Blast from the Past
Time flies, doesn’t it?
Hey! I’m glad to see you reading this. How’s your Spring Break going?
Before watching I suddenly learned that my both dad and best friend have already watched this movie. So I softly asked them not to give me spoilers and promised to discuss the main idea with them after watching.
For starters, I don’t really prefer watching documentary films or films based on real events, but I never mind watching such a movie. But to be concerned what’s happening, I browsed a little in order to find out some information about all the events. That’s why I’d like to leave it also here. Just for remembering.
Cultural Notes
The Cold War - is the open restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons.
The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” It was first used in the United States by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947.
Sourse of the information : Enyclopedia Britannica
The defenitions of the terms from Cambridge Dictionary:
Propaganda[ˌprɑpəˈɡændə] - information or ideas that are spread by an organized group or government to influence people’s opinions, esp. by not giving all the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts.
Rivalry [ˈraɪvəlri] - a situation in which people, businesses, etc. compete with each other for the same thing.
Ally [ˈælaɪ] - a country that has agreed to give help and support to another, esp. during a war, or a person who helps and supports someone else.
Stalemate- a situation in which nothing can change or no action can be taken.
The Cold War reached its peak in 1948–53. In this period the United States and its European allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a unified military command to resist the Soviet presence in Europe (1949); the Soviets exploded their first atomic warhead (1949), thus ending the American monopoly on the atomic bomb.
Warhead-the front part of a bomb or missile that contains explosives.
I clearly recall a few History classes from school when our teacher was explaining us this issue, its causes and consequences. On the one hand, this war wasn’t dynamic in comparison with, for instance, World War II. But I reckon, the state between two governments was rather cruel because developments of nuclear weapons could influence millions people’s lives and, further, neaclear holocaust.
Cuban missile crisis, (October 1962), major confrontation that brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to war over the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.
When I read a short description of the film on the website where I was going to watch it, I was convinced that there would be many episodes sort of documentary, etc. But, surprisingly, the film shows such serious political events through amusing moments of the Webbers’ lives.
Essay: retelling & impressions
The action of the movie takes place in the nineteen sixties. The US were in a state of Cold War, and many people were living in fear of Russia would drop the nuclear weapons on America. The mass media had become one of the main sources of the information for people in 1962, especially television. According to mass media, The Soviet Union was a dangerous opponent for the US and it wanted to destroy them by locating nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba which is quite close to America. The propaganda influenced people’s minds a lot so they couldn’t sleep soundly. Some of them, aware of nuclear disaster, decided to build a fallout shelter, thus to protect their families. Having such a place under your house couldn’t guarantee them total safety. It created an illusion of a safe shelter where they could hide in case of Russia uses the nuclear weapons and nuclear holocaust began.
Calvin Webber, the main character of the film, is a brilliant scientist in many fields of science, starting from Latin, ending with Engineering. This man was a typical American citizen lived in the 60s, whose mind tended to absorb all the information which also could impose on his thinking. Doubtless, he is the sharpest tool in the toolbox but if it came to political propaganda, he inclined to believing in rumors, opinions and prejudges and came off as a close-minded person. There is no point in denying the fact that Calvin was motivated by the fear of death from nuclear weapons, and to prevent and to protect his pregnant wife he constructed a fallout shelter which looked exactly like a house; a house which was under the ground. The shelter was so comfortable and cozy and well-protected, so that Clavin Webber was sure they could hole up there while nuclear war.
After confusing a plan falling down on the Webber’s backyard with the beginning of the nuclear war, Calvin and his wife hid in their shelter, locking the door knob for many years. Helen went into labor right there and her husband had to deliver a baby right under the ground. Thanks to Calvin’s idea which lay in providing themselves with food and supplies in order to survive, he could even manage to build a nursing for their little baby boy.
In their new place of living, there were all th necessary options for confortable and calm life. There was even a TV set which Clavin and Helen like to sit in front of. Bit by bit, their son named by Adam was growing up, getting knowledge about life from his mom and dad. Clavin provided for his son an imitation of school : Adam pass the exams, learned Latin, French, Algebra, etc. Therefore, the boy was a chip off the old block : he was well-educated and intelligent just like his dad was. Calvin even tried to explain to Adam what baseball is and gave him a box with baseball cards and stock certificates. Things were humming in their house : The Webbers celebrated holidays, played games together and did many other things that a regular American family did.
Unfortunately, they had no clue that life underneath their underground house was developing either. Their house was destroyed, and a cafe was built instead of it. The owners, mother and son, were used in this film to show the fashion and styles of different times from the 60s till the 90s and to compare The Webbers’ life with the life of ordinary people.
One night, they heard a crack near their door and conisdered this as a sign to leave their shelter. But Calvin postpone leaving and the following day, he went up himself to look at the world and convince that there was no danger. He did it with the help of the elevator, and went out right from under the floor in the cafe which were bulit instead their house. He ran into the owner who had gone on the bottle by the time The Webbers decided to go up. The drunk man was shaking in his boots when he saw a man who went from under the floor dressed in a yellow suit with a respirator. Calvin’s trial to go up wasn’t fortunate. Certainly, he was shocked and really impressed by the world which had completely changed. He shared this with his son and wife and they were impressed and frightened too.
One day, Calvin had a heart attack, and Adam, who was already in his middle-thirties, had to go up for two weeks to buy some food and supplies to pay for his purchases selling his father’s baseball cards which were rather expensive after thirty years. On the one hand, it was a new experience for him, from the other, it must be crazy to go up considering he had never seen the sun, and the whole world. Obviously, Adam was stunned even by the clouds and the sky.
Then, during his adventures he met an arrogant but honest and kind girl. She even wanted to fool him when he gave her a baseball card which cost around $4000, but eventually she brought his card back to him. Before long, he got acquainted with Eve’s friend named by Troy. These guys helped Adam to feel more comfortable in the society. Thanks to Adam was a smart cookie, he impressed many girls around him, so that Eve, that fell for him, felt jealous of him.
In the end of the movie, Adam and Eve fell in love and become a happy couple. They decided to go their parents up and build a house for them. When their parents move to their new house, Calvin was sitting next to his son thanking him. And Adam told him softly that there wasn’t nuclear holocuast while they were under the ground. No doubt, Calvin’s reacted with laughter but in reality, the scales fell from his eyes and he convinced himself that he made a mistake at least in the depths of his heart.
In my oppinion, I really sympathized with Calvin Webber because after such a succession of the evens in his life he must be dead tired of all of this. Especially, realizing that things might be different : they could live an ordinary life, if only not Calvin’s hate to the communism and his irrational fear and paranoia about nuclear war. Protection of their nearest and dearest must be his mainspring and this is really respectful. But even his wife asked him to go to see what was happening and she eager to go up as soon as possible because it was painful for her to see her son growing up not seeng the sun.
Frankly, I don’t really know whether I like this movie or not. The end of the film is still incomprehensible for me. Despite Calvin’s intention to make his family happy, he technically sacrafised his wife’s and son’s lives making them live under lock and key so many years. On the other hand, this film emphasized the striking difference between the modern world and people lived in America in the 60s with their narrow-mindness and many prejudges. And I think this is the main idea of th film, to show how mass media and fear can influence people’s mind.
Hugs,
Sandy
