FIVE
(1951; w/d Arch Oboler)

Title: actors in film, fingers on hand (goodness of work: villain do-nothing), points on star, "years (that’s all we’ve got" – Bowie); as in Night o/t Living Dead, wmn meets man in deserted house on which various characters – including an African American + a dangerous hothead – converge + yak interminably before most die, Bomb bringing biblical warning (instrument of Apocalypse [absolving men of wrongdoing, if pre-ordained?]) about "deadly wind" (fallout, i.e. emotional: man’s enmity force still 2B dealt w/), followed by montage of world capitols (regions of consciousness) dissolving in smoke + screams (resistence to unconsciousness, and distressed tone of film to follow).

Camera descends on woman (reconfigured un-consciousness locating dream-material + locus of renewal; cf similar Target Earth beginning) Roseanne Rogers in road (harmonious feminine aspect in transit/ion), dispassionately noting skeleton in car (useless abandoned Old Body on descent into dream), bursting out in desolate city (evacuated mind/body) "Help me, somebody" (w/d’s own need for cooperation/assistance/recognition in self-financed/written/directed project mostly filmed at own house, away from studio sets + $), headline WORLD ORGANIZATION COLLAPSE IMMINENT mind reflecting on own decline into anarchy, frequent rainfall cleansing effect of mourning; makes way to (w/d’s) Frank Lloyd Wright house (incorporating natural elements the soul returned there post-apocalypse, cast into wilderness both to rejuvenate + determine what went wrong), where she finds fireplace burning (warm center of self) + faints on sight of hunter Michael Rogan (Rogers/Rogan: married in spirit) returning w/ loot (sleeper’s recognition of survivalist Self, she anima investigating auteur’s burning heart + finding there killer).

Mike identifies her in photo in house (she essential part of self; house belongs not to him but to her artist aunt: creative mind, where drama played out to resolution) + dishes own history – Masters in English Lit ("humanities," belying bearded, unkempt appearance: degraded soul + futility of Arts to stop/understand violence) who cd find job only as Empire State Building guide ("tallest man-made edifice" spiel to depopulated landscape both irony of ambition + soul’s descent to Matter [from M.A. to M.C.]), in elevator at time of blast (already on way down); she finally speaks (soul emerging for dialog) + recounts receiving x-rays at time (protected by self-reflective/examining discipline), drawn here by memory of one idyllic summer (icon of feminine unity – she + not aunt but "mother’s sister," dream similar return to troubled paradise), husband Steve in picture (lost masculine agency, maybe not so bad); Mike asks if he can stay (humbling self before Fem).

After Rose spurns his aggressive advances (anima/fem not 2B subjugated), Mike builds own joint farther down hill (again failing to live up to desired "heights") + she seen 2B pregnant (absent father à la Christ child), he rebuffing her wish to look for husband in town (where they go for food: material needs fulfilled, vs spiritual) w/ "You + I are in a dead world" (own defeatism; excellent character work by usually innocuous WLee Wilder regular Wm/Bill Phipps); enter jeep driven by African American bank doorman (portal onto riches; more than traditional spirit-guide for whites most Afr-Ams get to play) + carrying elderly Chief Cashier Oliver P Barnstaple (Old Money already on way out before cataclysm – "like machine w/ no one left to press his button"), locked in vault when bomb blew (together in deepest unconscious: black + white/positive + negative/anima + animus).

Oliver discovers subcutaneous bleeding (inner hemorrhage despite conscious adherence to order + professionalism) + wants to go to ocean on recovery (willing submersion back into Unconscious), where Mike spies new body on shore (border btwn un/consciousness, something new rising into latter) at moment of O-death (New Order, in more ways than one): Everest-climbing Eric (ambition [earthy, archetypal aspiration, his natural summit vs Mike’s civilized – + unwanted – Empire St Bldg: conquering nature, rather’n reiterating it], his indeterminable Euro accent Western culture itself), whose good looks win Rose’s favor (snake in Garden [similarly fallen angel, as from mountain], allure o/t dangerous exotic as ingrained as fallibility o/t "pure") + irk Mike (ruined idealists never at loss for material), his cultural-elitist attitude rankling all (Western imperialism cause of opening cataclysm) + especially offensive to Charles (most vivid target, racism also element of ’59 World, Flesh + Devil – A-bomb epitome of split btwn races + inevitable effect of white supremacy in nature/world favoring balance).

While tilling soil (at which Eric scoffs ["The shelves o/t city are bursting w/ food": civilization incarnate]), Charles + Mike relate (planting seed of brotherhood), Chas recounting losing way to becoming teacher ("…a girl. Decent suit. ‘Security’": how simple earthly desires ensnare all + keep from reaching potential); Eric theorizes all survived not because of circumstances but because of "immunity" (both Master-Race philosophizing + suggestion of endurance of archetypes: creative man/artist, noble worker/doorman, patrician Father/banker, ambitious mt-climber + loving wmn) then picks fight w/ "distasteful" Chas (inability to deal w/ darkside Other primary cause of ruin: cf WORLD ORGANIZATION headline), resulting in his lockout while Rose goes into labor (possibly induced by his tossing her aside: child born of strife).

Charles recites black poet James Weldon Johnson’s "The Creation" (he elemental force calling same into being), ending w/ God fashioning man in own img, as baby cries (w/d himself lord of own FLWright world, each character facet of self), which Rose declines to name till she discovers husband’s fate (allowing Father to identify "own img," child extension or resolution of old world); Mike makes up w/ Eric (re-birth of hope + chance to remake world not in own but in ideal img), who reneges on partnership (he also slothful Cain, similar outcast living on fringe of estate), Mike finally sharing his heart w/ Rose (she initially recoiling from vulture/"scavenger" in air but later relenting + embracing him till "Steven!"’s specter throws cold water on both.

That night, Eric (who day before drove jeep thru garden: snake, again, + foreboding later seedling death) cons Rose into leaving for city to look for husband (as Mike wdn’t do: shadow-self acting out own worst judgment, stealing her in night à la wet-blanket cry of husband’s name during smooch), running into Charles on way out ("So I’m not the only one who cdn’t sleep": dreamer Mike in fact only one who is asleep, all action playing out in absence of own restrictive ego) + knifing him (eliminating lowly, effeminate [doing laundry w/ Rose + dishes, in apron] force holding him down) before making for ocean (border btwn conscious states), where he sacks out while Rose nurses (nourishing deep sleep); while Mike discovers + buries Chas + reads "Dear Michael" letter (laying both low + high selves to rest), E+R hit city (sirens – real or imagined – alarm clock calling self to consciousness), where she revisits husband’s empty architect-office (end of old "structure" + security, he vs "primitive" builder Mike), hospital x-ray room (she agent investigating inner workings of self) + finally waiting room (all in limbo of expectation for world to be reborn), where she discovers Steven-corpse (dead Self + deepest, unseen dreamer of film, skeleton body left behind by questing/transcendent mind) + collapses, "Free of Hope."

Recovered (sirens over: awake now from dream of God the Architect), returns to discover Eric has radiation welts (alluring Old World [literally: Euro accent, again] now unappealing) then walks back (jeep also out of commission: leaving behind Civilization + Its Discontents), finding unnamed baby (limbo-status of world + last connection to Steven/Old) SIDS victim (city truly poisonous, as Mike contends) at dawn next day; hits road again (à la beginning: film/world full-circle), found in rain (cleansing; sorrow) by Mike, who buries child + begins tilling soil again (new life to spring from loss), joined by Rose’s "I want to help" (future 2B created by man + wmn, now that man alone has finished botch-job), closing Revelation about restoring world more dir speaking than God he’s already left dead + unburied.

Perplexing why everyone denigrates this "arty" (inspired; poetic), "pretentious" (ambitious, heartfelt), "austere" (modestly scaled, intimate), "stunt" (achievement …and may I add earnest, beautifully shot + sensitively acted?) film while tending to praise similar vanity projects like, say, Leslie Stevens’ Incubus, which takes all these terms to new heights – + does it in Esperanto? Just about the perfect movie, tho it admittedly ruined more than one Saturday evening horror-film slot for one kid in the ’70s.