Future Shock on Youtube- 1972 TV Show hosted by OW

[Alan Brody]

Presented in 5 parts. Cheesy and dated in some ways, but fun to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=0

[Michael O'Hara]

I enjoyed watching that very much. Thanks.

[Glenn Anders]

Orson Welles, in the decade or so before his death, returned to his least examined passion, that of Educator. Following on from his Skipper Hill inspired editions of illustrated, more user-friendly Shakespeare, which carried on well into his young manhood, he turned in the 1950s, '60s, and especially in the 1970s to a series essays and explorations of culture, futurism and religious subjects. There were his introductions of great novels and plays for classroom films, and his travel and cultural pieces for the BBC in the 1950s, attempts at philosphical work on American TV in the period, independent productions of a roughly educational nature for syndication in the 1960s, and in 1974, possibly his second best film, F FOR FAKE, on the nature of Art.

Then, there stand out from nondescript stuff three curious, very pessimistic pictures about the future, each of which bear his stamp, but which were ostensibly done by others: "Future Shock," (1972), THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH (1979), and THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW (1981). Each, in its own way, is full of dire foretellings:

In THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH, based on Hal Lindsey's Christian Zionist Biblical prophecy of the Second Coming of Christ, and the appearance of the Anti-Christ, Robert Nisbet, a sociologist, is quoted as saying: "If Fascism ever comes to the United States, it'll be called Americanism. And I think that if we are going to have a fascist, totalitarian type of government or ruler in this country, he is going to be someone who exemplifies almost perfectly what we think of as the traditional American character. He's going to have elements of the rural in him, but he's not going to be in any sense a hick. He's going to have to be an individual who knows the military, likes the military, and is capable of using it."

[Calling that Texas chip-kicking Eastern Family scion, George W. Bush! The guy everybody wanted to play pool and swig a Bud with!]

Then, in "THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW, Welles, who Director Robert Guenette said re-wrote a number of Nostradamus's Quatrains, has a Middle Easterner, wearing a blue turban, ordering the destruction of New York City. Guenette went on, in 1992, to write and direct the documentary, ORSON WELLES: WHAT WENT WRONG.

Finally, the earliest of these "educational" documentaries, "Future Shock," based on the book by Alvin Toffler, may stand up the best. Toffler and his wife/collaborator Heidi are still around (unlike Nostradamus), still influential (not fairly discredited like Hal Lindsey, for all his influence on neocon and pnac thinking), and still writing books (Revolutionary Wealth, 2006). Toffler who, from what I know of him (and aside from his ideas, he is a bit of a mystery), may be the closest thing to "Sidney Riley, Ace of Spies," that America has come up with. And his ideas are still being taken seriously in the mainstream, not only in America, but in Europe, Russia, China, and the Sub-Continent.

"Future Shock" is the most concise, most Wellsian of the three films, and its predictions are still playing out, still viable.

I remember using this film in my high school "Film and Mass Media" class (always a bit surprised that the County had bought it), and being intrigued that the documentary riveted students (along with TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, I'm sorry to say). They saw themselves as the young revolutionaries fighting against the robots, both real and human, depicted in the picture.

[The most vocal of them were convinced that same-sex marriage would be "no way" -- not ever -- in America!]

And so, though the music may seem now smarmy (maybe "cheesy" as you would say), the ideas are still working. And despite the terrible print, the editing still works, too.

I might note that the Film Editor of "Future Shock," David Newhouse, six years previous had edited that little masterpiece of future shock, (SECONDS, 1966).

AND . . . the Cinematography for "Future Shock" was created by
Vilis Lapenieks, who nearly a dozen years earlier had done similar honors for Curtis Harrington's NIGHT TIDE (1961).

DUM-TA-DUM-TUM!

So we are back, with these films, in a curious way, to Aleister Crowley, CHEMICAL WEDDING, Jack Parsons, Marjorie Cameron, Barbara Bush, and the Anti-Christ!

Not that all these figures should be made "victims of guilt by association."

But "fun to watch," as you say, Alan.

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

That's very interesting info, Glenn. I agree with you about Seconds being a small gem, and based on what I've read about Night Tide here, that's on my list of movies to see too. Also very interesting about Robert Guenette being the link between TMWST and OW:WWW.

Yes, the Tofflers are still influential, especially in China from what I've heard, but here in the U.S. I wonder if their reputation didn't suffer somewhat from their close association with Newt Gingrich in the mid-to-late-90's, when Gingrich's fall was as quick as his rise.

