215 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
215 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: ROSWELL THE MOVIE REVIEW FILE: UFO2209
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"Roswell"
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ROSWELL (1994). Kyle MacLachlan, Kim Greist, Dwight Yoakam. An intelligence
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officer searches for the _real_ truth behind mysterious crash debris found in
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1947, remains he believes were from a downed flying saucer -- with the crew
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aboard.
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A Showtime original. (Adult Themes) [1:31] SHO: 31 (8p)
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Premiere Directed by Jeremy Kagan
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"The story of the century lasted for most of the afternoon on July 8, 1947"
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Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt
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'The Truth about the UFO crash at Roswell'
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M Evans & Co. 1994
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Roswell, New Mexico is as good an allegory for the American spirit as any
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small town can be. All but lost on the eastern plains of New Mexico, it is
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out of the way from anywhere to anywhere else. That other American icon,
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Route 66, runs through the northern part of the state and Albuquerque. If
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the weather is bad, or you are going to Texas, you'll take the southern route
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through Lordsburg, Deming and Las Cruces on your way to El Paso. In between,
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on the far side of the Capitan and Sacramento mountain ranges from where the
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Rio Grande valley cuts the state in half, is Roswell, with a populace less
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than 45,000.
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You can trust your neighbors in Roswell. The generations who settled the city
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had to work hard together. People acknowledge one another on the street and
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outside of town will stop to help a vehicle in trouble. In exchange for the
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rigors of the remote location they get no gang violence, a future they can
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expect and a government they can trust.
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South of the town lies an industrial park located on the remains of the
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former Army Air Field that gave the city its dose of furtive notoriety. Just
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after World War II Roswell could boast the world's only atomic bomb squadron,
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the 509th bomb group. At the time such distinction was not a cause for much
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public scrutiny. It's exactly the obscure location that would allow such a
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sensitive military asset to find a home in Roswell.
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But atomic bombers came and went and Roswell lapsed into the timeless small
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town routine that Ward Cleaver would call the good life. Then, in the middle
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seventies, odd stories began to surface about the activities of the 509th in
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the summer of 1947. Twenty years and four books later, the name Roswell is
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now inextricably linked with the most remarkable set of allegations to be
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made in the dense web of public confusion that is the phenomenon of
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Unidentified Flying Objects.
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The investigators Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt claim that, at the height
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of a wave of sightings of flying crescent shaped discs that swept across the
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country in the summer of 1947, one of the discs crashed into the base of a
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bluff about 35 miles northwest of the front gate of the air base. They also
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claim that, after securing the area, bribing and threatening the populace
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into secrecy, the United States Government has managed to keep the fact that
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an extraterrestrial craft crashed there secret for nearly half a century.
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If indeed that is the case, it is about to change. Producer Paul Davids and
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Director Jeremy Kagan have made the movie that is to the
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still-obscure-by-normal-standards Roswell Incident what 'JFK' was to the
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Kennedy Assassination. In doing so, Davids and Kagan have very nicely framed
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arguments about the existence of a coverup and the reasons for one. Not to
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mention documenting the event for anyone with cable television or a VCR.
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If you have read the material, you will recognize 'Roswell' as an accurate
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docudrama. If not, you might think it an intriguing bit of fiction. It is
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that blurry duality that represents the core problem in addressing the clear
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and substantial evidence of UFO's which points to technology or other forces
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operating with a deliberate agenda of deception from a base outside our
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normal reality. It is too easy to dismiss accounts as being fictional if
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they fall too far outside the parameters of common belief. And using
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fictional drama to present the best estimate of an unknown reality, such as
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Whitley Streiber did in his literary treatment of the same case, 'Majestic',
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serves to add to the potential confusion as much as to enlighten the masses.
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Writing a documentary screenplay about a mystery with no firm solution is a
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difficult task. Davids, the driving force behind the project, has managed to
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do just that. The 'Roswell' story is not one of aliens, but of one man's
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quest for truth and redemption. The searcher is an aging Major Jesse Marcel,
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(nicely played across several decades by Kyle MacLachlan) one of two army air
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corps officers to initially examine the debris and recognize it as not of
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this planet. As an element of the coverup, Marcel was sworn to secrecy and
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then made to look the dunce by superior officers during a press conference.
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General Roger Ramey claimed the intelligence officer could not tell the
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difference between a spacecraft and a weather balloon. Over time, Marcel's
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duty to remain silent is at greater and greater odds with his sense of
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dignity and fairness.
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The docudrama unfolds during a 1970's reunion of the 509th, where Marcel
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takes the last opportunity of his life to query former squadron members and
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attempt to piece together the events of 1947. Bit by bit, pieces of the
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story are found, some coming quickly from casual observers, others dragged
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out of reluctant witnesses. Any one of them is at best a fuzzy memory. Not
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all of them fit together. Those that do have jagged edges. Some directly
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contradict others. The picture that forms confirms Marcel's opinion and
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provides a suggestion of an alien presence on earth much more serious than
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that proffered by the tabloid press. Along the way, the story mirrors the
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investigation of Randle and Schmitt, showing the difficulty of correlating
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different versions of events.
