Nowadays, we often see films and TV series in the genre on big and small screens Macumentary – a movie that imitates real footage from cameras or phones that captures strange incidents. You may remember Marble Hornets from similar works (and the entire Slenderverse which is worthy of a separate blog.), Monstro, Blair Witch, etc. d. And the same horror-vhs format essentially came out of it.
And if now this genre is popular among graduates of film schools or ordinary enthusiasts, because you don’t need a large budget and you need half as much equipment, then in the early thirties the method of “disguising the artistic as the real” became almost taboo. And the purpose of this blog is to talk about the experience of the creators of that time (and we will talk not only about cinema) to imitate real life.
1. The Making of War of the Worlds
The year is 1889 and the still young British writer H.G. Wells decides to write a book in the “invasion” genre, which was popular in British literature.
This genre, based on the name, told about military actions associated with the invasions of invaders. These books gained popularity in Britain between 1871 and 1918. For a better understanding – Literature of Conquest for the British is like books about pioneers for us or Westerns for America. Of course, such popularity at this time was due to the need for patriotism among British citizens and raising morale. One of the first such books was “The Battle of Dorking”, which told about the attack of German troops on England.
It is noteworthy that such books, although they were fiction, were written by Veterans who carefully worked out descriptions of battles, types of weapons and tactics, disguising everything as a real military story. In our time, this genre remains, but has changed its name and slightly its essence. Now a similar plot in books is called “Alternative History” and although a couple of them also go into science fiction, the essence of “What if “insert historical event”” remains.
Herbert decided to transform this genre and replace real states with Martians. But one of the main principles of the genre remained – disguising fiction as reality. The book involved real British cities, streets and types of earthly weapons, etc. n.
The book itself told about the attack of Martian walkers on England and the whole world. And the aliens even won, but it turned out that they were not adapted to ordinary terrestrial bacteria. Here we can assume that this plot device indirectly told the reader that even if the enemy wins, he will not survive in the living conditions. (if we translate this into Russian sayings, then “What is death for a German is a joy for a Russian”)
In any case, the book became the most popular reading in Britain, and a few years later it won hearts in America. And this is where the main action of my story begins.
2. Fake War of the Worlds
On October 30, 1938, a young but promising theater director, Orson Welles, wants to stage an audio play based on the book by his namesake as part of his radio show.
But Orson added two important changes during https://playstarcasino.co.uk/games/ adaptation:
1. Moved the action from London to the US city
2. Stylized the entire production to resemble real radio waves of the police, army and reporters.
The second point was explained by the fact that Wells (like many young creators even now) was a Perfectionist and in previous productions he tried to make everything as believable and realistic as possible. And here the action of the story took place in modern times at that time, and not in the distant past, and the popularity of the theory of “canals on Mars” was only growing at that time, and therefore, as a “realistic horror story for All Saints’ Day,” the production seemed like a good idea.
In general, the “Unusual idea + thoughtfulness to the smallest detail” method has always been present in Orson’s work. Once, for example, he staged a play based on Shakespeare with an entirely African-American cast, but at the same time the costumes and scenery were as elaborate as possible. Or already during his radio career, he ensured that every sound, accent or cry was as real, regardless of genre, plot or budget.
And so on October 30, Halloween, the broadcast begins, and at the beginning the intro of the show is played, and then the intro of the book performed by Orson himself. The show begins with a fake warning about the attack of the Martians and the spraying of a strange gas on the territory of the town of Grover’s Mill.
And then all people across America began to panic! People began to jump out of windows fearing their fate, while others began to immigrate en masse from cities, creating kilometer-long traffic jams, and pogroms filled the streets.
Well then? Interesting tale?
But there was no panic or pogroms! And the newspapers came up with all this. In fact, Orson’s show wasn’t that popular, especially on Halloween night when most people preferred other forms of entertainment. Yes, some missed the introduction and thought that the show was a real report, but there were few of them and those that were just approached the nearest policeman and asked “is everything okay”? ".
