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It’s the sci-fi paranoia classic that spawned so many imitators and adaptations: Don Siegel’s 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
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What I’ve always loved about this film is the way it pivots back and forth on the paranoid edge of the McCarthy era.
There are moments when it seems to be mocking McCarthy’s paranoid rants, dismissing a world of single-minded homogeneity as something akin to hell. But then again, the movie says this alien invasion – in which bodies are swapped out with alien replicas that look and act just like normal human beings – is indeed happening, and is something worth fearing. The guy screaming from the rooftops isn’t a cook but a savior. So the climax of the film is gloriously muddled and contradictory: The rantings of a mad man inspire the worst kind of paranoia – but what if the mad man is right?
One can see the influence of Siegel’s vision – his economical use of screen time, his understated special effects, his obsession with the issue of individuality – in everything from Blade Runner to The Truman Show, to this weekend’s The Crazies (check out our review here). And popping in the Body Snatchers DVD last weekend, its kind of impressive that a 54-year-old film can still feel so fresh and suspenseful. There are moments – like that virtuoso sequence in which a silent mob amasses to receive the alien pods to infect their families – which work brilliantly. That’s because it’s all about the concept, stripped down to the essentials and allowed to play out in tight, terrifying fashion. The use of silence at several key moments is also rather brave; Siegel seems determined not to milk his material but to allow it to slowly sink in. It’s a wise strategy. (More at Techland: Check out our weekly ‘Freeze Frame’ feature, championing sci-fi’s greatest moments)
Camerawork:
Featuring performances that are notably sparse and sullen, what really energizes Siegel’s scenes is a strategy to frame the action in such a way that key moments look and feel askew.
Even when the characters are acting normally, we sense a world out of balance. I’m thinking of the scene in the greenhouse (seen in the photo above), with the extraordinary establishing camera angles that put us in the position of the alien pod. As the characters move in, we realize that our point of view is the alien point of view.
Or how about the silence leading up to Dr. Binnell and Becky’s counter-assault against the aliens in Binnell’s office? Or the wide-screen silence of the mob amassing in the town square, a crowd moving as one. Or the way the stairs loom, both down into the town square from Binnell’s office, and up to the highway, out of the valley. When Binnell and Becky sprint up those stairs, Siegel puts the camera on rollers and soars above them, looking down while rolling up. They are escaping the depths of hell. (More at Techland: The top 10 worst superhero films)
This movie looks and sounds different from the peers of its era, and I think that leads us to view the story – and its larger meanings – in a far different light.
Insider info:
Given that the movie was remade in 1993 by Abel Ferrara and 1978 by Philip Kaufman, it seems kind of remarkable that you could still point back to Siegel’s vision, made all the way back in 1956, as the superior version.
Made with less money, less prestige, and on a tighter schedule, I think all the constraints actually forced Siegel and company into developing a more focused, nuanced vision. Sometimes impediments can be a good thing. The original Invasion was written by Daniel Mainwaring, adapted from a three-part serial story that was written by Jack Finney and published in Colliers Magazine in 1954. In 1955, that serial was converted into a feature-length novel. The film project was then given the low budget of $420,000, and a rushed 19-day shooting schedule, in a bid to rush out a B-movie onto theater screens. Ironically, in only these 19 days, Siegel molded his best film. Forced to limit his special effects, straying from showing actual murders (there is only one obscured-pitchfork-into-body sequence), and thinking creatively in how to portray a town overrun with alien replicas, it’s the subtleties and misdirection that made this masterpiece.
Top Ten Moments:
19:53 – For the first 15 minutes or so, all seems well in small-town America. But then there’s the late-night call that leads to the perverse image: A corpse laying on a pool table. Or rather a not-quite-formed alien body on the pool table. What I really love here, though, is the way the exposition is conveyed while leaving absolutely everything to our imagination. The doctor walks around the body, talking about how it looks like a fake human, without Siegel ever zooming in to give us a sense of what the doctor is seeing. We never get an in-focus close-up. He describes, we take him at his word, and I think this larger concept only works precisely because we don’t have anything visual to discount. For all we know, the body does actually look pretty creepy. The movie is already asking us to fill in the void.
Also: Note the perfectly-timed cuckoo clock, trying to make you jump.
30:14 – Binnell discovers the body hidden away in the chest. Just in terms of pure creativity, as a way of hooking the doctor into the story and giving the audience a good jolt, this is wonderfully effective. Binnell goes hunting through his lover’s house for clues, and he finds a replica of her growing in a box. Frea.Ky.