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Eventually, Marcel's curiosity gains him the attention of a shadowy figure
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played with appropriate self confidence by Martin Sheen, who takes him to an
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abandoned hanger and sketches in the missing portions of the picture. A
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crashed alien craft at the beginnings of a Cold War between the US and a
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paranoid super power. A clandestine effort to care for the one alien left
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alive and reverse engineering of the phenomenal craft. A rationale for
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secrecy to avoid provoking preemptive action by an all too human enemy. A
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self-reinforcing conundrum of deception and ridicule by now so convoluted
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that no sitting government could admit to having been involved in it. An
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escalation of explanation from the mundane to the inescapable. At the
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climatic moment we hope and pray that the blanket of denial will be torn away
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and the truth, whatever it is, will be laid bare.
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It is. You have to see the film to appreciate the cosmic irony of the hangar
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scene. I shall not reveal the logic that concludes the confrontation between
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one man searching for the truth and the nameless representative of his
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government who dangles it before him. I suggest you tape a copy of the Star
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Trek: The Next Generation episode 'First Contact' and 'Roswell', then watch
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them back to back. The two are flip sides of the same coin and both sides
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have the same value.
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'Roswell' the movie has the hand crafted feel of a small town main street.
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Given the option of telling the story with the confines of a SHOWTIME budget
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or risking not telling it at all, Davids elected to do the former. The
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resulting concentration on the people and the period instead of speculation
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by special effects of what actually hit the ground on the night of July 4,
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1947 helps the piece. In the tradition of 'Fire in the Sky', but without the
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studio executive's intrusion on the documentary, we see the effect of a very
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unusual event on the lives of generally usual people. The momentum of the
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story suffers occasionally from the process of maintaining consistency with
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the facts in the case.
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All in all, Roswell is a good watch, as good as any in the summer cable
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line-up. The baseline of understanding in the ongoing debate on-line and
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elsewhere has been raised. If you feel compelled offer an opinion about
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extraterrestrial life and/or the capability of the government to keep
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secrets, make sure you have seen this movie and read the book by Randle and
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Schmitt before you do or risk being flamed as a newbie.
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Davids presents the essential questions of the unresolved UFO cover-up
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controversy very well indeed. While thankfully avoiding the side issues such
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as the debate about one or two crash sites or the archaeologists presented in
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the 1994 Randle and Schmitt book 'The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell',
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the movie touches all the bases dear to the UFO community. 'Roswell' will
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give anyone-believer or hardened skeptic-pause for thought about the other
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side of the UFO issue.
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The closing scene shows a determined Marcel back at the crash site, making a
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final futile effort to find a solid piece of evidence, one tangible remainder
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of an event that has haunted him for years. As the sun sets behind the
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Capitans, Marcel realizes that no amount of hoping will uncover the piece of
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alien craft that would prove once and for all the government is lying. As we
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pull back to realize how vast the plains are and how hopeless his quest, we
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see Jesse Marcel as the best allegory for the American spirit any man can be.
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Watching the film makes it clear that if any of the alleged incident is true,
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or anything like it is, then the American public is the unknowing victim of
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the most heinous form of repression conceivable. Contact with
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extraterrestrial life is the most significant step a planetary civilization
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can take. The prospects for good are beyond description. Who gets to make
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the decision that we who have settled this planet are not ready for the fact
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that we are not alone? The argument against an overtly aggressive alien
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presence is simple and persuasive. Given that they can get here, across
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interstellar distances or dimensional shifts, then they have the technology
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to wage a devastating war and win it decisively if that were their purpose.
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Logic dictates a net nonaggressive position on the part of any alien race
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that may have already discovered us. More likely, they are waiting patiently
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for us to grow beyond the aggressive response patterns of our lower origins.
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Indeed, we may have committed the grievous error by welcoming the early
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reconnaissance of visitors from other worlds with attempts to shoot their
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craft down. Extraterrestrial contact, if or when it occurs, is too important
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to be left to government, least of all paranoid elements of the intelligence
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community in whose hands 'Roswell' (and most of the UFO community) claims it
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lays. What does surface is an appreciation of how the truth could be hidden
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more or less in plain sight, varnished with a thin layer of denial and
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ridicule.
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It is also clear that whatever the case may have been in the 1940's, if a
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coverup was started at that time, it is by now so ingrown that only an
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extremely clear political message from the people in whose name the secret is
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being kept can provide the impetus to end it. 'Roswell' is a movie that took
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a lot of perseverance and moxie to make. The consequences of it being even
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close to the truth are too profound to be dismissed. If you don't dismiss it
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as an intriguing fiction then download the Roswell Declaration on America
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Online, sign it and sent it in. In that manner, the consequences of making
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it will be worth the investment and risk the filmmakers have taken.
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Killing a president is one thing. Denying a society the truth about their
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place in the cosmos and, possibly, their origins is another. No amount of
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investigation or revelation will bring John Kennedy back to life or change
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our history back to what it might have been had he not been shot. But the
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revelation of the facts about what happened at Roswell is the reversal of
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policy needed to make things right with our growth as a species. The cold
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war is over. The world is still in crisis, but the enemy is anarchy, not
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totalitarianism. Any justification for a coverup of the sort depicted in
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'Roswell' no longer exists.
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Whatever happened outside Roswell, the government has not properly explained
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it. And whatever it was, it scared the government so much that extraordinary
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measures were taken to hide it from the American people. If you have any
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threads of the spirit of '76 in your soul, if you can explain to your
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children why they held the Boston Tea Party-or worse yet, if you can't-then
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watch this movie. It premieres on July 30th, shows three times in August and
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then four more times in December on the Showtime cable network.
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------------------------------
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |