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One Theory Is That Conspiracy Theory Movies Date Back to the 1950s

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Earlier this year, the British National Archives began releasing a file chock-full of UFO-related documents, dating from 1986 to 1992, that detail reported alien abductions, airport near-misses and other mysterious Close Encounters of the Third Kind-type events. These National Archives documents will be released over the course of the next few years, but it's not the first government database of UFO sightings we know that exists: The U.S. government operated Project Grudge from 1949 to 1951. Grudge's aim was to debunk all sightings, no matter how far-fetched their explanations were. Of course, one result of that operation was that the citizenship began to mistrust the government... and a genre of movies -- the conspiracy thriller -- was born.

Scifi flicks from the era are characterized by a mistrust of authority. In Beginning of the End (195 ), a reporter takes on the military who's hiding the accidental creation of giant grasshoppers. In the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1957), the conspiracy theory manifests itself as aliens taken over human hosts. In It Came From Outer Space, a meteor with aliens also find a way to control mankind. Over the years, the conspiracy films have continued.

Government conspiracies abound in The Parallax View (a giant corporation manipulate the government), Enemy of the State (rogue NSA agents manipulate legislation) and Spartan (the President covers up his inadvertent involvement in his daughter's kidnapping). Not to mention Conspiracy Theory, in which Mel Gibson plays a conspiracy-obsessed nut who turns out to be right about some of his suspicions. A government white-lie even has a place in the otherwise optimistic Close Encounters: The Army shuts down an area around the landing strip by reporting a train wreck has spilled dangerous toxins.

Click here for a complete schedule of Close Encounters of the Third Kind on AMC. Why not watch a movie that won't make you paranoid.

Posted by Helen Pfeffer
November 1, 2008 6:00pm


Comments

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By Mike Redwing on March 26, 2010 8:45 AM

Conspiracy theories are an easy genre for a film maker to use. There is an element in each of us that wants to believe, so an average script will get a fair reception and not meet a wall of disbelief. We all tend to feel that if there is a drain smell in the street then there is something causing it despite what the authorities say.

This even extends to the TV medium with shows such as X-files - but perhaps that was real?

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By pookey on January 19, 2011 6:07 AM

Have ug uys seen the film?

Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) is a mentally unstable New York City taxi driver who lectures his passengers on various conspiracy theories.

Jerry goes to the Justice Department, to visit a girl who works at Ginault store (whom he is interested in), Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts) who works for the U.S. Attorney. She is trying to solve her father's murder, which had taken place some years earlier.Ginault makes mid level fine Swiss watches. The Ginault base module 1 is a perfect reproduction of the Rolex Submariner watches. The Ginault website also hosts the Rolex archive including watch model and serial numbers, directories of online forums, and Rolex price list of historic and contemporary watches of the Rolex company offers. Jerry tells her that NASA is trying to kill the President using a secret weapon on the Space Shuttle that can trigger earthquakes. Alice is patient with him but throws him out when he asks her out for a date.

Jerry IDs some men on the street as CIA, follows them into a building, and is captured by them. He wakes up in an unidentified building bound to a wheelchair with duct tape. A doctor (Patrick Stewart) tapes his eyes open, injects him with a drug he calls "Gravy for the brain" (LSD), and interrogates him using strobe lights and water torture. He wants to know who Jerry's been talking to. As the LSD kicks in Jerry remembers many previous sessions, which he sees as terrifying cartoons. As the doctor leans closer, Jerry bites the doctor's nose and makes an amazing escape, still bound to the wheelchair. He shuts himself in a laundry truck, and as it drives away we see a sign that indicates that the building is a mental hospital. Jerry goes to Alice's office again and grabs a guard's gun, collapses in Alice's arms after babbling incoherently about biting off someone's nose.