40:34 – The great greenhouse scene that I mentioned earlier – where the pod discovery is made. I think the very first shot of this sequence is brilliant. Not only is it filmed from such an odd angle – low, long and tilted – that it’s clear something wrong has taken up residence here, but cutting back and forth between Binnell and the pod, the audience is put into the position of where the pod sits. Our point of view is the alien’s point of view, and they slowly march in, looking right at us. Which plays right into the larger theme: They are us. We are them. This world’s about everyone being infected. (More at Techland: Percy Jackson and the all-time best sci-fi children heroes)
40:44 – The pod bubbles up and explodes, in what has to be one of the greatest low-tech effects ever committed to film. It froths, and starts to open, and we don’t even know what we see before we get scared by the thing.
43:22 – In a rushed attempt to explain away all these bizarre happenings, to create some sort of “realistic explanation” out of all this, Binnell rushes through some hackneyed theory about radiation, etc. And I kind of giggled: This whole notion of nuclear bombs, radioactivity and atomically-altered chemicals were a spectacular enigma to the public in 1956. It was the perfect cover for this story of giant pods replicating humans: It’s just radioactivity!
50:20 – This is a great reveal – something straight out of The Truman Show or Rosemary’s Baby. Binnell rushes to warn his friend, and he sees through the window that everyone in town is in on it. Even the parents with the newborn who are going to set the pod near the crib. Just about the most perverse betrayal imaginable: Parents screwing over their child. Binnell gazes in through the window, and I can hear ‘50s audiences gasping as we realize, no, this is not just a fantasy playing out in someone’s head. It’s actually happening. (More at Techland: Apple’s All-Time hits and misses)
55:35 – The great town square sequence, in which we see through Binnell’s office blinds that the city is hustling a little too normally a little too early in the day. Strangers are in town, and they are putting on a show. And then the strangers leave and we have that great moment when the dispersed crowd slowly marches into a circle, to receive their pods to spread the invasion. It’s so low-tech, so simple to execute, so simple to stage, and yet kind of terrifying. A whole city, of communists, move in synch to convert the world.
60:05 – Binnell pleads with his captors: Do you really want a world, “where everyone’s the same?” It’s a great payoff to the themes that Siegel has been establishing from the film’s first moments. And, thematically, it’s also a very complicated sentiment. The statement is vehemently anti-communist, decrying a world where everyone is considered equal. Yet Binnell’s position as the odd man out also goes to show just how absurd McCarthyism is…that to make these larger pronouncements about an ‘infected world’ just sounds silly…like an alien invasion film. Maybe I’m reading a little too much into it, but I think it works on both levels: Decrying the hysteria of the time, while also fearing a homogenous world of sheep, all moving in synchronicity. To make the claims that Binnell is making, you better have an alien invasion underway. Not some secretive list of commies in Hollywood.
63:00 – It’s all about the silence here, as Binnell prepares to fight back. Juicing up his syringes, figuring out how to orchestrate an ambush, most movies would quicken the pace here or heighten the drama via music. But Siegel goes with silence, and this is eerily effective, as these two lovers prepare for battle.
78:00 – “They’re here already, you’re next!” A deranged Binnell sprints down the highway – against traffic – screaming at the world. He then looks straight into the camera, unleashing the same sort of rhetoric that McCarthy had been screaming for years. I think it works as the paranoid apex of a movie, with one lone town crier, being screamed at by passersby to get out of the way. (More at Techland: Sci-Fi sexy time – the all-time hottest fantasy hookups)
Closing thoughts:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is great sci-fi because it’s all about the ideas, rushing through the supernatural confrontations to get to a far more interesting place of contemplation and revelation. This is a movie that defends passionately the importance of individuality, of diversity – particularly diversity of thought. To think and love individually, even if that means making mistakes and eliciting pain.
And I think after all these years, regardless of what it may or may not be saying about communism and communist fears, the one enduring theme of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is that what makes us different is essential to who we are as a people. Differences are not to be feared, but embraced. That’s what keeps us from becoming a robotic society – from looking like we’re just aliens in disguise, marching in synch. The more disagreements the better; that’s the kind of dissent McCarthy was trying to squash, and that Siegel was trying to defend.
Now – it’s your turn: Post your comments! What do you think of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? What are your favorite scenes? How do you think communism factors in? What say you?
Read Techland’s review of The Crazies here. Have any suggestions for a Screening Room title? Shoot it to steve@techland.com. Return next Thursday for the next Techland Screening Room title!
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