Things to Come

There are some film classics that we have almost lost. I don't mean the might-have-beens, like Laughton's "I Claudius," but films that were released and quite successful and are now in grave need of rescue. The hallmark of such films is the terrible quality of the available prints because the master negative is lost. "My Man Godfrey" and "Nothing Sacred" come to mind. And, of course, "Things to Come".

If the abstractions of the art deco aesthetic could be reified into a story, "Things to Come" might be the result. If the Chrysler Building really were a rocket ship and could fly past the moon and stars and comets of art deco friezes...if we could look into those naive mindsets, whose visions of man's destiny were being energized by the discoveries of relativity, atomic energy and deep space...we might indeed embrace the images of "Things to Come".

Some of the scenes may strike us a corny - as might those of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" - but they are no cornier in their context than those in "2001, a Space Odyssey" or, for that matter, "Starship Troopers". Here is an honest attempt to project the world into the future, not some silly cowboys-in-space flick.

"Things to Come" makes only a couple of demands: first, that we ditch our smug sophistication and presentist prejudices; second, that we have the discipline to see past the print quality. It may take repeated viewings, as it did with me, but in the end you will be rewarded by a unique odyssey, not into our future but into the future of history.

Powerful, yet creaky science fiction film from the 30's by the Korda clan. H. G. Wells's work is brought to the screen as a vision of what warfare will bring mankind in the century to follow. The film shows the destructive nature of war and how is will catapult us back to a state of barbarism, warlords, and another Black Death-like plague called the "wandering Sickness." However, because man clings to science, man will rise above all this and create a new, modern society free of warfare. The film has a lot of historical inaccuracies to its discredit NOW, yet much of what is preaches is plausible sometime, and much of it has some truth to it in some form. The theme that man can prevail and keep discovering/conquering new vistas is a laudable one. The film shows that progress and science are the things which advance us as a people. I thought of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged as I heard one of the characters say something to the effect that the scientists/inventors had formed their own civilization, free of corruption and violence. The pace of the film is somewhat tortoise-like at times, yet many scenes are very compelling. The set designs are outstanding in the futuristic world of 2036(where they valiantly try to put a rocket in space to make a preliminary orbit around the moon). Acting is good with Raymond Massey and Cedric Hardwicke giving good performances, but it is Ralph Richardson as a "Boss" who deserves the most praise for giving a powerful performance of a man with inherent human traits that stymie progress. A though-provoking film indeed!

While this film stands the test of time as a science fiction classic, its importance may not lie in its depiction of future wars, pestilence, and rebuilding. The most telling prediction comes in the latter part of the film -- the worker revolt. I disagree with the premise that workers would revolt out of fear of space travel. But, the idea of revolt out of fear of what technology is (and will) do to their lives is a real fear. Even today.

Sociologists who've read the Unibomber's manifesto have said that, while his methods and mentality were unsound, some of his suppositions on the effects of automation on humanity were plausible. We've evolved from a craft culture (human) to a mechanized culture (where humans used machines to meet the needs of humans) to an automated culture (where humans are expected to adapt themselves to the needs of their machines). Don't believe it? Pull a check out of your checkbook and look on the back. You'll find the words "Do not write below this line." This is NOT a request or suggestion, it's an ORDER to conform to the needs of machines that read checks.

Still, the film clearly illustrates a future that will eventually occur -- one where some people put all their trust and faith in our modern marvels -- while others left powerless and impotent by these modern marvels ask whether this progress was worth the price.

I must admit a slight disappointment with this film; I had read a lot about how spectacular it was, yet the actual futuristic sequences, the Age of Science, take up a very small amount of the film. The sets and are excellent when we get to them, and there are some startling images, but this final sequence is lacking in too many other regards...

Much the best drama of the piece is in the mid-section, and then it plays as melodrama, arising from the 'high concept' science-fiction nature of it all, and insufficiently robust dialogue. There is far more human life in this part though, with the great Ralph Richardson sailing gloriously over-the-top as the small dictator, the "Boss" of the Everytown. I loved Richardson's mannerisms and curt delivery of lines, dismissing the presence and ideas of Raymond Massey's aloof, confident visitor. This Boss is a posturing, convincingly deluded figure, unable to realise the small-fry nature of his kingdom... It's not a great role, yet Richardson makes a lot of it.

Everytown itself is presumably meant to be England, or at least an English town fairly representative of England. Interesting was the complete avoidance of any religious side to things; the 'things to come' seem to revolve around a conflict between warlike barbarism and a a faith in science that seems to have little ultimate goal, but to just go on and on. There is a belated attempt to raise some arguments and tensions in the last section, concerning more personal 'life', yet one is left quite unsatisfied. The film hasn't got much interest in subtle complexities; it goes for barnstorming spectacle and unsubtle, blunt moralism, every time. And, of course, recall the hedged-bet finale: Raymond Massey waxing lyrical about how uncertain things are!

