It’s a bit ironic that David Thomson started writing Disaster Mon Amour just before the Covid-19 Pandemic hit the U.S. in 2020. Thomson starts his book on disaster movies with an analysis of San Andreas (2015), but as the Pandemic progresses, Thomson focuses more on The Road (2009) and Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name which won a Pulitzer Prize. McCarthy’s book details the bleak journey of a father and his son after a catastrophic event that destroys pretty much everything.
Thomson makes some odd detours into a discussion of Laurel and Hardy movies and his obsession with Rachel Maddow. He’s on firmer ground when he sticks with films like The Birds, The Grapes of Wrath, and Heaven’s Gate.
If you’re a fan of movies of all types, David Thomson always provides intelligent and witty commentary. Do you have a favorite disaster movie? GRADE: B
Table of Contents:
Overture for Two Staircases 1
In San Andreas 15
Vag 35
File Under “End of the World” 41
In Aberfan 67
Onlookerism 79
All the News 91
Pandemia Pandemonium 105
Missteps in the Dark 121
Across the Street 133
The Numbers 143
Our Road 155
“Fuck Off, Disaster!” 169
Necessity 181
The Table 187
Acknowledgments 199
Index 203
Over the top crime dramas such as ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW and (also a biopic of sorts) DOMINO are more my meat than disaster films…though the horror film THE LAST WAVE also works.
Todd, I found TORNADO! (1996) to be both scary and…prophetic.
Don’t know if that counts:
On the Beach by Nevil Shute and the movie made from it in 1959 were among my most intensive experiences, Read ans saw those in the early 60s when I was working for the “civil defense” calculating radiation in German cities from the nuclear detonations in NATO exercises like Fallex, Wintex etc.
A really strange feeling on the possible end of the world.
Wolf, Nevil Shute’s ON THE BEACH novel and the movie version struck a chord in many people. The end of the world hangs over us with thousands of nukes and Climate Change.
I don’t know…I feel as if we’re living in a disaster movie right now—and I have no desire to watch one!
Deb, so true! Every time I see Trump on TV, that feeling of disaster sweeps over me!
Same here in Europe! So many dimensions of disaster. From the extreme heat and dryness to the Putin killers and the extreme right wing getting stronger. And the billion tons of microplastic that you find everywhere …
People are so crazy!
This morning we went shopping for bread and vegetables on foot and passed piles of garbage by the street. Beer and coke cans, plastic packaging and empty little plastic bottles, originally filled with fruit brandy (pálinka).
Will people never learn? Destroying our environment like this …
I do like the idea of disaster movies but most of them aren’t very good. Wolf’s pick, ON THE BEACH, is probably my favorite. All those people just sitting there in Australia waiting to die while mostly acting as if it’s not going to happen is really hard to forget. Too bad it doesn’t seem to be available for streaming.
Michael, many critics consider Neil Shute’s ON THE BEACH to be his best book.
I’m a big fan of ON THE BEACH and I liked the Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner movie version. It made me want to move to Australia for the first time. The late Ellen Nehr recommended Shute’s TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM and that is well worth reading. (Not a disaster story in any way.)
The Road was made into a pretty good movie. The Mad Max movies are sort of an after the disaster series. On the Beach was good. Dawn of the Dead.
Steve, I like all the disaster movies you mention. MAD MAX and its sequels are always fun to watch!
Mad Max was really funny and the sequels too – but far away from reality (at the time …). I especially liked Thunderdome with my all time favourite Tina Turner.
I was really surprised when I read that she featured in the movie, great!
You know we’re in trouble when hopes of any progress on stalling or mitigating climate disaster (we’re way past any chance of reversing it) come down to a white, middle-aged senator from an economically destitute state historically dependent on the dying coal industry. On this and every other aspect of modern life, Edgar Allan Poe nailed it in “Dr. Tarr and Prof. Feather” — the inmates are running the asylum.
Fred, so many warning lights about disasters loom before us!
It’s my least favorite genre.
Patti, I was just watching the news about the wild fires in California and the flooding in Kentucky. Disasters are everywhere!
Sorry, I missed the blog this morning when we ran out to Costco and did a few other errands. It is the first day that has stayed in the 70s in something like 36 or 39 days.
But I digress. Jackie wants me to get her vote in for THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. Somehow its ridiculous premise looks a lot less far-fetched today than it did 18 years ago. She also loves INDEPENDENCE DAY, of course. If we’re talking “end of the world” movies rather than just “disaster movies” in general (exploding damns, volcanos and the like), it is hard to top DR. STRANGELOVE.
Jeff, Jackie’s taste in disaster movies is exquisite! Love THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW! Diane and I took Patrick and Katie to INDEPENDENCE DAY on Independence Day when it first opened! DR. STANGELOVE is a classic!
I had totally forgotten about Dr Strangelove which really is among the greatest movies imho though of course there the nuclear catastrope is only in the mind of people.
But as I’ve written often just to look at the data for nuclear radiation makes me shudder.