Movie: On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959)
When an American nuclear submarine docks in Melbourne, it finds its citizens rather unexcited by the approaching end of the world. Nuclear war has wiped out life in all of the northern hemisphere and it's a matter of months until the radioactive fallout will reach Australia, where people await their faith with a dignified resignation. A fuel shortage has left the streets filled with bicycles and horses, moving even slower than usual in scenes that are quietly masterworks of pacing and perfectly timed choreography. Nobody has a spring in their step, yet everyone is still trying to do more than just go thorugh the motions, wonderfully evoking a sense of demure bustle. People still tend to their families and work, run errands, enjoy the beach, make love, and commit to their daily responsibilities. At no point does anyone do anything illegal or out of line with social conventions. Moira (Ava Gardner) is a promiscous drunk, but she had always been that, and the arrival of Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck), the commander of the submarine, may be her chance to find real love at last.
The social conventions everyone respects are not those of 50's Australia, but of the 50's Hollywood studio system. It's notable that everyone, including characters who are supposed to be English or Australian, speaks with an American accent. It's also notable that nobody ever gets angry at the American submarine crew for maybe being complicit in the apocalypse. Nobody blames the Sovjets either, all of it is chalked up as an immensly tragic accident, and it never becomes clear who started the war, or why. The stale, actively inoffensive formality of the film's politics, style and characters is sometimes a bit too much, but it does help make Kramer's less conventional choices more startling and effective. On the Beach looks like it is going to follow a familiar structure. It presents a seemingly totally hopeless situation, until a certain 'revelation' hints that things may not be as dire as they appear, becoming a 'men on a mission movie' where the men on the mission are supposed to heroically improve things through their hardheaded determination. However, commander Towers and his crew never get to showcase any determination and this subplot only serves to highlight that even the idea of hope is completely ridiculous in these circumstances, a point Kramer keeps reinforcing. The film has no interest in offering even the slightest possibility of a way out.
Apocalyptic fantasies have always existed, partly because they allow people to imagine that the fate of the world may depend on their actions and that they will belong to a very special 'last' generation. Most narratives about the apocalypse reflect that and are about people finding meaning in their lives, becoming heroes, asserting their true personalities or simply about spectacular sights and sounds never before seen. The famous saying 'it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism' means to imply that capitalism has become so entrenched in our daily lives that it is hard to imagine an alternative to it. There is a lot of truth in that, but it's also the case that many people would much rather imagine the end of the world, because it gives them more freedom to indulge in their most irresponsible, incredible fantasies. I think it's worth researching to what extent climate change doomerism has contributed to the rise of fascist movements around the world and quite appreciated On the Beach's coomplete refusal to indulge in any fantasy that would make the end of the world feel in any way meaningful - it doesn't even show a dead body. Life remans as mundane and insignificant as usual, people are just slightly sadder. As one character exclaims, "there is a lot of bureaucracy still, you know?", and indeed even in the final days people are still standing duly in line to receive the suicide pills from the government officials handing them out.
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