Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (Part II)

Anton Karl Kozlovic
2014 Kinema. A journal for film and audiovisual media  
ROBERT WISE'S THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL PART II: KLAATU AS ALIEN MESSIAH AbstractIn Part I, the author had documented how the SF cult classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) was traditionally perceived as a UFO film with Artificial Intelligence (AI), political, police and philosophical dimensions, and arguing that it is best understood as a profoundly religious film. In Part II, the critical literature was revisited and textually-based, humanist film criticism was again utilized as the
more » ... guiding analytical lens to explicate the subtextual construction of Klaatu as an alien Messiah within an SF Passion picture. It is argued that Klaatu is the Christ-figure of 1950s science fiction cinema. IntroductionIn the Fall 2013 issue of Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media, the author closely examined the classic black-and-white UFO film The Day the Earth Stood Still. He highlighted the film's anti-nuclear political theme, its...
doi:10.15353/kinema.vi.1309 fatcat:e6oktbhorzetzbzldb3wdorbru