Le monde, la chair et le diable
Titre original : The World, the Flesh and the Devil
- 1959
- Tous publics
- 1h 35min
NOTE IMDb
6,8/10
3,8 k
MA NOTE
Un mineur pris au piège d'un effondrement refait surface et, en découvrant que l'humanité a été anéantie par un holocauste nucléaire, il part à la recherche d'autres survivants.Un mineur pris au piège d'un effondrement refait surface et, en découvrant que l'humanité a été anéantie par un holocauste nucléaire, il part à la recherche d'autres survivants.Un mineur pris au piège d'un effondrement refait surface et, en découvrant que l'humanité a été anéantie par un holocauste nucléaire, il part à la recherche d'autres survivants.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Récompenses
- 1 nomination au total
Avis à la une
Like a trashy coffee table book you just can't put down. Hard to say why, but I keep going back and watching this film again and again. The irresistible notion of a single man roaming the empty streets of the big city, holds my attention every time. However, the execution of such a powerful idea gets muddled in this particular telling. For example, the city is clean -- there are no dead bodies, and any force powerful enough to disintegrate the bodies would have left traces, of which there are none. Despite the significant problems I had with this picture, I rushed out to buy the DVD first chance I got. And I bought Miklos Rozsa's score, too.
A very thought provoking movie that was not accepted at the time, but in retrospect, way way ahead of its time. In a racially charged world it put forth the premise that race, in the final analysis, is superficial and meaningless. Once you strip away the layers of conditioning and socialization, you find, at the core, good and evil and the age old struggle as to which will prevail. A simple story, told directly and honestly. On a scale of 1 to 10, its an 11.
A 32 year old Harry Belafonte is Ralph Burton, survivor of a nuclear holocaust, where humanity has been wiped out. we watch the inter-racial relations in a post-apocalypse world with one woman and two men left alive. Co-stars Mel Ferrer and Inger Stevens. For a long time, Burton runs around New York, trying to find other survivors. We experience the echoes and loneliness that he feels. So many empty streets, papers blowing around. It's forty minutes in before Ralph and Sarah even meet up. Stevens would die real young at 35, by suicide. Theoretically, after several initial attempts. Ferrer had been married to Audrey Hepburn at one point. Directed by Ranald MacDougall, who had directed and written screenplays for some AMAZING films... mildred pierce, we're no angels, but sadly, MacDougall died quite young at 58, of a heart attack, according to wikipedia. He had been president of the Writers Guild. Story by Matthew Phipps Shiel. Pretty good stuff. Race relations were still a pretty big deal in the 1950s, and in some places, they still are a pretty big deal. In so many areas, we take one step forward and two steps back. Film is good! end of the world story, with some racial lessons thrown in.
I've seen many actors play the "last man on earth," and NO ONE ever played the part as believably as Harry Belafonte. There's his reaction when he's listening to those radio messages ; his shouting at the whole world to come back (I'm paraphrasing this) : "Where did you all go? What did I do?" ; his trying to live alone with the mannequins ; singing to himself ; his reaction when he finds out there's someone else ; his line when Mel Ferrer threatens him : "Is this World War IV ?" And Inger Stevens was extremely good in it, including her big argument with him, telling him she can live alone, with its almost funny little faux pas : "I'm free, white and 21." And Mel Ferrer, whose character (if I'm correct) was more arrogant in a GENERAL way than he was a bigot, seemed very right for that part. People have complained about the faulty science and similar things, but to me, those things pale alongside the actors and characters. One science fiction guidebook had a great line about this "last three people on earth" movie : "Well, at least one of them can sing."
In the '50s the nuclear holocaust was never far from the popular imagination. This picture is one of many fictional efforts to show what might have happened.
By being trapped in a Pennsylvania mine, Belafonte is one of the very few people on earth (as far as we know from the film, only three) to escape annihilation. He manages to get out of the mine on his own (the first of many plot contrivances), goes to New York City and finds it depopulated, except for Inger Stevens, who eventually comes out of hiding. It's mostly a picture about loneliness. As much as we may resent the jostling masses in our midst, what if they were gone?
Actually, it spurs a fantasy, too. Imagine that you had the pickings of all of New York to yourself, and imagine that you were a handyman who could rig up generators and the like, and imagine that you found a comely woman to keep you company. Could be worse.
But we are asked to ignore too much in the picture, the fact that only one person in all of the city survived, the fact that not a single rotting body is shown on the streets, the fact that the shortwave transmissions Belafonte regularly monitors show that the rest of the world is empty, too (except, eventually, for Mel Ferrer, who was sailing during the nuclear blasts)-- all a bit too much. The film tries too hard to be an allegory when it should have been good, logical science fantasy.
Nevertheless, TWTF&TD is well worth a watch.
By being trapped in a Pennsylvania mine, Belafonte is one of the very few people on earth (as far as we know from the film, only three) to escape annihilation. He manages to get out of the mine on his own (the first of many plot contrivances), goes to New York City and finds it depopulated, except for Inger Stevens, who eventually comes out of hiding. It's mostly a picture about loneliness. As much as we may resent the jostling masses in our midst, what if they were gone?
Actually, it spurs a fantasy, too. Imagine that you had the pickings of all of New York to yourself, and imagine that you were a handyman who could rig up generators and the like, and imagine that you found a comely woman to keep you company. Could be worse.
But we are asked to ignore too much in the picture, the fact that only one person in all of the city survived, the fact that not a single rotting body is shown on the streets, the fact that the shortwave transmissions Belafonte regularly monitors show that the rest of the world is empty, too (except, eventually, for Mel Ferrer, who was sailing during the nuclear blasts)-- all a bit too much. The film tries too hard to be an allegory when it should have been good, logical science fantasy.
Nevertheless, TWTF&TD is well worth a watch.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesTo film the striking images of a deserted New York City, the cast and crew had to start filming at dawn in order to capture the city before the early morning rush. This gave them no more than an hour or two per day in which to film the sequence.
- GaffesAlthough only three people are left alive in New York City after an atomic event, there is not even one dead body. Even an evacuation could not have been this complete in one of the most populated and congested cities in the world. This is also noticeable in the empty turned-over buses and the fact that there is not even a dead dog or cat to be seen. However, on the tape at the radio station, the radio announcer says that New York had been completely evacuated so there wouldn't be any bodies.
- Citations
Benson Thacker: I have nothing against negroes, Ralph.
Ralph Burton: That's white of you.
- Crédits fousAs the film's final credits cut-in, the film states "The Beginning" rather than "The End."
- ConnexionsFeatured in Out of this World Super Shock Show (2007)
- Bandes originalesI Don't Like It Here
(uncredited)
Written by Harry Belafonte and Ranald MacDougall
Sung by Harry Belafonte
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Détails
- Date de sortie
- Pays d’origine
- Langues
- Aussi connu sous le nom de
- Mundo, carne y deseo
- Lieux de tournage
- Sociétés de production
- Voir plus de crédits d'entreprise sur IMDbPro
Box-office
- Budget
- 1 659 000 $US (estimé)
- Durée
- 1h 35min(95 min)
- Couleur
- Mixage
- Rapport de forme
- 2.35 : 1
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