| Caligari |
10-26-2011 08:45 AM |
For those who are unfamiliar with the film "They Live" (1988) this is why the film is so prophetic.
From - http://criticality.org/2011/04/they-...-view-society/
Quote:
based on the story by Ray Nelson, Eight O’Clock in the Morning narrates a metaphor of the suppression of consciousness and submission of modern society by a ruling class. In the case of They Live the ruling class is an alien elite that secretly rules the world by enslaving and resource exploitation.
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And from Film School Rejects-
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/opi...presidency.php
Quote:
Piper plays Nada, a man who ekes out a living bouncing between construction sites. He overtly states that he believes in the American way, and that he plays by the rules. He is confident success will find him if he just keeps working hard.
He meets up with Frank (Keith David). Frank has moved to a new city to find work, leaving his wife and family behind. “The steel mills were laying people off left and right,” he explains to Nada, “They finally went under. We gave the steel companies a break when they needed it. You know what they gave themselves? Raises.”
The film is abundantly populated with drifters like Nada and Frank–people willing to work, but either unable to find a job, or unable to live off the wages when they do.
One night Frank and Nada are watching television and a man breaks into the broadcast. He’s referred to as a “hacker,” and he is trying to get a message to the American people. He says “we are sleeping while they live.” He talks about the police state that has our country under its jack boot. And he bemoans the economic inequities that have befallen our nation.
“They are dismantling the sleeping middle class,” he says, “More and more people are becoming poor.”
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In the film there is a famous fight (remember the south park homage?)scene where Roddy Piper's character is trying to convince his friend that he is living in a false reality and he needs to look at the world through the glasses to "wake up."
The writer goes on to explain-
Quote:
The entire film is steeped in metaphor, but the aforementioned alley fight scene transcends metaphor and becomes a sort of self-contained social satire. It illustrates how difficult it is to make everyday U.S. citizens see that the American Dream has been subverted by a long stream of self-serving politicians, and the attitude that what’s good for big business is good for America. As the events of the past two months have illustrated vividly, this is not the case. Big business, left unchecked, will seek only to become bigger and more monolithic, stamping out competition, and reducing economic opportunity for the middle class (formerly known as “the backbone of America”).
Meanwhile, the oversized financial entities created by unchecked capitalism receive billions in tax savings, while the middle class, now bearing the largest portion of the country’s tax burden proportionately, gets insulting stipends by way of “economic stimulus payments.” The tragic irony comes when the monolithic entities fail and it falls to the middle class to bail them out with their tax dollars.
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Note this was written in 2008 and the writer (like many others) was convinced that Obama would be the catalyst for real change...which did not happen.
Nevertheless, if you have not seen the film "They Live" I recommend you seek it out. It is one of Carpenter's masterpieces and a prophetic look at current events. |
