The devastation of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the ensuing Cold War and amassing of weapons of mass destruction, have left a deep impression on our collective psyches. Our horror and fear of a nuclear holocaust surfaces in all parts of our culture, especially in film. Author Jerome F. Shapiro, an American film professor in Japan, has studied hundreds of movies that span all genres but feature subtle or prevalent bomb and/or apocalyptic imagery, grouping them under his label "atomic bomb cinema" or "bomb films," for short.
His discussion begins with pre-1945 sci-fi films, including Georges Melies's prototypical Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip To The Moon) and Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis. He then discusses the great, apocalyptic movies that came after the war, like Five, War of the Worlds, and The World, The Flesh, and The Devil. The following chapters feature everything from screwball comedy (Dr. Strangelove, Naked Gun 2 ½), cheesy radioactive monster movies (Them, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, The Amazing Colossal Man, Godzilla movies, etc.), horror (Night of the Living Dead), to more modern cult, sci-fi, and action titles (Mad Max, Alien, Terminator, James Bond movies, Total Recall, Hunt for Red October). (Strangely absent, however, is The Planet of the Apes series, which was overtly anti-nuke.)
Shapiro seems to have equal appreciation for all the bomb films he discourses upon, not only withholding judgment on exceptionally poor titles, but also writing about stinkers like Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Waterworld, and even Blast From The Past with the same reverence and fluffy academia as The Time Machine or Metropolis.
But his passion doesn't mask the major problems with this book, which is in serious need of an editor. Shapiro's style is highly academic without making any points. He analyzes each film in relation to Judeo-Christianity, Freudian/Jungian psychology, mythology, sociology, etc., but without any central theme or hypothesis other than "here's the connection between this movie and the bomb." You get the feeling that if the word "bomb" appeared in Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!, it would be featured in this book, along with a dissertation on the Oedipal relationship between Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty's characters, ageism in society, and the phallic shapes of guns.
Also, his plot summaries are unnecessarily detailed and his analyses are very disjointed, resulting in him repeating himself. His structure is also confusing, as he analyzes groups of four, five movies at once. I think it would've made more sense (considering his predilection towards long film summaries) to structure the book like a film guide, allowing a short chapter for each film title. Instead, Shapiro's chapters are jumbled messes, made murkier by not having a clear and stated point.
While I'm fascinated with bomb movies, Atomic Bomb Cinema doesn't offer much insight into how exactly American and Japanese films differ (one of its themes, I think), and why humanity can't envision a complete end to the world, but always assumes a hopeful life-will-go-on attitude toward global annihilation. Shapiro's book isn't a total bomb, but it didn't light any major fires under me, either. |