But why did journalists exaggerate the scale of events so much??
The answer is quite simple; in the 30s, radio was just beginning to exist as a full-fledged media outlet and was not a weak competitor to newspapers . And therefore, the 30s and 40s of the twentieth century were marked by the so-called “Information War” between newspapers and radio. Newspapers pointed out the unreliability of radio, and they pointed out the obsolescence of the newspaper format.
And just imagine – the radio gave misinformation about an alien attack. This alone allowed Journalists to spin everything up to general panic and deaths due to radio.
All this led to the fact that they began to publish books based on the event invented by journalists and discuss them on the same radio.
But Wells and his team apologized to the audience the next day, and although there was an aftertaste, it did not spoil Orson’s career globally. Even the other way around! After the news that the newcomer was able to convince people of the attack of the Martians in Hollywood, they were waiting for him with open arms. And already at the dream factory, Orson made a film about the newspaper industry – Citizen Kane, which will become a classic of cinema. And on the anniversary of the production, a monument was erected in Grover’s Mill in honor of “The Landing of the Martians.”
But if in America, before the war, everything went smoothly, then in March 1949 in Ecuador there were real casualties..
3. War of the Worlds Panic
The fact is that on February thirtieth the local radio station decided to repeat Wells’ production, but already many more people believed in this version than in America.
Almost half of the military bases near the “landing site” went to eliminate the aliens, and people in the city took up arms. But why has such dissonance been caused now (question to the audience)? It’s simple:
1. It’s one thing to hear threats of attack by iron monsters in the thirties, when mounted troops participated in the same First World War, and another thing to hear this in the forty-ninth, when the Second World War with Tanks, jets, etc. had just recently ended. n.
2. According to eyewitnesses, instead of the correct Spanish word “marsianos”, the expression “marsistas” was pronounced on the radio, which can easily be confused with “marxistas” – “Marxists”. The production sounded quite plausible and menacing: “Huge masses of Marxists, dressed in bulletproof overalls, landed in Cotocollao, not far from the Quito airfield and killed our best pilots.”. It turns out that the army essentially thought that the radio broadcast itself was interrupted to announce the attack of the Kamunists.
3. Apart from history buffs, no one outside of America was particularly interested in or knew the story with the original production. After all, this is still not our time where every event or scandal becomes known
And as you understand, this whole story returned to where we started – the production, which began with a book on the fantasy “what if real armies were replaced by aliens,” made the Ecuadorians think that they were being attacked by a real army of the Communists!
But there were not so many victims from ordinary people compared to victims among Radio employees. After all, people literally went wild when they realized that there was no one at the landing site, and it was all just a joke. As a result, an angry crowd stormed the office of El Camerzio radio and began throwing stones there, and then Molotov cocktails, which is why six people died in the fire, and those who were lucky enough to escape were beaten half to death.
In October 1999, young filmmakers from the USA decided to repeat Wells’ experience (although probably not consciously) only with the help of modern film technologies. And it was from this that the film “The Blair Witch Project” came out, which, with its advertising campaign and shooting style, imitated real found footage. By the way, this is how this genre of cinema began to be called. Then came “Paranormal Activity” and “Cloverfield”, which developed the idea in the modern sense. But all these films and productions have one thing in common – disguising a work of art as reality.
But the purpose of this story was also to convey that balance is needed in everything. It’s one thing when every week you print a story in a genre known in your country in a newspaper that focuses on short stories, or put on a radio show for Halloween that should be scary, but in moderation. But it’s completely different when you’re trying to fix something that’s not broken, releasing a production in difficult post-war times and causing panic in the whole city, this, of course, does not justify the deaths in the radio staff, but once again confirms the need for balance in such things. And just modern films in the genre Macumentary are the golden mean where you are both scared and interested in how well this or that picture is shot and disguised like real life, UNDERSTANDING that this is fiction, but without losing pleasure.
