My philosophy professor once told me about an essay he had
to write in grad school. He was asked to ponder the question, “If you are
continually darning a sock, at what point does it become a new sock?”
The question is about essence. What makes each individual thing unique? Is the sock new after a single patch? After 51% of it is patched? Or is it still the same sock as long as a single thread remains from the original?
The same question can be asked of people. What gives each person their own identity? Is it their body? Their memories? If a person has their memory wiped clean, as happens more and more now as we live longer, are they still the same person?
Put another way, what constitutes a human soul?
I think that all great horror movies expose a primal fear. There are plenty of movies out there that can give you a quick fright, but the ones that last go deeper. They plumb the dark muck of what a friend of mine calls “our lizard brain.”
The Shining, for example, is about the inescapability of family (no matter how big the hotel is, they’ll find you – and there’s no way out). Silence of the Lambs is about the danger of looking too deeply in the human psyche, and fear of the psychologists who mess around down there (the primary visual motif is Clarice going deep into a fortress – first the FBI headquarters, then Lecter’s prison, finally Buffalo Bill’s dungeon).
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is often thought to be a political parable. Some say it is about McCarthyism. Others say it is about suburban conformity (which is partially true – the great joke of the movie is the townfolk are so bland it is difficult to tell which of them have been turned into aliens). But I also think it’s about the fragility of identity. And what’s even more interesting, the movie suggests that what makes your identity is your suffering.
Early on, our solid, handsome leading man, Dr. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is quite sure what constitutes identity. When an old friend claims that her uncle is an imposter, the doctor is patronizing. He says that if this man looks like your uncle, and remembers what you remember, he’s your uncle. Simple as that.
Later, when he starts finding that pods that are replicating all the people of the town, our previously ever-so-sure-of-himself doctor starts to become unglued. He finds a pod that is making a version of him, but with all the personality gone from his face. We then get an extreme close up of him, sweaty and half-crazed, as he pitchforks this younger, more pristine version of himself.
Later, in the final betrayal, the woman he loves is transformed. Her eyes are dead. She implores the doctor to stop being so silly and join the aliens. She doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to give up the suffering that comes with being human (the aliens feel nothing). When he refuses, she screams so that the other aliens can come murder him.
Our doctor, who just 75 minutes before was the epitome of suave self-assuredness, a member of the community in the best possible standing, is left running alone along the highway. He shrieks at the drivers with tales of aliens impersonating humans. They, of course, assume he is drunk or insane. No one helps him. Then he turns to the camera and screams, “You’re next! YOU’RE NEXT!!!”
Now, this is obviously a B-movie. It is cheaply made, and the quality of the acting varies wildly. But it is also an example of what Hollywood used to do really well - make genre pictures that could be taken as a fast entertainment, but also had deeper meaning. Call it art without pretense.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is very unnerving. Despite its obvious B-movie trappings, it has remained so for more than 50 years. The secret to its longevity is that it exposes a deep human fear and picks at it like a kid with a scar.
We all think we know who we are. We all think we know our place in the world. But our identity and our world is much more fragile than that. What is so frightening about watching the good doctor lose his marbles?
Maybe you’re next.
