meaning that Wells weaves around his own penultimate scenes. I suspect this is a great film. Maybe my doubt is due to the fact that I am still stuck with Wells on top of Primrose Hill, weeping tears of redemption. However, I will resist the temptation to start my own internet blog l Lawrence Parker