Return of the Patriarchs
65
The first visual echo of 9/11 is the panic that ensues when the Martian
tripods first rise from their places of underground concealment. Because the
focus of the film is on Ray, we see it happen in his neighborhood. Notably, the
first effect of the tripod movement is seismic in nature, and the first visible
consequences are the destruction of nearby buildings. When the tripod emerges
and turns its heat-ray on the feeling crowd, the scene very much resembles the
news footage of Ground Zero on 9/11: crowds of people running from the cloud
of dust and ash created by the destruction of the Twin Towers. The second
visual echo is the carnage created by the airliner that crashes outside Tim and
Mary Ann’s house. This event serves no real narrative function and does little to
advance the story, but is evocative of United 93, the plane that crashed in
Pennsylvania on September l l lh. The third visual echo of 9/11 is the vast
assemblage of “have you seen this person?” notices that Ray and his children
pass while marching with the refugees to the ferry. These sorts of notices were
posted all over New York City in the days following 9/11, as the living
attempted to locate loved ones who may or may not have perished in the attack.
If we think of this recent version of War o f the Worlds as a post-9/11 text
that is implicitly about that event, then there are a couple of things about the film
that are particularly disturbing. First among these is the story’s treatment of the
children, in respect to their gender. Robbie’s first reaction to the Martian
invasion is a desire to join up with the army to fight the invaders. His first
attempt to do so is thwarted by his little sister, who asks, “If you leave me, who
will protect me?”, a question that emphasizes both children’s lack of faith in
Ray. Later, however, Robbie does attempt to bolt and follow a military unit that
is directly confronting the enemy. What is so interesting is that Robbie expresses
his need not in terms of having to do something, but in terms of having to see
the conflict, to witness it. This is in direct contrast to the story’s (and Ray’s)
treatment of Rachel, who is actively prevented from seeing what is going on
around her on two different occasions: once, when she is prevented from
looking at the plane wreckage, and again, when Ray blindfolds her before he
kills their benefactor, Harlan Ogilvy. Ray’s children represent two different
subjectivities about Bush’s War on Terror. Robbie represents all those young
men who joined the military after 9/11 to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rachel
represents those of us on the home front who have been discouraged from seeing
or thinking about what has been going on because of the war, as when the
Pentagon refused a request under the Freedom of Information Act to release
photos of war dead returning to Dover, Delaware.
The second disturbing thing is the film’s treatment of Harlan Ogilvy, in
whose basement Ray and Rachel take refuge. The character is an amalgamation
of two characters from the novel: the curate and the artilleryman. Ogilvy’s
discourse resembles that of the artilleryman, but his fate is identical to that of the
curate; in the novel, the protagonist kills the curate when the latter is on the
verge of revealing their hidden presence in a wrecked house to plundering
Martians (Mac Adam, xxviii-xxx). In the 1953 film, the curate is partly