Concerning the question of the film being a prediction: I must say it's not at all bad as such, considering that one obviously allows that it is impossible to gets the details of life anything like right. The grander conceptions have something to them; a war in 1940, well that was perhaps predictable... Lasting nearly 30 years, mind!? A nuclear bomb - the "super gun" or some such contraption - in 2036... A technocratic socialist "we don't believe in independent nation states"-type government, in Britain, after 1970... Hmmm, sadly nowhere near on that one, chaps! ;-) No real politics are gone into here which is a shame; all that surfaces is a very laudable anti-war sentiment. Generally, it is assumed that dictatorship - whether boneheaded-luddite-fascist, as under the Boss, or all-hands-to-the-pump scientific socialism - will *be the deal*, and these implications are not broached... While we must remember that in 1936, there was no knowledge at all of how Nazism and Communism would turn out - or even how they were turning out - the lack of consideration of this seems meek beside the scope of the filmmakers' vision on other matters.

Much of the earlier stuff should - and could - have been cut in my opinion; only the briefest stuff from '1940' would have been necessary, yet this segment tends to get rather ponderous, and it is ages before we get to the Richardson-Massey parts. I would have liked to have seen more done with Margareta Scott; who is just a trifle sceptical, cutting a flashing-eyed Mediterranean figure to negligible purpose. The character is not explored, or frankly explained or exploited, except for one scene which I shall not spoil, and her relationship with the Boss isn't explored; but then this was the 1930s, and there was such a thing as widespread institutional censorship back then. Edward Chapman is mildly amusing in his two roles; more so in the first as a hapless chap, praying for war, only to be bluntly put down by another Massey character. Massey himself helps things a lot, playing his parts with a mixture of restraint and sombre gusto, contrasting well with a largely diffident cast, save for Richardson, and Scott and Chapman, slightly.

I would say that "Things to Come" is undoubtedly a very extraordinary film to have been made in Britain in 1936; one of the few serious British science fiction films to date, indeed! Its set (piece) design and harnessing of resources are ravenous, marvellous.

Yet, the script is ultimately over-earnest and, at times, all over the place. The direction is prone to a flatness, though it does step up a scenic gear or two upon occasion. The cinematographer and Mr Richardson really do salvage things however; respectively creating an awed sense of wonder at technology, and an engaging, jerky performance that consistently beguiles. Such a shame there is so little substance or real filmic conception to the whole thing; Powell and Pressburger would have been the perfect directors to take on such a task as this - they are without peer among British directors as daring visual storytellers, great helmsmen of characters and dealers in dialogue of the first rate.

"Things to Come", as it stands, is an intriguing oddity, well worth perusing, yet far short of a "Metropolis"... 'Tis much as "silly", in Wells' words, as that Lang film, yet with nothing like the astonishing force of it.

Eisenstein dreamed of an "intellectual cinema" which would expound theories and illustrate ideas. He hoped to film Marx's "Das Kapital". In reality, intellectual cinema has been achieved more often in the decadent West's commercial movie business: most notably by Kubrick in "2001" and, 32 years earlier, by Korda and HG Wells in "Things to Come".

Don't look to this flick for well-rounded characters, a coherent A-to-B storyline or naturalistic dialogue and body language. It's a grandiose thesis in images, designed to pose Wells's constant question: must Man drive himself on to explore his and Nature's potentialities at all costs, or will he grow tired and afraid of transforming the world and his own nature?

At the beginning, we see the destructiveness of total war: potentialities for harm, even for collective suicide. Nations fight each other to the death, the "Wandering Sickness" bounces civilisation back to a primitive subsistence and it requires a new breed of airborne technocrat to set progress rolling again. At the finish, we see the revolt of the masses spurred by artists and abstract thinkers who fear progress; they are out to smash the Space Gun before Man can launch his children into the frightening terra incognita of space.

Along the way, a devastating prophecy of World War Two, all mass bomber raids and poison gas, with tank blitzkriegs for good measure. It must have chilled the blood of the film's original spectators, for the first bombs on Everytown demolish a cinema. Cameron Menzies shoots the raid in dynamic Russian-montage style with a brilliant use of sound: the incoming bombers which will "always get through" buzz louder and louder like a swarm of hornets. After years of deepening chaos, order is roughly restored by Ralph Richardson's Mussolini-like "Boss" (who says Thirties films weren't allowed to do satire?) before he is brushed aside by Raymond Massey's burning-eyed, supercilious Airman, who seems more of a tyrant than Richardson. No democratic nonsense for Wings Over the World.

The final sequence of Everytown in the future is an art deco poem in gleaming silver and grey, which evokes the streamlining so in vogue between the wars. Wells's imagination does not stretch to jet propulsion, and the "helicopter" spotted by one IMDB reviewer is more probably based on Ricardo De La Cierva's autogiro; but other aspects of 1936's future, such as the mall-like internal public spaces full of plants and giant TV screens, are spot-on. In the long montage of rebuilding Everytown, laser cutting technology and computers are implied: the movie was released the year Alan Turing's famous paper on computable numbers was written.

More than "The Private Life of Henry VIII", "Things to Come" stands for Korda's rescue job on the British sound film. For it went beyond anything Hollywood, then preoccupied with Thalberg-esque costume frolics and Warners' problem pictures, could imagine. London Films demonstrated that British skill in special effects could surpass America's, while the score by Arthur Bliss was the first to be sold on disc.

None of this necessarily matters to today's casual viewer, and the occasionally creaky or "fratefully refained" bit of acting is bathetic; but these flaws are easily forgiven against the grandeur of the conception, and the abiding relevance of the final question sung into the starry night. "Which Shall It Be?"- dangerous development or soothing stagnation? The choice is still ours.