“On a Holiday, so many miles, looking for a place to stay near some friendly star.” - The Pixies, "Motorway to Roswell"
While the first half of the decade continued the traditions of 50s pulp (which I also love), the second half of the 60s took the genre of science fiction in brand new directions, inspired by a wave of daring and creative authors. I’ve always felt that the best science fiction is not based around starship battles, lasers, and impractical things like flying cars and jetpacks, but is instead either heavily rooted in actual science or merely humanistic philosophical writings with sci-fi as a template. The following three movies are great examples of this distinction, having since become iconic in the genre.
Alphaville (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
“What?” you may be asking, “a sci-fi film without special effects?” Yes, that’s exactly what Alphaville is. Jean-Luc Godard’s prescient look at the increasing rise of technology was way ahead of its time, and all without using advanced technology. Is that a paradox? Not really, at least according to some of the underlying messages within. Eddie Constantine is perfect as Lemmy Caution, an established hard-boiled noir detective in a strange new world. Constantine had already been playing the detective in a series of noir films, which is probably why the role seemed so effortless and fitting. Caution is meant to appear as a fish out of water, however, a stranger in a strange land, to appropriate another science fiction touchstone. He has a few little missions in Alphaville, a city run by a computer, called “Alpha 60.”
There is very little in this film to denote that this is science fiction, other than literary and visual devices. For instance, we consistently get images of flashing lights, blinking at different variables, and many arrows pointing to the right, as if into the future, signifying progress. The future of Alphaville is more the future of Huxley and Orwell, awash in bureaucracy, in which Caution is consistently told to check in with Civil Control, which he then consistently blows off. But, the most disconcerting, jarring, and uncomfortable sci-fi trope is the voice of Alpha 60, performed by a man with a mechanical voice-box, like those provided to former smokers who have completely destroyed their larynges. Sounds of swallowing and hitches in the breath accompany the mechanical voice, which is almost too horrifying to listen to, but is ever present. This can’t be accidental. It’s as if Godard is signifying that this is incredibly wrong.
The people who inhabit Alphaville are equally curious, devoid of emotion, as that is the law of Alpha 60, and ending every conversation with “I’m very well, thank you, you’re welcome,” or “Yes, I’m fine. Don’t mention it.” They keep a book they call “The Bible,” that is filled with the words that have been outlawed from human usage as they evoke too much emotion. Natasha Von Braun, played by the exquisitely beautiful Anna Karina, watches Eddie being abused and is asked if she is crying. “No,” she says, as a tear rolls down her cheek, “because that’s forbidden.” One person says to Caution, “Never say why, only because.” And what happens when people cross the line, showing too much emotion? They are executed, with the killings watched as sport.
This might have been the fist mix of sci-fi and noir mystery (don’t hold me to that), but it certainly wasn’t the last. Jonathan Lethem, Philip K. Dick, and many others continued this great blend of genres. Parts of this film reminded me of La Jetée, Gattaca, Children of Men, and other sci-fi films that were more warnings of the present than warnings of the future. At a certain point, Alpha 60 questions Caution in a brilliant scene of masterful dialogue. “What is the privilege of the dead,” asks Alpha 60. “To die no more,” answers Caution. “What transforms darkness into light?” “Poetry,” responds our hard-boiled hero in a moment of surprising vulnerability. Four years later, as we will see, Stanley Kubrick presented a take on the self-realized computer, though his voice was much easier to listen to, if equally as chilling.
Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)
The ending of Planet of the Apes has been parodied so many times that it had lost the power of its twist ending, like Citizen Kane or Psycho. Amazingly, as I had never seen the film until just before writing this, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the movie. Based on a French novel, by Pierre Boulle, this film has become part of the sci-fi canon. Equal parts Twilight Zone narrative, allegory of race relations, and commentary on the debate of religion vs. evolution, Planet of the Apes is a film that has everything, plus a generous amount of camp. After resisting seeing this movie for as long as I have, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, even to the point of considering buying it on Blu-Ray.
