Shock Corridor

The continuing comparison of The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) and…ehh…well – The Day the Earth Stood Still but the one by Scott Derrickson in 2008 In last the post I blabbered on about my thoughts on the original films New Testament references and the remake’s tendency towards the Old Testament. What I would like to try and do now is argue that because of this the original movie was perhaps subversive where as the new one just plain isn’t. 1951 or 2008? Have a guess, go on! In 1951 America found itself entrenched in a Cold War, and the politics of the time awash with anti-communist sentiment. This was driven in the main by Senator Joseph McCarthy and backed by the House of un-American Activities commission. 1947 they successfully blacklisted the ‘Hollywood 10’; screenwriters, directors and producers believed to be communist and therefore a threat to the American way of life. The suspicion of communism was widespread in...

A comparison of The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) and…ehh…well – The Day the Earth Stood Still but this one was by Scott Derrickson in 2008 Let’s just get this out of the way at the outset, if you read my first post then you’ll know that I have a certain affection for the 1951 original and so may be prone to more than a touch of bias. Couple that with the fact that the contemporary version decided that Keanu Reeves would make a sensible choice for the lead role of Klaatu and we should all be packing up now and going home. But since we are probably all already home, please believe me when I say that I shall endeavour to be objective and choke the festering bile back as it rises and taking pleasure in the fact that at least it wasn’t Tom Cruise. To aid my objectivity I’ve decided not to focus on film form, or actor’s performance, or, at least directly, the plot, but instead hone in on one particular element – biblical references, and draw contextual pol...