THE COLD WAR AND VIETNAM IN FILM istory, whether recorded by academics, journals, ot ars foes not divide isto ac periods as we sometimes lke to pretend: one © BES to nner a ime exes tay cocrst. The ere of the Gress Dope ‘was seated by World War I; and the war as it wou) dvr ‘yielded to the cold supelameriod that produced some of the most subtly interesting of political films. "Pie quality of these kms i i lange part due to thei nde tn this reopen ie cold arin fn was hike Viet in fim: 26) divisive political weatrons were addressed obliquely at fist and ditty ony ‘much later, after the {es eerny had abated, The Depression and World War by contrast, it orci addresed by moviemakers the brut faci of Depression were more de, deep, and direct o ignore; and World War I once nad bee, were too Wi bjt for movies. The indretion in mass-market film that Pica controversy brings also may brig atte sub tical conoid. war" was coined by speechuwite: and publchs Herbert Faas Sepe sn 1946, The cold war, like the shooting var thet ‘preceded it Lava everything in US. society: public policy on the mars transportation, core eye ence and technology, communications repultion, Ox eh policy, cat oles all were structured and justified by We felt need (0 frotect the United States from its new Soviet vera (Sherry, 1995). But real US. policy was based on containing further expanse of the Soviet aoc hae of polis fluence, not on vanquising a SMM it, With va ag war, the domestic potial goa was one of uiling US. society 20 ae rong encugh 1 susain what, in John F. Kennedy swords, Was toa oa Tong twilight struggle” against the U.S.S.R. So far as a culture was seen asa Mons Mimgue ireumiances diverted pola! anxieties FO © sole aac an external threat toa parallel fecus on an interna) WES) the threat of focus on tt gubverson of US. society, The bipolar political stale that wasInited States from internal adversaries as from extemal ones, = ae Goel Cos Social critics such as David meer The ), William H. Whyte in The Organization Me 057) scores of other writers and artists looked at ‘hreriea aad rea a hype ates ee ‘eel et ed Sty rtd he pan ca a ove soe ast, ncung fale eo ‘ar American society as ifexamining an lien being. nT” 190k atcold ALIENS, ee aPC at tian ne st |ent tanec rma de a brief lives were over, the industry had found a m Teac, Spiel aera stores by transforming them into allegories sen oer . Space as a setting was a natura: cold-ware fae Shae sting va ra events were driven by a er worldly technology’ more ‘eral and figurative diane om which o examine cay wens afer because it was distant. oe is ety YarT aT Oe fold eres om Uden) duized by awe atthe power of clear weapons for either good or cv a deal that lay athe center of The Besining ore End (1947) Which dea wing “ Bg of the atomic bomb and the uncertain future associated with it? By far thebestof these awestruck erly cold wat fils, however, woe the ‘ise-directed 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still, ines ‘The film begins with the landing ofa spicecraf in Ws mune fashington, D.C, Mage of excited international news commentary about. the ‘he Cold War and Vietnam in Film 135 alien arrival, establishing the recurring motif of the community of all the nations of earth: earth in the movie is not jast a single nation-state or its adversary, but a community uniting humans regardless of national boundaries. The craft is surrounded by a small army of curious and nervous military personnel, establishing another recurring motif: the primacy. of military versus civilian authority. The stylized silver craft opens to reveal Gor, a huge robot, and the human-like Klaatu (Michael Rennie). Klaatu moves to offer a gift to the carthlings but instead is shot by a panicked young soldier, whose life and those of his comrades is spared when Klaatu orders Gort not to harm them. Instead, Gort simply fices a ray at the soldiers! weapons, disarming the soldiers without harm. Thus, a thitd motif: great power restrained. A fourth motif is implicit in all this: the earth as dystopic, for, atthe conclusion of the opening scene, the audience finds itself identifying withthe aliens Rennie plays Klaatu with great dignity and reserve: Klsatu's voice is deep, his manner polite, his attitude toward eartlings a combination of patience, hopefulness, and condescension. He has a message for eathlings, he says, but it must be delivered to al the people of earth, Taken to a hospital for observation, Klaatu is told by an official that his desire to speak to all the nations of earth is impossible to realize; there are too many political divisions to permit it. "T am not interested in your petty squabbles,” Klaatu replies, Klaatu leaves the hospital, smiling to himself at the ease with which he overcomes the security designed to confine him. He eventually settles in a boardinghouse whose table conversation amuses him with its talk of the escaped spaceman and his craft, which several atthe table suspect is from the Soviet Union. The only reasonable person atthe table is Helen Benson (Patricia Neal), a widow with a young son, Bobby (Billy Gray). Klaatu tells them his name is Carpenter. Klaatu and Bobby take a tour of Washington, where Klsatu learns that Bobby's fether was killed in World War Il. Looking across a sea of soldiers’ tombstones, Klaatu/Carpenter tells Bobby that things don't have to be this way. Klaatu: "We don't have war." Bobby: "What a good idea!" Convinced that his efforts to communicate with poltieal leaders will come to nothing, Klaatu asks [Bobby the name the world’s smartest man; Bobby responds that it is probably the great scientist Dr. Barnharct (Sam Jaffe). They go to Bamhard’s home—on Harvard Street—where Klaatu goes to a blackboard and solves an equation by ‘vay of introducing himself. Bamhardt quickly surmises Klaata's identity as the alien and asks for proof of Klaatu's power, which Klaatu provides by bringing almost everything on earth toa halt at noon the following day. Convinced, Barnhardt arranges a meeting of all the world's scientists, a ‘meeting that is thwarted by the teachery of Helen Benson's suitor, Tom Stevens, (Hugh Marlow), whose jealously of Carpenters relationship with Helen and Bobby and whose greed and desire for notoriety cause him to alert the military ‘authorities, who ask Barnhardt to cancel the meeting. Bamhardt agrees, underlining again that the military governs the world of The Day the Earth Swood Sill, Washington, P.C's monuments—the setting for Jefferson Smith's hhero-worshipping awe of national heroes in Mr. Smith Goes 10 Washington become in The Day the Earth Stood Still the stage for scores of police and136 Polities and Potejans in American Film in isin pf Kat 3 teuayed anf misundasood Klann isso in he bck by » solr a sitet essary Gove wo ake imo espace here Kina resected by te robot Gort defend he pacer bu thi ime, in contat 0 the eariee sen, he ile two solders rater than simply desvoying thei weapons isin ti scene hat the developing astoiaton between lat and Cin sought ad: Klas adh ue is Capi sated by Hale's boytind, "Tomy fr diamonds, the fms surogse fr sive he resumeced by te powerful Gor (hough Edmund Nori sereenply is quick 0 tow that Gort isnot God; and be come fom the skies wilt a message of | pesce was among the peel but i raundersood and nally betnyed and Tied before hi reuecton, Dr, Bernard lkeise cent stcited wih ‘Albert Binsin, aman who i his pola fe ereseed deep concer about ice weapons ot only Barbar he wort feats bat Sm [Ine pytes ppearact and marr cannot elp Bt bring Ent o mi The fins hereto thu creates of cool inellct—Klaata and Barsarde— | Sey son ding ay with ale a jemnant the alien Chit ike Kista ad the human Dr, Barbar the pels and Bobby Benson the heart. ea pe 1 eyond the ivoctons of Chr and of tence the inal scene the Bea Sood Sal make a Gi met te ol neyo Toad | Hobbes Levithon (161). As Klan prepars to leave ert he deliver atom (ecane 10 he earlcgh be vod ha iplnatay Bends wire popated verook eanlng val daptes, he sae, but only unl eaige developed Weopons of maseddtneton,tenotng eat no longer posible now that Soputs have become a tea footer plans sy, Rls els his hushed audience that ober pants leared! to deal wth ths sition Tong ago by deg nwo ahtConnho we np eo ae tating a hore pice for eamgesons. Klay offers earth pda lee isis rec ca seo a laa oll cea tee tnt you doo theta your neighbor. “The dein, he says rera wih you." . Takis poltial analysis of the work in he cay cold war peti essntly that of Thomas Hobbes 188-1673) "war of al guint ll