Charlton Heston is perfect as ANSA (a not so clever version of NASA) mission leader, Taylor. His brash machismo and self-righteous demeanor make him the ideal “captured savage.” While he may be the central figure, he has to battle for screen time with the costumed simians, as played wonderfully by Malcolm McDowell, Kim Hunter, and Maurice Evans, as Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Zaius, respectively. Their carefully arranged hierarchy is riveting to watch and analyze. The chimpanzees, of which Cornelius and Zira are members, are smaller and smarter, scientists and open thinkers. The orangutans are rigid followers of the law and religion, constantly quoting the sacred scrolls. The gorillas are the military force, rounding up the primitive humans and rarely speaking. I’ll let you make your own connections to real world counterparts, in both stereotypes and actual correlatives, including coloration.
In this way, Planet of the Apes is a much deeper film than I at first surmised it to be. Sure, there are over the top moments, such as Heston’s maniacal laugh near the beginning of the film, when Landon plants an American flag in the desert sand, or the fact that he smokes a cigar in a spacecraft. Sure, that could happen. Even more out of place in later viewings, like my own, are the 60s, flower child, hippie slogans, such as when Heston tells young Lucius, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” But, Planet of the Apes has more going for it than not. Despite the primitive costumes, in which the mouths of the monkeys hardly move at all, one loses oneself in the world envisioned by the author and filmmakers. The score by Jerry Goldsmith is suspenseful and engaging. The performances are wonderful, even by the hammy Heston. The cinematography is breathtaking, especially in the opening moments of the film, with long shots of our astronauts walking through the desert, and overhead shots of the gorillas closing in on the primitive humans in the tall fields. And, without giving anything away, though it is simply part of the social consciousness, there is not much in this film in the way of special effects to denote science fiction, just like Alphaville.
The Simpsons has parodied this movie dozens of times, possibly as many times as they have The Godfather, The Graduate, and Citizen Kane. My favorite, however, has to be when Homer is picked to be an astronaut and then pieces together the symbolic twist ending, much later than any reasonable man should, finally replicating Heston's final exclamations in hilarious fashion.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
It is still amazing to me that 2001: A Space Odyssey was released a full year before man actually even landed on the moon. Its visions of space travel, space stations, and other leaps in technology and science were more than prescient, they were staggeringly accurate. Okay, so maybe we don't have Pan-Am passenger space flights, but we do have video phones. So, how much longer is it going to be until we actually see passenger space flights? I'm looking at you, Paul Allen.
Unlike the previous two films, 2001 does employ special effects, and they are mind-blowing, though not in the way that we are accustomed to today, in 3-D, CGI, and digital animation. Instead, Kubrick uses both old school camera trickery and newfound techniques to display such things as altering gravity, gyroscopic satellite runs, and trips through a “Star Gate.” Co-written with sci-fi master, Arthur C. Clarke, 2001 was and still remains one of the best examples of the artistic and philosophical side of this genre. Because of input from Clarke and luminary figures in science, such as Carl Sagan, everything in 2001 feels somehow real. There are no sounds in space. There are no humanoid aliens. There is both a beauty and precision to scenes in which ships dock with space stations. Some may call Star Wars a space opera, but 2001 is far more classically operatic than Star Wars, even to the point of being divided into four separate movements.
The first movement involves the dawn of man, the moment when monkey-like primitive humans first learn how to wield tools. The second features a scientist traveling to a space station orbiting the moon who is summoned to explain a found anomaly. The third is likely the most remembered and most quoted, featuring space travelers headed on a mission to Jupiter some eighteen months later, on a ship run by a computer called “HAL 9000.” The fourth and final movement centers around one of those astronauts, Bowman, and his final journey of discovery. The common through line amongst these individual parts is the monolith, a large black rectangle that keeps mysteriously popping up, with many, including the audience, wondering just what it may mean.
Kubrick and Clarke purposefully set out to write a story that would have to be viewed again and again, mined each time for meaning, philosophically and existentially. This is certainly not a straightforward story. Perhaps this is why the third movement, with HAL, is the most remembered, being a somewhat self-contained story of a computer that becomes self-actualized. By the way, the idea that the name HAL came from the three letters preceding IBM is apocryphal. It actually stands for Heuristic Algorithmic Computer. Much of the reason I love 2001, and can watch it repeatedly is in its enigmatic nature. Philosophy is personal, it is not meant to provide ready answers and simple solutions to our most difficult questions. Instead, 2001 presents those difficult questions in a particular setting and then asks questions those scientists and futurists are asking about life in the cosmos. A sci-fi film this intelligent had never been made before, and I’d argue that it hasn’t been duplicated since. Do I have my own take on what is happening here? Sure I do! Am I going to tell you? I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.
