The Invisible Dystopia
Friday A/V Club: When the post-apocalyptic world looks a lot like the pre-apocalyptic world
The result, Stephenson argued, is that we've
gotten used to a particular way of thinking about dystopia—and that's not what we've got, right? We've ended up with something that is very non-cinematic. With few exceptions, anywhere in the world affected by Covid-19, you can go out and walk down the street, drive around, look at stuff. And aside from the fact that there aren't as many people out and a lot of people are wearing masks, nothing looks different. There are no collapsed buildings or crashed trains or any of the other visual markers that you would see in a movie to tell you that a disaster has happened here.
Is it possible to make a cinematic take on a non-cinematic disaster? I can think of one movie that tried: The New World, Jean-Luc Godard's 20-minute contribution to the otherwise forgettable 1963 anthology film Ro.Go.Pa.G."
EARLIER FUTURISTS THOUGHT DIFFERENTLY:
The Crypt of Civilization chamber is positioned on Appalachian granite bedrock... at Oglethorpe University... and the walls were lined with enamel plates embedded in pitch. The chamber is under a stone roof seven feet thick... sealed with a stainless steel door welded in place.[1]he chamber resembles a cell of an Egyptian pyramid...
An original copy of the script for Gone With the Wind was donated by movie producer David O. Selznick
Unusual artifacts included are seed samples, dental floss, the contents of a woman's purse, some Artie Shaw records, an electric toaster, a pacifier, a specially sealed bottle of Budweiser beer, a typewriter, a radio, a cash register, an adding machine, a set of Lincoln Logs, and plastic toys of Donald Duck, the Lone Ranger, and a Black doll.
