The
Omega Man Remains Relevant Science Fiction
by
Kristin Battestella
After
1964's The Last Man on Earth but
before 2007's I am Legend, there
was The Omega Man, a
loose 1971 adaptation of the
Richard Matheson novel that remains a fine science fiction parable
for today's audience.
Former
military scientist Colonel Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) is immune
to the plague that has ravaged the world after biological warfare
between The Soviet Union and China has made him the last man on
earth. He's spent the last two years alone by day – shopping where
he may and driving the empty Los Angeles streets – while at night
Neville avoids the mutated brethren cult led by former newscaster
Matthias (Anthony Zerbe). Matthias sees Neville as the last remnant
of the old technological ways that caused their suffering, but when
Neville discovers Lisa (Rosalind Cash) and her small group of young
survivors resisting the mutative turn, he's determined to use his
immunity to develop a cure.
Directed
by Boris Sagal (Rich Man, Poor Man)
and adapted by John William and Joyce Hooper Corrington (Boxcar
Bertha), The Omega Man
opens with silent, distant shots
of tall buildings and one small car on a quiet drive. No hustle, no
bustle, no need to worry about traffic lights or speed limits on
these open streets! Gunfire breaks this solitude as our eponymous man
shoots at any sudden movement without hesitation, reminding viewers
this isn't a pleasant empty but catastrophic fallout and germ warfare
for a more jaded generation. The Woodstock
footage in the empty cinema is a shrewd way to add more music and
dialogue to The Omega Man, and
the happy hippies and split screen designs create a sad commentary as
the lonely Neville quotes the bittersweet lines before racing home to
his foolproof penthouse and its “No Admittance” sign. Such
humorous moments anchor the audience amid the well paced bleakness,
and intercut overlays of past news bulletins, retro clips, missile
footage, and Cold War updates sell the disaster. The specifics on how
the then future 1977 got this way aren't completely spelled out, nor
are they necessarily that important, for montages of overrun
hospitals and bodies left in front of the television as they
succumbed are enough. The apocalypse happens quickly though, it's
been only two years and now there's one man on foot and no one to
hear his echoes – or is there? The Omega Man has
some lurking in the shadows surprises, and it's a great moment when
our last man discovers he isn't as alone as he thought. While the
style and casting admittedly capitalizes on the budding Blaxplotation
movement, the interracial romance remains impressive, for the last
people on earth wouldn't be so hung up on race anyway. Of course, The
Omega Man is also silly at times
with white men still screwing everything up, iffy Anglo Saxon versus
Harlem jokes, and Jive talk laid on a little too thick. Cults and
religious fanaticism sweep into the vacuum civilization left behind,
and the confrontations are great when they do happen alongside well
balanced action, dangerous rescues, and chases. Potentially resistant
child survivors come out of the woodwork with innocent questions on
The Family coming to steal their souls at night and if Neville's cure
makes him God. At times both sides each represent death and savior
with arguments over the new brethren's extremism and zealousness
versus proper organization, cures, and scientific answers –
although it was technology run amok that caused the problem in the
first place! There's still a chance for science to save the day, man
fixing what he put wrong with plans for a rural restart and hopeful
Eden possibilities. However, this cataclysm may be too far gone to
turn back, and some just won't let it. Despite a slightly abrupt and
perhaps on the nose finale, The Omega Man offers
multi layered interpretations for then and now amid heaps of
Messianic symbolism – a man from the lit above brought mortally low
with lances, pierced sides, crucifixion, blood, and a setting out to
do what must be done legendary remembrance with a title to match.
Charlton
Heston aka Moses is a little older in The Omega Man but
remains gritty. After all, if anybody would survive an apocalypse, we
kind of know it would be good old Chuck and his guns. He's shirtless
too, as if there was any doubt he would be. Neville has a sense of
humor about his situation and has delightful one liners or bitter
quips as he talks to his reflection – “There's never a good cop
around when you need one!” However, he's also a little zany by this
point, hearings phantom noises and yelling at them to shut up and
leave him alone. He plays chess with a Caesar statue, drinks, makes a
car deal to himself, says excuse me to nobody, and dresses for Sunday
dinner in a swinging green velvet jacket and ruffled collar when not
in then hip leisure suit safari styles or mod military athleisure.
The former scientist and retired colonel jogs with a rifle and notes
safe areas on his map with a tape recorder – he's outnumbered and
holding out but mentally slipping. Is he imagining it when he sees a
girl? He claims he's a narcissist by default and Neville's reputation
proceeds him, but the idea that his self injected experimental
vaccine could be a cure within his blood makes him reconsider the
staunch defense of his lonely home. Not to mention Neville puts on
the gentlemanly charm as the only boy in town despite generator
scares and a few close calls. He goes from saying the only thing
people should build is coffins, as that's all we'll ever really need,
to risking the cure from his body to save others. Should Neville
exhaust his healing supply on the brethren whom he perceives as more
vermin than human and half dead already? If he won't save them, does
he kill them or leave them to die? Neville himself was once half
crazed and entombed in his own fortress, so is his hope of leaving
The Family behind to be with new people elsewhere too good to be
true?
