Spielberg and ideology: nation, class, family, and War of the Worlds

Abstract

In the last decade and a half, Steven Spielberg's directorial oeuvre would appear to have gone through perspectival and ideological change. The films that he directed in the 1970s and 1980s have familiarly been regarded as being indicative of, and even complicit with, the rise and eventual dominance of the Reaganite Right. By contrast, Spielberg's output latterly can be seen to demonstrate a more critical and liberal, or even Left‐liberal, focus. War of the Worlds would seem to be of a piece with this change. Indeed, the film's representation of the alien menace can itself be conceived as presenting a figure for (Left‐)liberal American fears before an emergent, politically malignant Right. However, in its articulation of such fears – which evokes 9/11, and suggests criticism of American aggression in Iraq – the film also furnishes what are, from a Leftist position, certain residually reactionary implications with respect to its representation of class and of the family. Combining close textual analysis with historical contextualisation, the paper engages with and unpacks the ideological connotations and contradictions of War of the Worlds, and considers their possible wider resonance.

Keywords:

• Steven Spielberg
• ideology
• War of the Worlds
• 9/11
• Iraq
• class
• family

Notes

1. The third film in the trilogy is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Nigel Morris propounds that the film's ‘blatant racism, sexism and xenophobia’ suggest that ‘the filmmakers were either ignorant of or unrepentant concerning its alleged ideological import’ (2007, 102). Subsequent to the drafting of this paper a fourth ‘Indiana Jones’ film has been released, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).

2. Probably the most influential arguments regarding the reactionary character of Spielberg's 1970s and 1980s work are contained in Britton (1986) and Wood (1986).

3. The film's title lacks the initial definite article because of the deal struck by Paramount Pictures regarding merchandising rights belonging to songwriter and record producer Jeff Wayne, who was responsible for the 1977 concept album The War of the Worlds. Wayne retained the titular The as part of the agreement. See Richards (2005).

4. Spielberg has, for instance, observed in interview that the project, post‐9/11, ‘began to make more sense to me’, that ‘it could be a tremendous emotional story’ and ‘have some kind of current relevance’ (Baughan and Sloane 2005, 64).

5. See similarly Buckland (2006, 215–6), Morris (2007, 353), and Gordon (2008, 260–2).

6. See, for example, just in relation to the film being discussed, Newman (2005, 84), Buckland (2006, 213), Friedman (2006, 159–60), and Gordon (2008, 254–5).

7. For discussion of the relation of War of the Worlds to the previous adaptations of Wells's novel, see Gordon (2008, 258–9). Spielberg possesses the ‘sole surviving script’ of the Mercury Theatre production, which he bought ‘at an auction’ in the early 1990s (Freer 2005, 86).

8. In the light of parallels made between the USA's involvement in Iraq and its previous involvement in Vietnam, it is noteworthy also that Friedman describes the scene at the Hudson Ferry as containing ‘a striking image from the Vietnam era’: ‘as the … ferry hurriedly casts off, some of those left behind desperately jump onto it, clinging to the gate as it is lifted upward – a stark reminder of Vietnamese civilians vainly clutching onto the final American helicopters leaving Saigon’ (2006, 158).

9. While Ogilvy's assertions reflect certain words spoken in the novel by the artilleryman with whom Wells's narrator travels and holes up, Ogilvy is, in terms of the novel, a composite character. He combines aspects attributable to the artilleryman with others attributable to the curate with whom the narrator also travels and holes up, and has the same surname as that of an astronomer killed by the aliens' Heat‐Ray. See also Buckland (2006, 217).

10. See, for example, Buckland (2006, 215), Morris (2007, 353), and Gordon (2008, 259).

11. To split hairs, Manny dies about a minute and a half after Ray's words.

12. Although advancing a differently focused and inflected argument concerning War of the Worlds, Morris similarly observes that ‘the alien realises Ray's unconscious desires by venting his frustrations against the human race’ (2007, 353).

13. With respect to the representation of Ray as working class, notable in addition is scriptwriter Koepp, who is, according to Ian Grey, ‘practically Hollywood's official go‐to guy for films dealing with working‐class heroes’ (2005, 48). Koepp's work includes the scripts for Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma, 1998) and Spider‐Man (Sam Raimi, 2002), as well as the script for Stir of Echoes (1999), which he also directed. The perspective toward working‐class characters and lifestyles in these films is, moreover, somewhat ambivalent.

14. See likewise Friedman (2006, 153) and Gordon (2008, 260).

15. Following the motif's formal logic, that Ray is shown through the holed window of his house would suggest that the film besides regards him as a threat to himself.

16. Warren Buckland discusses this shot in some detail, although only in terms of its narrative effect, its confounding of ‘the audience's expectations’ (2006, 219).

17. The attacking of the mechanical eye with an axe is an incident lifted from the 1953 film. However, as undertaken by that film's scientist hero, Dr Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), it carries far different connotations.

18. For a likening of the conclusion of War of the Worlds to that of The Searchers, see, for example, Friedman (2006, 155). The Searchers has been recognised as having held a strong influence on not only Spielberg but a number of other filmmakers who first came to prominence during the 1970s, including Scorsese, Schrader, John Milius, and George Lucas. For a late 1970s consideration of the phenomenon, see Byron (1979).

19. See, for example, McBride and Wilmington (1974, 152).

20. The character is credited as ‘guy in suit’.

21. For a discussion of The Searchers in these terms, see Pye (1996).

22. Gordon proposes that the film's suggestion of both 9/11 and the subsequent military activity in Iraq is itself contradictory because ‘in the former, the Americans were the victims, but in the latter, the aggressors’ (2008, 263). However, one might contend that the film works rather to convey the enormity of the military action in Iraq through an evocation of that of the events of 9/11.

23. With respect to Spielberg, Koepp has scripted, apart from War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel, The Lost World, as well as, latterly, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

24. Ryan and Kellner cite 1986–87 as a ‘pivotal’ year ‘in Hollywood film and in American culture’, and declare that by 1987 the previous era ‘was over, both cinematically and politically’ (1988, 297).