John Carpenter's heroic documentary on the exploitation of the working class masquerading as a sci-fi flick.
According to Carpenter speaking on the topic of his 1988 visionary film, They Live was "mainly inspired by Ronald Reagan's conservative revolution."
The film is "partly a political statement, partly a tract on the world that we live in," the director says, "and as a matter of fact it's even more true right now than it was then."
Disgusted by the unrestrained capitalism of Reaganomics, and a culture "consumed by consumerism", the director of Halloween (1979), Escape From New York (1981), and The Thing (1982) "decided to scream out in the middle of the night and make a statement" about human values being pushed aside in the service of elitist greed.
The resulting film stars Roddy Piper as a rough-hewn working-class hero who drifts into town and from the fringe finds a box of what look like regular sunglasses. However, he soon learns that by wearing these special lenses he sees the world around him as it truly is: a place where inhuman creatures pretending to be people enslave the masses through constant subliminal control.
They Live, We Sleep. That's the writing on the wall. Literally.
What appear to be billboards and magazines advertising toothpaste or perhaps spray cheese are actually hidden directives to OBEY and CONSUME, with the threat that REBELLION WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
It's a hard-hitting movie with rolls of quarters in the filmmaker's fists because the subliminal messages which the hero discovers are the same words used in real-life 1960s subliminal programming.
Look it up. The old TV sign-off (back when TV used to stop for a few hours) which played the National Anthem in fact did used to contain those exact words, and more, presented in a very sneaky way. Eventually discovered, this particular trick got scrapped.
Eleven years later, The Matrix follows suit. And while The Matrix is one of the greatest movies ever, They Live is simply much more pure. In a sense, the least realistic aspect to it is the abundant proliferation of alien enslavers in humanity's midst. One percent just doesn't look like that.
Among the film's many notable features, its protagonist was the first professional wrestler to star in a number one box-office release. Rowdy Roddy Piper (who died three years ago) proved that he can act. He also personally wrote the film's most memorable line: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all outta bubblegum."
The 6-minute fight scene with Keith David (Kurt Russell's co-star in The Thing) is the brawl of legend, and a brilliant decision on Carpenter's part because it focuses the conflict on making one's fellow unwitting accomplices see the true reality all around.
THEY LIVE
Starring Roddy Piper,
Keith David,
Meg Foster,
George "Buck" Flower,
Peter Jason,
Raymond St. Jacques
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter (as Frank Armitage)
Based on a story by Ray Nelson
Runtime 94 minutes
Rated R
Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE
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