The earth which Klaatu discovers exists on the verge of a Hobbesian state of nature, Sarr a that portaped many west, in which the survival f the | community tvenen by the seats nl vene a he very peopl who compris lc Klnah's answer Hobbeds atever leviathan, a rte sructre suficenty power to capa compliance and tas garnie sia and peace For Hobe as for Kany, the Goma thie "During the te men ie outa common power to keep them alin ave they ae jn tht cordon Wich is called wey and such a vara of evry tan agit every rn (Hobbes in Sommerville and. Sanon ey 1963, 143), Hate Hobbes memorably. characterized as. "poor, nasty, ‘brits and short” Kl conclusion is also that of Hobbes: "hp passions. that-nchine-men to peace are fea of dent (Hobbes; n Somerile ai Srn 1963, 143), and in The Day ‘The Cold War and Vietnam in Film 7 ‘the Earth Stood Still, the race of robots, of which Gort is only one of many, is ‘the source of that death, As Hobbes celebrated human reason, so does Klaatu; as Hobbes celebrates the use of reason to achieve peace, so docs Klaatu. As Hobbes wrote and as Klaatu might have said: "Now all the duties of the rulers are contained in this one sentence, the safety of the people is the supreme law." Gort provides that safety ‘The Day the Earth Stood Stil is very much a film of the head, of the intellect. Robert Wise's stately direction, the austere sets, Rennic's dignified portrayal of Klaatu, all contribute to the cool and thoughtful tone of the film, depicting the arth 28 dystopic and the alternative presented by Klaatu as ulopic, or at least Superior. We are encouraged to look at earth as Klaatu does: as a place of great anger in the nuclear age, which can nonetheless be mitigated by an unflinching Selfexamination and the application of sound judgment. From the outset, when Klaatu's craft lands and is surrounded by apprehensive soldiers, the audience is ‘on Klaatu’s side: how silly these soldiers are, how suspicious the people around the boardinghouse table are, how venal and selfish Tom is. Only the pore-of- hoart Helen and her son—a woman and a child—and the man of science, Dr. Barnard, really understand; the other scientists who might have understood Kisatu's message never hear it because the military cancels the meeting, Emotionally, the film encourages us to identify with the aliens and to look skeptically and even cynically at our own species. The model of cold war-era governance in The Day the Earth Stood Sdll recurs in many films ofthis period: the virtual disappearance of civilian political futhority and its legitimate—indeed, virtually unnoticed—replacement by the tmifitary. When civilian authority is referred to at all, as it is briefly in the beginning of the film, itis only io reinforce the futile and pety squabbling of political leaders. When action is to be taken, the military does it In an early Feene at the spacecraft a man selling newspapers yells the headline, "Army ont in charge!" The national military establishment plays the same role in cold war ‘era films that the FBI does in films of the gangster era: it effectively becomes the state, what was termed during the cold war era the "garrison state," in which the demands of the national security and military establishments become preeminent. The most remarkable politcal aspect of many cold was-era films is) K The extent to which their portrayals of governance involve either the complete Uisappearance of civilian authority or its subordination to the military. TRevitably, this concem with the rise of the military—given its catch-phrase | of the “milary-industral complex” in Dwight Eisenhower's presidental | Srewell addressed to film portrayals of the military gone mad, as in Seven | Days in May (1964) Directed by John Frankenkcimer with aserenplay by Rod |" Saling, the film is the story of an unsuccessful military coup led by an Air Force general (Burt Lancaster) appalled at the atempts ofthe president (redsic | March to reduce the rik of nuclear war by negotiating an arms-reducton treaty | with the Soviet Union. "To contemplate the ideas that animate The Day the Earth Stood Sul is to find ‘an extraordinary mix of science fiction, religion, and politcal philosophy: a Ghototlike alien descending 10 earth in a spacecraft along with his god-like