The movie is powerful. The book is better, yes, but only because there is more room in the book to do what the movie faithfully also did: to portray the quiet way in which the survivors of global, nuclear holocaust, choose the end of their lives. Unlike most movies dealing with this theme, chaos is somehow averted, and everyone somehow just keeps on going about their everyday life until the very end.
The acting is superb, and indeed leaves the viewer lamenting the fate of the characters --- which is to say, they did their job well. More than anything, it is the small every-day details of the characters' lives, their history, their relationship towards one another, their love for one another --- all of this in the face of certain and impending doom --- that endears us to these characters and leave us pained at their passing.
The book and the movie made me think of the Bible verse 'for where your treasure is, there your heart is as well'. Each of the characters in this story chooses to end it with their treasure, if they can help it. From the passing characters who spend as much time as possible at The Club drinking themselves to the end, to the supporting characters like the one who loved car racing and chose to die next to his car, to the main romantic characters who choose duty and love at the end, their heart was where their treasure lay, and they ended pursuing their treasure.
One problematic plot point is the too-easily accepted option for euthanasia. The argument that a painful death trumps any other moral consideration does not even have a token line against it in the film and it undermines the main thrust of the story. The story is meant to be a regretful ode to life --- and regretful because the world ended it before it could discover how beautiful life is. And yet these same characters who mourn the stupidity of life destroyed --- willingly destroy their own lives. If life is beautiful and destroying it is idiotic, then one would want more --- not less --- life.
Aside from the suicide issue, the story stands up. It ennobles life, decency, and love.
A coastal Australian population (and the US submarine coincidentally docked nearby) awaits the inevitable, weeks after the rest of the world was wiped out by a wave of nuclear-powered, mutually-assured destruction.
There's an eerie sense of normalcy to the landscape, by far the film's greatest, most thought-provoking strength. The worker bees all go through their usual motions, as if a great big wall of radioactivity weren't looming off the coast, slowly creeping in to poison them all. It's enough to pull us out of the moment and consider how we might react in such a situation ourselves: when there's nothing to be done, isn't it better to ignore the inevitable, living out the rest of our days in a willfully-ignorant sense of unsteady bliss?
Of course, there eventually comes a moment when such questions can't be dodged any longer, and the cast makes some bold, powerful decisions in the face of a long, grueling death by airborne toxin. Those uncomfortable choices, and the ethical quandaries that precede them, form a stiff backbone for the film. The slow, dry pacing of its superficial plot can be difficult to work through, though, and ultimately that's what keeps it from reaching its loftiest ambitions.
As with many sci-fi commentaries of the era, you'll have to do a lot of reading between the lines to make the most of this one. It's smarter, but also far less accessible, than most of its modern counterparts.
Made in 1959 On The Beach is as relevant today as it was then. Simply put Neville Shute’s story says only one thing – in a war involving weapons of mass destruction – although that was never a contemporary phrase – will end with no winners. Those that will be left will have a short time to reflect on their follies and then there will be nothing. Not overstated and never has a message resonated with more truth and been ignored ever since.
When your story is as powerful and plainly told as this then your if you make a film of it there needs to be no further embellishment or exaggeration. Stanley Kramer did just this. He shot the film in Australia where Neville Shute spent most of his life and the novel was set. Gregory Peck, a man who passionately believed in the message of On The Beach, was perfectly cast in the role of Captain Towers being the Tom Hanks of his era, a reliable, relatable and likeable actor that people trusted.
The story, like all ‘end of the world’ scenarios, is successful because it focusses not on the huge dominate picture that would overwhelm a story like this, but on the minutia, the individuals and the affect it has on them. With this it is more successful than most modern takes on this type of apocalyptic storyline. In this story the horrible maniacs are dead, gone with the rest of the world, all that is left are normal people trying to get by in a decent, honest way whilst the biggest Sword of Damocles hangs over their head.
Perkins, Gardner and Anderson all play their roles with shades of realism not seen in this era and type of film. I found it almost sad that Gardner was cast as a downtrodden and somewhat sad ‘lush’ looking for love considering her own life story but she clearly attacked the role with relish and real feeling, likewise Perkins before he became forever associated with a less savoury film character.
With the cinematography and pacing almost pitch perfect we are not distracted from the reactions and the way each character handles the coming end of the world. True some the accents seem a bit off with Americans playing both Australians and British characters and then oddly a small cameo role of a US submariner being played by a famous Australian character actor but much like the over-played and over-bearing Waltzing Matilda throughout the film this in no way jarred the viewer out of the story, in fact that tune is saved in a scene where a rabble’s drunken chorus of the song turns in a subtle way into a beautiful male choir of the same song – obviously hugely dramatic and theatrical but nevertheless very effective.
It is to the film-maker and script-writer’s credit that the poignant and powerful ending to the novel is in no way changed and that despite their love for each other Moria and Dwight Towers must meet their end on their own as all the characters do but thankfully with no melodramatic flourishes or grand-standing, just a stoic acceptance. Sad and memorable.
On The Beach is perhaps to understated for main-stream audiences and now, being in black and white, with full-on mood music, it might look dated but it is a powerful statement on the thinking of people who are in positions in power then as it is today.
“We have been standing on the beach for many years and it may be too late already. Watch this film”
Shout by DemiVIP 10BlockedParent2021-02-25T01:44:12Z
Is it just me, or did they add that line about people being on Mars that wasn't in the book?