I work at Facets Multi-Media in Chicago, a film organization that brings foreign, independent, and documentary films to the public by showing them in our small theater or releasing them on DVD. That means much of our water-cooler-type conversations are about the movies, the movies, and the movies. Of all of the places that I have ever worked, Facets definitely has the best water-cooler discussions. Last week, some of us were talking about Titanic, an enormously successful film at the box office that is nonetheless smirked at by reviewers, film buffs, and others. I found myself rigorously defending it. 

            Much of the criticism revolves around the romance between the characters played by Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, which is odd because the most common convention of Hollywood films is for the narrative to be structured around a romance. I fail to understand why this one should be singled out with such antipathy. In the case of Titanic, the romance serves to organize and structure the real-life events and to put a human face on a historic tragedy. The other criticism is generally a vague notion that the film somehow did not live up to its hype: In other words, what was the big deal? This latter view is often expressed by those who saw on it for the first time on a small screen, either on television or DVD. Of course the problem with watching it on a television is one of scale. As James Cameron said in his Oscar acceptance speech, “Size does matter.” The visual  impact of the sinking of the ship is completely lost on a small screen in your living room, even if you are one of those tech geeks with the latest technology. On the large screen in a darkened theater with an audience, tension and fear grip you during the climactic sequence, culminating in that famous point-of-you shot in which one end of ship rises completely out of the water  -  creating the illusion that you are on that deck. Titanic is an incredibly well-crafted film, from its pacing of events to its editing of individual scenes to its detailed recreation of the ship. (On more than occasion, I have heard people mention the theme song to Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On” sung by Celine Dion, as a reason for disliking the film. Hmmm. It’s probably best if I let that one stand.)

            The conversation spurred me to think about disaster films in general. (Some, including myself, think of Titanic as a historical drama, but others group it with the disaster genre, which works, too.) Ever since I saw Airport as a kid, I have had a fondness for disaster films. Airport, based on a best-selling novel by Arthur Hailey, scored $45,220,000 on its initial box-office release, and a series of disaster-driven dramas, including The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Earthquake (1974), soon followed, launching a full-fledged genre. Generally derided by film reviewers, disaster movies are often popular with audiences in part because they exemplify one of the basic appeals of the cinema – its ability to flaunt spectacle.

            As early as the twentieth century, films exploited the spectacle of mass destruction through actual footage of the aftermath of such famous disasters as the Galveston Flood and the San Francisco Earthquake as well as in simplistic recreations of those disasters by novice movie-makers. The cameraman working for The Edison Company shot actual footage of the destruction caused by the Galveston Flood, but one of my favorite stories from the early days of film history involves those anonymous film pioneers who were not really there at the flood site. At least one of them constructed a miniature town out of sticks and cardboard and then dumped buckets of water over it while the camera operator cranked away – and he called this “The Galveston Flood.” Legend has it that the film medium was so new that audiences who saw these types of recreations did not recognize the artifice, but I doubt seriously if audiences from that time period were that stupid. I think then  -  as now  -  audiences were  caught up in the spectacle,  astonished and humbled by the destruction that Mother Nature can bring in the blink of an eye, and grateful that they themselves escaped such a fate. That might be the fundamental appeal of watching disaster films.   

            A few years later, as the cinema rapidly developed the conventions and techniques that defined it as an art form, a cycle of films from Italy used disaster as a key narrative element. From 1908 to 1914, a series of Roman epics, including two versions of The Last Days of Pompeii (1908 and 1913), The Fall of Troy (1910), and Cabiria (1914), influenced D.W. Griffith to produce films that exceeded the standard one-reel and gave American viewers a taste for historical epics. A massive disaster generally provided the climax or turning point in these films, often serving as a punishment for the characters’ or society’s moral breakdown. For decades after, the spectacle of catastrophe and mass destruction could generally be found as a key part of the ancient-history epic, though the narratives did not revolve around the disaster.

