War of the Worlds!

I watched War of the Worlds several times in my childhood and to me, It’s one of those films you can never forget – maybe because I was a child watching humanity being annihilated by alien machines -. Everything in the movie is a masterpiece, and considering the world was still amazed by the sudden development of CG and VFX, we were not disappointed with what we got. War of the Worlds has some of the most intense and well directed scenes of 2000s films, It’s a classic and its influence in pop culture during that time inspired many works and continued to maintain a high level on filmmaking.

On our first Friday lecture we watched the first minutes of WotW and were given the task to make an analysis of the film considering the overall visual style, the mise-en-scene, camera shots, lighting, pacing, soundscape, costume, events and the plot itself. Rewatching those minutes after years brought back this nostalgic feeling, but also opened my eyes to elements that I would never be able to see when I was ten years old. I’m now thinking about watching all old movies again.

From the moment Tom Cruise leaves his house unaware of anything odd and sees all the people in the street staring at a huge and black cloud in the sky to the moment he hides behind a wall and watches the first tripod crossing the camera, I was able to recognise the elements that composed the whole scene and lead to a full understanding of what was happening, as well as how the elements helped the immersion and passed over exactly the right feeling for the environment.

From the beginning the colours make it clear the atmosphere of the whole plot. Everything looks very dark, with low saturated colours, almost like if there were mists surrounding everything, especially because the shots have a very bright light, It really gives a sense of sadness and tension. There is a predominance of cold colours like white, green and blue which translate into a lonely, cold environment. Even the characters and supporting civilians in the scenes are kind of blended with the background because all their clothes match the atmosphere. This feeling is easily broken when the main character leaves his house for the first time and we have a shot of people and cars in the streets, but then comes back as the camera focuses on the perplexed faces of the pedestrians, and you instantly know there is something wrong. The film uses this technique of showing the reactions before actually showing what the cause is several times during the shot we watched, keeping the mystery and the scary feeling of the unknown.

The film solves possible plot holes by having environment elements like supporting characters shouting an explanation for a following action, just like when the main characters run towards the car, even though we saw all the electronics were turned off by the lightnings, and the mechanist shouts he fixed it just before they run away. The camera is also used to show little details and direct your look, focusing on every object the main character put in the bag, like batteries. It frequently focus at one action at a moment to make sure you are looking at the right thing, but makes it in a continuous way just zooming in and out, but also with a certain camera twist that translates into a sense of disorientation.

What caught my attention was the way the camera was placed right before and at the moment the church crashes as the first tripod emerges from the ground; the shot made it clear the symbolic message behind the scene, even though I don’t remember the film having a religious approach, and the fact the aliens come from underground instead of the sky, like most of the plots we have had before, makes this questioning even deeper.

The plot takes a long time to reveal the creature behind the clouds of dust and smoke, focusing again in the reaction of the people and increasing the tension through the soundscape. Until the point in which the tripod emerges, the film concentrates in the sounds of the crowd, of the curious people, without a significant music background. When the creature starts to show, but we are still not sure of what It is, the film gives us a hint using several machine-sounds, until the point in which it achieves the critical point, and Spielberg creates one of the most incredible scenes I have ever seen, where the tripod emerges, the camera focus on one of its lanterns, which look a lot like an eye looking at the viewer, and there is a moment of absolute silence because all the curious people still don’t know how to react, just before It starts attacking – and this scene is particularly funny to me because It looks like the tripod is raising both hands to shoot just like a cowboy – and that is the point when the intense music begins.

This is also one of the moments in which the use of the camera was the most significant to me: when the whole tripod is shown, the camera cuts to the scared faces of the civilians, but in all the scenes, the image of the tripod is reflected on glasses! That way we have both the cause and the effect of the plot at the same shot.

The following scenes portray the chaos and jeopardize of people being obliterated by the tripod, and the camera shakes a lot showing confused shots of the main character running for his life, to stabilize later when the character moves from the inside of the buildings to the street, and we have this beautiful shot of Tom Cruise running towards the camera with everything being blown away behind him. The final scene is the still shot of the character hidden behind a wall looking at the imposing figure of the tripod walking slowly in a distance.

I must confess, watching War of the Worlds again felt like I was playing an action game. We were also given the task to compare the movie with a game, and It wouldn’t even be necessary to point that out to me, because It’s very clear. When you think about all the processes to create a good movie, all the steps are applied to the creation of a game. The visual style, the camera angles and shots, the lighting, the soundscape, the scenography, the dialogs, the plots, each element is crucial for the immersion of the player just as much as it is important to the viewer in a movie. For me, a game is just another way to tell a story.

Even though you need to consider the whole process of a movie creation to build a game, games demand extra steps because It not only communicates with the spectator, the spectator is actually the agent of the actions. The interface and the user experience are crucial for a game to work as well as a movie, but when It does, It has even a bigger impact on those who are playing.