"The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957)

 

“I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends is man’s conception, not nature’s... All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something.  And then I meant something too.” -- Grant Williams as Scott Carey, in the final moments of "The Incredible Shrinking Man"

As the pandemic drags into the middle of September, a sense of numbness has set in. Call it Covid-fatigue.  I can see it in the diminished frequency of my writing.  

Re-visiting old movies, and writing about their renewed relevance for our situation, started out as an exciting idea. It provided me with a way to parlay my inarticulate thoughts and feelings into a sort of coherent diary of the months during the pandemic, and to chronicle my state of mind during this health nightmare. 

Anxiety over the unknown dangers of the coronavirus, and uncertainty about the duration of lockdowns and social distancing, fueled my initial, nervous energy to find new relevance in these films, and to keep writing about them to maintain a sense of purpose and stay sane.

In writing about movies, the subject I loved best, I might encourage a brand-new audience to discover films that do not deserve to be forgotten.   I wanted to make a case that these earlier films, which were important in their day, matter as much today as when they were popular, some maybe more.

Lately, Covid-fatigue, like a new, free-form anxiety, has had a paralyzing effect.   I was afraid that my pipeline was running dry, that I had run out of movies to write about in this way, that the project was coming to an end.   

Not only that, but the health crisis, which has its own set of obstacles and dangers to overcome, has become entwined with politics, so that it is becoming more difficult to deal with Covid-19 by itself without dragging in our depressing, political national drama. 

It is bad enough to be in a state of mourning for the death of a familiar way of life, which I now see is like the depression stage of mourning.  Add to it the barrage of petty, angry, irrational politics which have co-opted the pandemic, and turned it into a weapon to divide us, and it requires an impossible amount of energy to navigate it all.

It sometimes helps me to regress a little bit, and remember the things I enjoyed as a child, to bring me back to myself.

So, there was something reassuring about watching “The Incredible Shrinking Man” a giddy-scary, slightly silly yet surprisingly profound black-and-white science fiction melodrama from 1957. As a child in grade school, I loved these atomic-age thrillers, mostly set in the desert southwest, featuring gigantic lizards, enormous spiders and prehistoric creatures wreaking havoc on crowds of regular people. (My husband would say that I have never completely outgrown my love for them).

The simple premise of “The Incredible Shrinking Man” has main character Scott Carey (Grant Williams) being covered by a mysterious mist while out on a boating excursion with his wife, Louise (Randy Stewart).  Suddenly, he begins to shrink to nothingness, confounding the medical community, and creating a media frenzy.  As he shrinks, his heartbroken and understanding wife pledges to help him recover. Carey, dwindling ever faster, tries to befriend a circus midget, before needing to be housed inside a child’s playhouse. 

After a terrifying encounter with the family cat, that Louise thinks has killed him, Scott is lost in the basement, struggling to survive, trying to find shelter in a matchbox, and competing for scraps of food with a hair-raising black spider that is already three times his size.

It’s comforting to watch this for nostalgia, to recapture the thrills I used to have in the safety of my parents living room, where I tuned in after school on the old Zenith black-and-white console television.  It was enough back then to wait with dizzy anticipation for the scary moments, the special effects (which I prayed were actually real somehow), and for the creatures that had me staring wide-eyed, until the inevitable letdown of their destruction before the films ended.

A second reason I find “The Incredible Shrinking Man” comforting is that It goes beyond the simple surface adventure.  With the second half of the film virtually a one-man show, we hear Scott Carey’s thoughts as he narrates for us, inviting us into his feelings of terror and determination to survive.  He also considers what it all means: what it means to be human as he disappears, and whether he matters in the vast universe, even as he shrinks so small that he can fit through the tiny holes of a window screen.

Along with the unusual intelligence of the script, and the moving (if occasionally overwritten) reflections on the meaning of life, “The Incredible Shrinking Man” allows me to observe a character in the midst of surreal, extreme circumstances, who uses his wiles and his strength to keep on living, even as the odds of survival turn more and more against him.

There’s an apt metaphor here. I myself don’t feel like I’m shrinking, but rather that my options in life are dwindling because of the necessary mitigation of the virus.  And while I can hope for a return to normal life someday, with better leadership and a good vaccine, Scott Carey doesn’t have that hope.  

More than that, as Scott shrinks, the everyday surroundings and items of his life actually grow to dangerous proportions: a benign storm drain in the basement floor can be a deadly whirlpool; a wooden paint-stirrer might give way to his plunge into an abyss; and tiny critters we barely notice, even a family pet, become mortal enemies.

For me, it’s the metaphor of a world becoming too overwhelming, and feeling helpless to make a difference, that works in this film. The virus, the political instability, and the creeping incivility around us today is captured in images Scott Carey’s world as it grows too big and dangerous around him. 

But just as Scott does in the film, I find ways to adjust, to survive, to avoid danger, and to make my life matter.  Unlike him, I have the support of special loved ones, and good friends, to help me through, which he loses as the film goes on.

The movie is extremely well-made for a picture of this genre and lower budget.  The special effects are quite good.  By today’s standards, some of the photographic effects are weak, and some of the music cues are laughably over the top; but other effects, like Scott’s encounters with the cat and the spider, are shockingly good (and gory). The sets are top-notch, clever and very plausible, recreating mundane objects of his home in gigantic replicas, of furniture, pencils, mousetraps, and spiderwebs.

Best of all are the performers.  Grant Williams is somewhat limited as an actor, but is so watchable that we don't really care.  Here, he finds the right character for his capabilities.  He is appropriately athletic and moves well.  His narration is even more heartfelt than his delivery of dialogue on screen. It’s enthralling to watch him fashion a weapon out of a needle and thread, cut his clothing to fit his smaller body, and convey in his eyes the quick thinking as he makes life-or-death decisions.

Even better is Randy Stewart as Louise.  Her complete commitment to the role, her playing it completely straight as a woman slowly losing the love of her life, is so convincing, that it lifts the entire film into a higher level of believability.  I think it’s the purest, best piece of acting I have ever seen in a film of this type.

After finding comfort in watching “The Incredible Shrinking Man”. I have also found new energy to keep my writing going.  New classic movies are emerging for me that reveal new light on various facets of our pandemic.  A few will provide apt comparisons not only to our dealing with Covid, but to the political circus we are trapped in.

And once I write what will eventually be my last piece for this blog, I may finally pass into the final stage of mourning the old life, just as Scott Carey did: acceptance.