Science Fiction Against the Margins Film Series
UCLA Film & Television Archive

part of
PST: Art & Science Collide

Post-Apocalyptic Love Triangles: 
"The World, the Flesh and the Devil" and "The Quiet Earth"

October 12, 2024 – 7:30 p.m.
Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum

Tickets are free, no RSVP required
Box office opens at 6:30 p.m.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil  (U.S., 1959)

The World, the Flesh and the Devil was the first feature released by Harry Belafonte’s independent production company, HarBel Productions. A Cold War social drama, the film uses the science fiction genre to present an allegory about racism in contemporary America during the civil rights era. Belafonte, successful singer, actor and now producer, was a leading figure in the movement and understood that his shared identity as an activist and celebrity was powerful. Writing in his autobiography, My Song: A Memoir, the leading man hoped that in this film, where he played opposite white actress Inger Stevens, “I would have another chance to contribute to the national conversation on race.” However, Hollywood in the late 1950s proved to be more radioactive than a post-apocalyptic Earth, and the producers revised the script. And while Belafonte and his co-stars saw an opportunity to breach the taboo of interracial love on screen, their characters struggle to shed old-world prejudices in the new world order.

The Quiet Earth  (New Zealand, 1985)

The Quiet Earth pays tribute to the Harry Belafonte film, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, 25 years later by reshuffling the power dynamic across racial and gender lines. Bruno Lawrence and Alison Routledge, the initial survivors, are white and soon to be joined by Peter Smith, who is Māori. As the two men partake in the obligatory dance of male rivals vying for a single woman’s affection, she carefully considers her choices, often mediating her suitors’ delicate male egos: desire and competition are heightened on a lonely planet. The legacy of the Māoris’ oppression under white colonialism in New Zealand shares the toxicity of the scientific experiment that has eliminated humankind. The sexual anxiety sparked by interracial relationships promises even more planetary shifts.

Watch trailers here

 

Background
The Science Fiction Against the Margins film series of the UCLA Film & TV Archive is a constituent part of the Getty’s PST: Art & Science Collide, a broad range of art exhibitions and events held throughout Southern California in fall 2024. The films in the festival will be shown free of charge from October 4–December 14, 2024 at the Billy Wilder Theater of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. The series is presented in partnership with Cinema & Media Studies of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; the UCLA International Institute is a community partner of the festival.

Filmmakers showcased in Science Fiction Against the Margins occupy the “margins” of mainstream cinema in order to challenge and subvert the science fiction genre. Hollywood’s ubiquitous sci-fi story structure functions within the conventions of action-driven melodrama, resolving social issues in private, emotional and moral terms that reinforce the status quo.

While the focus is on the feature film as a global form of mass entertainment, the series also includes documentaries, shorts, video art and television episodes.

Cost : Free

Sponsor(s): UCLA International Institute, Film and Television Archive, Cinema & Media Studies