In
The Omega Man's flashbacks,
Anthony Zerbe's (License to Kill)
brethren leader Matthias was a news anchor, a familiar face and voice
to and for the public informing citizens of the Soviet versus China
nuclear war. It's an eerie, though not surprising leap – especially
today – that a television celebrity could rise as the leader of
this plague cult called The Family, uniting victims with warped
religion and distorted views on the error of our ways. Matthias waxes
on the ills of technology and views Neville as a relic of destruction
that must be purged. He uses this plague as an opportunity to cleanse
and set fire, becoming obsessed with getting rid of the refuse of the
past – obsolete oil, engines, and artificial light. From his ironic
perch in the abandoned civic center, Matthias is ready to erase
history and begin civilization anew. While his methods are extreme
and twisted, we viewers unfortunately know he is scarily not wrong in
how we are the cause of our own destruction with germ warfare and
biochemical weapons. Maybe some of our technology is better off
burned – but lynch mobs, torches, and Inquisition revivals are not
the answer, leaving Matthias' destructive ways no better than the
leaders who came before this apocalyptic plague.
Rosalind
Cash's (Tales from the Hood)
badass Lisa, however, has survived the apocalypse without talking to
herself like Neville or power tripping like Matthias. She has some
sweet red leather suits and remains prepared with guns and a
motorcycle. Lisa warns Neville she'll bust his ass if he tries
anything, and we believe it faster than he can say, “Yes ma'am.”
She doesn't care about the world and has kept to herself just fine,
only seeking out Neville for his scientific expertise once her
brother has begun to turn from the plaque. However, Lisa does make
herself at home in Neville's place, giving life to his museum with
her panache and using her hustle to steal a red dress from its late
owner and make a move on Neville as well. All this bleakness and
morose on the run, yet when you put a man and woman together, they
still know how to flirt! Her third perspective between Neville's
cling to what was lost and Matthais' Dark Ages revival opposites add
fine conversation on how a new existence need not be mere survival or
retribution, there's a fresh world out there for the taking to make
what they choose. While there is a whiff of black woman fetishism in
her nude scenes, Lisa's on top and the next morning nakedness makes
no mistake on what has happened. Neville and Lisa have a bittersweet
laugh when they find birth control pills in the pharmacy, too – an
irrelevant need to them post-apocalypse but a then recent liberation
in 1971. Lisa jokes she's going out shopping and will be borrowing
Neville's credit cards, but takes a gun as he reminds her his only
rule is to shoot first – progressive banter for their situation
that remains refreshing. Blaxplotation trappings of the time aside,
it's exceptional to see a black woman take charge, kick ass, and look
divine doing so. Why do we still not have enough characters like
this? By contrast, Eric Laneuville (St. Elsewhere)
as Lisa's young and innocent brother Richie naively thinks the
potential cure developed by Neville will be for everyone – the
youthful more slowly infected as well as the turned brethren. He
foolishly thinks everything can simply go back to the way it was and
make the world all right, but who could blame him? Unfortunately,
this is exactly why we can't have nice things, for even after such a
catastrophic fallout, there will always be someone to take advantage
of a child's hopes.
While
not as bad as some of my earlier, laughable Hokey Heston favorites,
The Omega Man has its
share of dated seventies designs. The albino make up, sunglasses, and
Afro hairstyles are bemusingly memorable – creepy thanks to the
hooded robes, red lesions and white out eyes but odd rather than
truly scary as intended. The rad music swells before the fine action
scenes, but there are swanky melancholy tunes on the radio and warped
organ music heralding the dead afoot. Not to mention the eight
tracks! The Omega Man isn't
a quiet film but common alarms or phones ringing are surprising
noises breaking the isolation. Neville abandons a cool red
convertible, stopping in the used dealership to help himself to a
blue one before using a giant remote for that spiffy garage door
opener. His townhouse is tricked out with elevators, spotlights,
generators, old laboratory equipment, and a gunnery on the roof – a
nighttime fortress holding out against fire bombs and primitive
catapults. The penthouse is a mix of mod and baroque with
candelabras, marble busts, paintings, and other pleasantries now mere
relics of a civilization's lost sophistication. The luxurious hotels
sit derelict with red velvet and waiting place settings overtaken
with cobwebs, corpses, and ghoulish reveals. This is a bright and
colorful film – the Ω
lettering in the title is neat, too – yet the gritty, dark mood
increases with eerie mannequins in empty department stores free for
the shopping. Though the park scenes and winding motorcycle rides are
lovely, the benches are rusted and the outdoors overgrown as nature
reclaims itself without people. Such visuals look especially renewed
on blu-ray along with a retrospective introduction and vintage behind
the scenes featurettes.
Some
purists may dislike the changes from the novel or find The
Omega Man's seventies updates
too of their time. However, believable characters anchor the audience
alongside social statements that sadly still ring true, providing
religious undercurrents and continued contemplation as good science
fiction should do. The Omega Man remains
a fun action thriller as well as a cerebral and mature fable. This is
a superb story able to stand on its own as a separate entity from its
source that keeps the conversation going long after the movie is
finished.
No comments:
Post a Comment