            During the 1930s, a series of Hollywood dramas with more recent historical settings emerged, incorporating a natural or man-made disaster as the momentous climax. Less epic in scope, these dramas involved fewer characters and focused on romance, not history. Two areas of technological advancement heightened the spectacle of the disasters depicted in these films. Synchronized sound and the improved quality of special effects made the rumbling earthquakes that concluded Deluge (1933) and San Francisco (1936) resonate more deeply, the howling winds in The Hurricane (1937) more palpable, and the crackling fires in In Old Chicago (1937) spark with life.

            In the 1950s, scale and breadth returned to the historical drama, boosting it to epic. Once again, the Hollywood industry’s adoption of certain technologies increased the element of spectacle in the movies. The use of widescreen processes such as CinemaScope, Warner Scope, and VistaVision, and an increased dependence on color, particularly Technicolor, enhanced the large-scale catastrophes that were hallmarks of such ancient and biblical epics as Quo Vadis (1951) and The Ten Commandments (1956). Another genre dependent on massive destruction, the science fiction film, developed during this time frame and also influenced the disaster genre. Some monster movies and stories of alien invasions, such as War of the Worlds (1953), incorporated the destruction of major cities as part of their iconography and then focused on the survival of that destruction as part of the storyline.

            Unlike historical epics that place massive disasters in the past, and science fiction films that are futuristic, improbable, or far-fetched,  the disaster film uses relatively believable disasters that not only occur in the present but are relevant to it. Also different is the central role of the disaster in the narrative – it propels the story, motivates the characters, and prompts the themes of redemption, survival, and responsibility.

            In 1970, Airport‘s disaster was modest in scale – a distraught man uses a bomb to blow a hole in the side of an airplane that then attempts to land during a snowstorm – but later films featured increasingly sensational catastrophes with the potential for mass destruction. A huge tidal wave literally turned the world of the characters upside down in The Poseidon Adventure. (Of all disaster films, I am drawn to those that play on my fear of drowning. Floods, tidal waves, sinking ships, even the Silver Bridge collapse at the end of Mothman Prophecies strike the fear of God into me.) After The Poseidon Adventure, a multi-story fire wreaked havoc in a modern skyscraper in The Towering Inferno, and deafening seismic traumas (in Sensurround) rocked Los Angeles in Earthquake. The enormous box office success of these films reflected their popularity with the public, if not reviewers, and guaranteed that other disaster dramas would follow. From 1970 to 1980, over 50 disaster films were released.

             The “father of the disaster film” was undoubtedly producer Irwin Allen, who loved the genre and produced some its most famous 1970s examples, including Poseidon and Inferno. Allen did much to establish the characteristics that are now expected of the genre. In the disaster film, a large cast of major movie stars play diverse characters placed in perilous situations. A cross-section of society from ordinary folk to the privileged wealthy is represented, with one or more persevering heroes leading the characters to survival. The sensational events in the film are paralleled by  melodramatic acting, which is in keeping with the scale of the events. Generally, not all of the characters survive, making the disaster film one of the few genres in which major stars are killed off. In the disaster genre, the hallmarks of civilization – from moral codes to personal relationships to technological advancements – are sorely tested. And, cultural values, such as personal responsibility and sacrifice, combined with our social institutions, such as religion, the military, or law and order, are the reasons for survival. (It’s no accident that Gene Hackman is a priest and Ernest Borgnine is a cop in The Poseidon Adventure, or that Shelly Winters sacrifices her life for the good of the group.) Subsequently, those who make their way out of the rubble often declare a renewed perspective on traditional values and ideals.

            Large-scale special effects also characterize the disaster genre. Special effects technology has changed over time – from stop-motion animation to an intricate combination of matte painting and models to computer generated imagery – but the visual splendor of  disaster films has always been part of their appeal. Often, easily recognizable landmarks, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, etc., are destroyed as part of the catastrophe, and special effects are crucial in depicting that destruction. If not a landmark, then a generic structure that is recognized as a technological marvel is destroyed, such as a skyscraper or ship. The fall of a landmark is an effective part of any disaster drama; it not only signals the huge scale of the disaster but it also symbolizes that our culture, industry, or values are under threat.  

