15 February
Dear Adam McKay,
Of course, one wonderful feature of Don’t Look Up is its fierce and literal hit-you-over-the-head message: we have one life, one Earth, and zero room for error. Straightforwardness can be as beautiful as a glance. Yet, subtlety can speak volumes.
It was in the White House conference room -- and not the Oval Office where the Jonah Hill's Jason Orlean verbally tortures Jennifer Lawrence’s Dr. Dibiasky -- where such a scene stood out. As the Silicon Valley robber baron extolled the virtues of mining a planet-killing asteroid for hither-to undreamed-of wealth, the scientist played by Leonardo DiCaprio sat in the row of chairs behind the conference table; at the conference table were Madam President and her Yes-Men politicos. And behind the robber baron, hanging above the fireplace, was a painting of the American Civil War.
We all know that the comet is a metaphor for the blameless things that happen yet must be set to rights. As the film makes clear, and as you have said many times in recent interviews, the film is a call to action. And yet, as of now, the scientists are marginalized and the nation totters like a stool with uneven legs. We do not know which calamity will cause the break. It was not January 6, though some folks tried their mean-hearted best.
A main message of your film is that “follow the science” is not enough: the social forces of television, social media, celebrity, and the unholy communion of politics and money, along with our human propensity to drill down into unnecessary minutiae -- why did that general charge for snacks? -- sinks all ships. The science cannot be followed because the social forces are arrayed against it. And the only way to follow the science is to defeat the social forces. The circle is complete.
Your message, then, is that we, all of us, must do more and different than what we have been doing. In your film, the politicos, the robber barons, and the easily-led-astray scientists are to blame for our societal disaster. But what of the peoples in under-developed nations that you show throughout the film? Are they to blame, too? What role should they play in a planet drowning in pollution and arrogance?
Perhaps this American-centric movie is about the American Civil War that can be averted if Americans would only… do something. We have now been scared straight.
What now?
Joshua Dubrow
Joshua Dubrow