Atomic Cafe

         It being the first week of classes, I remained curious about what my experience this year would be like. This class (American Film: The Cold War) was the main focus of my curiosity. I haven't had too much experience with the topic, but knew that it seemed somewhat interesting to me. The only aspect of the class that I was concerned about was the films themselves. I've been in film classes before that were uncontrollably boring which resulted in a lot of catching on my lost sleep. My concerns with this class were relieved when I viewed "Atomic Cafe".
          This film seemed pretty dry at first, with its black and white style and lack of narration. What seemed boring to me initially soon turned into a style which I found intriguing as I continued to watch. The film makers had a great style which came out through their editing. What I mean by this is that they had a great deal of contrasting images and clips set against one another which told a narration in itself. In one clip a scene of great fear and terror would be shown through the way which people acted and the intense music in the background. The army training films which were used in this film were a good example of this. Then directly after would be a scene of over the top explanations of how it would be like when the bomb went off set to eerily happy music. Scenes like these were paired against each other multiple times to show how seriously people took the scare at the time.
         I was amazed to see how worked up people were back then about the affects of the bomb. As a child of an age well after the red scare and the fear of nuclear bombs it's hard to fully understand why these people would get so worked up. However, I do admit that if I had grown up in those times that I probably would have been horrified. In current times we know that if a bomb were to go off anywhere near you that you wouldn't stand a chance of survival. This is why no one goes through the trouble of planning too intensely for the bomb such as building bomb shelters. I can understand why everyone went through such intense planning when I think of how everyone felt during Y2K. As a kid I didn't quite grasp what was happening but I was scared to a point after hearing all the theories of what would happen.
           Kristina Zarlengo's article "Civilian Threat, the Suburban Citadel, and Atomic Age American Women" did help clerify why everyone was so afraid of the bomb going off during the 50's and after. I hadn't realized that this was a time of change for war-tactics. I hadn't realized that the early 1900's was the key time for civilian attacks. I had also never realized that the move to suburban areas was inspired by fear of attack within the city. The racial tension linked to this also surprised me. Not that racial tension is anything new to American history, but it wasn't something that came to mind.
         In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and it's strange hypnotizing style. I wasn't surprised in the least when it was mentioned in class that this film inspired Michael Moore to do what he does for a living. I now feel a bit more familiarized with the ins-and-outs of the cold war era and I look forward to discovering more.