A Desire to Exist

by Andrew Granberry

The radio broadcast of War of the Worlds by Orson Welles was an amazing experience start to finish. I think that this quick story had so many different things going for it, down to it being an old somewhat scratchy radio broadcast. Having seen the Steven Spielberg War of the Worlds dozens of times growing up, I was amazed by the differences between these two versions. I can also say that I vastly prefer the radio broadcast in its presentation of the story. Using the form of a radio broadcast to tell a story that begins with radio broadcasts about unidentified objects arriving on Earth is incredibly satisfying, and narratively builds the tension during the beginning. In class we had the discussion about "negative space" and how the alien object is spoken around, but not directly about. I thought that this was an amazing use of keeping the tension in the narrative as well. If you think about the structure of horror movies, arguably the genre that relies the most on maintaining tension, the best at keeping tension do not show every trick right at the start. That is exactly what War of the Worlds is achieving by not describing the alien craft. We know that it is there, however we do not know what it looks like and just what it is capable of. This is possibly the area that I thought blew the 2005 movie version out of the water. The movie loses almost all of the tension from the aliens presence once it becomes an active conflict against them. A huge machine making threatening war horn sounds on the other side of the mountain is far more threatening than one fully in view and stepping on cars. 

Another aspect of the radio broadcast that I wanted to praise is along the lines of what we spoke of in class today. I don't think that it is a mere coincidence that the broadcast sounds like a news program about foreign invaders. 1938 is the moment right before Europe ignited into WW2, where Nazism and Stalinism were growing in power. I imagine that it wasn't an uncommon occurrence to hear a radio broadcast of equal caliber at the time. Germany was aggressively expanding in central Europe and Stalin was aggressively controlling the Soviet Union, a radio broadcast of an alien invasion can almost be seen as a metaphor for the rampant imperialism at the time. And in that sense, I think that the story actually acts as a beacon for hope for the listeners, rather than the horror story that it initially seemed. I think that the sudden defeat of the invaders by the pathogens of Earth is a pleasant deus ex machina, that assures the audience that the world is resilient, and we will survive no matter how unstoppable the foreign oppressors may seem. In retrospect we can see that the metaphor falls apart in Europe at that point, where the defeat of evil comes from the will of human kind fighting back ourselves. Maybe having that knowledge is what makes War of the Worlds seem like a optimistic metaphor for Europe, but regardless I think that the message of humanity's unrelenting desire to exist is powerful today and certainly inspiring during its broadcast.