            Thus, disaster films are acutely reflective of social, cultural, and political developments of the era in which they are produced. And, the genre is considered conservative because traditional values are drawn upon during the course of the film, or because characters representing social institutions or social classes – policemen, firemen, priests, doctors, even mechanics – commit heroic deeds, thereby validating the strength of those institutions and classes. How interesting that the genre was developed during the 1970s, the era of the Vietnam debacle, Watergate, social unrest, racial riots, and rapid inflation. The doubt and distrust generated by these events split American society by generation. Disaster films reflected a desire to find faith in old values and ideals. In a way, flicks like The Towering Inferno and Earthquake make a nice contrast to The Parallax View, which I talked about last week. All three films were released in 1974: The disaster films work hard to uphold the heroic ideals and institutions of our country, while Parallax offers the counterculture viewpoint that those ideals are a sham, or no longer part of our society. I don’t consider myself a conservative person, either personally or politically, but I appreciate why it is comforting for disaster films to keep the faith in our society and its beliefs.

            Likewise, Irwin Allen makes a nice contrast to Alan Pakula. Like the rest of the country, Hollywood was split by generation in the 1970s, with young college-educated directors making films of rebellion featuring new working methods and grittier styles. Disaster films were the Hollywood industry’s reaction to the innovative work of the film school generation. They were a throwback to old-fashioned movie-making with big stars, big spectacle, and big budgets.

            The initial wave of disaster films fizzled out around1980 because of repetition and imitation. One need only to look at Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) to see what I mean. In the mid-1990s, the genre returned with such films as Twister (1996), Volcano (1997), Deep Impact (1998), and The Perfect Storm (2000). End of the millennium jitters may have prompted the new cycle, as indicated by the title Armageddon (1998), but it was undoubtedly boosted by advancements in computer-generated special effects, which intensified the scale of the destruction and disaster in each of these films. Titanic (1997) represents a sort-of nadir for the genre because it became the highest-grossing film of all time ($1.2 billion worldwide) and it won 11 Academy Awards. A version of the Titanic story has been produced for the screen in almost every decade since the real-life disaster, including a remarkable version of A Night to Remember done for LIVE TELEVISION – with rising water and all – during the 1950s. It would make an interesting blog post to discuss all of the versions of the Titanic story, though I suspect many of them are impossible to find. If any one has seen any of the lesser-known versions, I would like to hear about them.

            Just as it appeared to wane, the disaster film was revived with the release of The Core (2003) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004). Perhaps the threat of terrorism after the events of September 11 influenced this revival just as it sparked a return to airplane-related thrillers and disaster films such as Red Eye (2005), Flight Plan (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and three films directly about September 11, United 93 (2006), Flight 93 (TV, 2006), and World Trade Center (2006).  I have not seen Snakes on a Plane, or its direct-to-DVD soulmate Snakes on a Train (no kidding!), because my fear of falling into water and drowning is nothing compared to my downright phobia of snakes. But, it’s not hard to find a socio-political interpretation of this much-ridiculed film with the self-evident plot: Secretly hidden on an airplane are deadly snakes ready to strike once in the air. Simply replace the word “snakes” in that plot description with “terrorists,” and the subtext is readily apparent.

            As spectacle, the disaster film demands to be seen on the big screen, particularly for the first viewing. Otherwise, the superficial thrills and chills are simply lost. Beyond the spectacle, the disasters films-whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em-can provide a lot of food for thought. 

Sources 

Fry, Ron and Pamela Fourzen, The Saga of Special Effects. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977.

Kay, Glenn and Michael Rose. Disaster Movies. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2006.

Keane, Stephen. Disaster Movies: The Cinema of Catastrophe. London: Wallflower Press, 2001.

Sackett, Susan. Box Office Hits: Hollywood’s Most Successful Movies. New York: Billboard Books, 1990.

Sontag, Susan. “The Imagination of Disaster.” Against Interpretation and Other Essays. London: Andre Deutsch, 1965.