You mentioned PNAC and the Toffler's latest book Revolutionary Wealth. As it happens, the Tofflers in that book were among the first to point out the rapid spread of Christianity which is now taking place in China. The christianization of China was one of the keys to Henry Luce's call for an "American Century", which Orson Welles, among others, railed against. Mao stopped it that time. I wonder what can stop it this time, if anything?

I agree with you also that Future Shock contains ideas that are still working. In fact, some of it's ideas seem more relevant now then when the book was first published 40 years ago, especially concerning the kind of nervous breakdown of apathy that many feel in response to the hyper-progress of technological society.

I believe that a film was also made from The Tofflers' even more influential 1980 book, The Third Wave, but unfortunately Welles was not the host for that one.

[Glenn Anders]

Alan: All I can tell you is that Alvin Toffler is a pretty wild card. He has been playing on both, maybe several, sides of the streets for 40 years. You will notice how little there is, easily available, about his personal life, how he developed his ideas, who his various earlier employers and influences were, and why he suddenly became such a guru.

My impression is that after the big splash of Future Shock, he floated on The Third Wave into corporatist nirvana. He and his wife Heidi still seem quite influential, but in a consulting sense, all over the World, especially in China, as you note. The Tofflers advised both Newt Gingrich and the Clintons in the 1990's, which suggests that they have not yet begun to answer for a good deal of what is now coming down upon us.

How true that Future Shock was highly predictive, "especially concerning the kind of nervous breakdown of apathy that many feel in response to the hyper-progress of technological society"!

And how else can we explain a "conservative" Republican Party, which has dug the Nation into an almost impossible financial and economic hole by borrowing (from the Chinese, mostlly) to pay for needless foreign wars and private boondoggles?

Or how to explain a Democratic Party which destroyed its "progressive wing," dearly beloved by Welles, and is now so timid that it hesitates to bring to justice the greatest looting of our Public Treasury in History!

I find no evidence, Alan, of that Third Wave movie, but what a picture Welles might make on our present situation.

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

The relationship with the Clintons undoubtedly came because of Al Gore, another of the Toffler's more famous associates. The Tofflers claim to be liberals, but say they have found more receptiveness to their ideas on the Republican side then on the Democratic side. Gingrich, in his foreward to the Tofflers' 1995 Creating a New Civilization, notes that in the early 1980's General Donn Starry, commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, read The Third Wave and invited the Tofflers to share the Third Wave model with doctrine developers throughout the Army. So it also seems it is the business world and the military, rather then government or schools, that has utilized Third Wave theories.

As Gingrich puts it:
"The new Army doctrine led to a more flexible, fast-paced, decentralized, information-rich system which assessed the battlefield, focused resources and utilized well-trained but very decentralized leadership to overwhelm an industrial-era opponent...Entrenched Second Wave armies (such as Saddam's Iraq forces in the first Gulf War) were simply outmaneuvered and annihilated when faced with Third Wave information systems for targeting and logistics."

That Third Wave film was mentioned in one of their books when Toffler's wife took it to some Asian film festival. I don't know that it was ever even broadcast in the U.S., and may have been intended mainly as part of their demonstration for the military. Maybe if Welles had hosted it it might have had a higher profile. I find myself wondering if he was asked, and if so why he didn't do it.

[Glenn Anders]

I bow, Sir, to your superior understanding of the Tofflers, and their philosophical and logistical theories.

One caveat comes to mind, but I shall contact you privately about that, if possible.

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

Sure Glenn, contact me anytime you want. For those interested in the Tofflers and their work, there's also on Youtube a good, recent interview done for Revolutionary Wealth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DWj-G-V ... re=related

[Alan Brody]

I think Welles saw his activities in support of the U.N. in 1945 as an extension of the "Pan-Americanism" that had been promoted as part of his South American venture. He even said as much on one of his radio shows.

During the Broadway run of Ceasar, perhaps his most successful blend of art and politics in the theatre, Welles said that an educated populace was the key to maintaining a democratic society. This harkens back to Thomas Jefferson's statement that "the people generally get the kind of rulers they deserve". Of course, as Barbra Leaming's book points out, by the late 1940's Orson Welles had "lost his faith in the inherent wisdom of the American Public". But he never stopped trying to break through.

[Alan Brody]

I'm thinking Leaming, but I'll have to look it up when I get a chance.

[Alan Brody]

Yeah, it's the Leaming book. "...it is education of the masses, not assassinations, that removes dictatorships."