Five on "Five"

1. "Five" is a post-apocalyptic film released in 1951, only six years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film opens with a series of atomic explosions followed by a sequence of iconic sites (Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, etc.) being swallowed up by black clouds. Robbed of the spectacle of tourist attractions, the viewer sees a lone woman, Roseanne, in tattered skirt and blouse aimlessly wandering down a long and empty stretch of California road. And so the journey begins...

2. "Five" manages to conveniently push aside the essential concerns for surviving the post-apocalypse. Roseanne finds Michael, a bearded man still disgruntled with his choice of getting an MA in English Lit. from Dartmouth ("Gave me diction and a job as a barker on the top of the Empire State Building.") in a pristine, modern house. The waterfall flowing through the middle of the house presumably carries a fresh rather than irradiated stream. Supplies are easily replenished from the local country store’s shelves, which seem to offer an inexhaustible treasure trove even once Michael and Roseanne are joined by the three other survivors: the elderly Oliver B. Barnstaple, an "assistant cashier at Santa Barbara Bank," Charles, the African American doorman from the same bank, and Eric, the unamused, French mountain climber whose plane crashed conveniently close to the scenic California coast a stone’s throw away from the survivor’s house. Even when the group finds a gasoline-powered generator, it is used unflinchingly to not only power electric lights but also to power a record player. Michael assures Charles’ worried glance, “There’s plenty of gas in the generator.” Lulled by this assurance, Charles proceeds to pirouette for the gathered. Their comfort belies that survival is never an issue in "Five"'s vision of the post-apocalypse. With access to seemingly infinite natural resources and infinite country stores, the survivors can turn to what is really important: constituting the proper family. 

3. Early in the film, Roseanne reveals she is pregnant while fighting off the sexual advances of Michael. Her persistent delusion that she will be reunited with the baby’s father is just as persistently refuted by Michael and Eric, the two men whose ideological battle is indivisible from the battle for legitimate stake in Roseanne’s body. That Roseanne's womb is truly the central concern of the movie is poignantly captured in the film's poster which shows her running away from four looming shadowy figures. 

Michael’s early sewing of a patch of corn seeds shows his commitment to nurturing new life, coded by Eric as a “return to primitivism” in contrast to his hope to return to the city. Their sniping is charmless and in the end, Eric’s body is found wanting: the boils are not only a death sentence for his radiation poisoned body, but an ethical punishment for murdering Charles and tricking Roseanne to runaway with him. Roseanne’s affective flatness and wispy voice anticipate the horror of not only finding the skeleton of her dead husband, but also the ensuing mysterious death of her baby.

With the playing field cleared of historical and foreign transgressors, the film closes with Roseanne and Michael in the corn fields subversively destroyed by Eric. She approaches as he plunges his shovel deep into the rich soil. Taking the shovel into her own hands, Roseanne says, “I want to help you.” This consent is what was missing from Michael’s previous attempt to sow seeds. With the white, American, heterosexual couple reunited, the Earth will be legitimately made anew.  

 

4. There is a fleeting moment, where Charles and Michael till the fields together, side-by-side, that seems to offer a truly hopeful vision: a small, agrarian community where white and black work together to create a new world. However, this vision quickly gives way under the film’s facticity.

Our first sight of Charles is driving Mr. Barnstaple. With no discussion, he quickly moves from chauffeur to the group's manual laborer. No longer simply opening doors for bank customers, he now does the group’s laundry and other chores. The film circumscribes a precarious circle around this black male body: it has to be both working and emasculated, productive but not reproductive. 

If Michael’s refusal to wear a shirt is to showcase his virility for Roseanne, Charles’ lack of the same performs the opposite task. With the arrival of Eric, it is clear that either he or Michael will become the father of the new world. This shows how deeply entrenched the fear of mixing blood is even after the end.

Eric raises the specter of Charles’ blackness, a fact that the film had politely navigated up to that point. Eric voices his irritation with having to eat and sleep in proximity to Charles, concluding that, “it is a mistake that he is alive.” I would argue that Charles' death at the hand of Eric finds the film agreeing with this assessment. In addition, neither Roseanne nor Michael intervene to explain how the strictures of racism may require renegotiation in the post apocalypse.

5. As a final observation, probably the most interesting thing about "Five" is the house where most of the film's action takes place. It turns out that Frank Lloyd Wright designed the house for Arch Oboler, the director of "Five." 

In comparison to the devastation within the cities, with their cars and buses askew, the high modern house seems an unlikely destination for the rebirth of human beings. As with most features of the movie, it's particularity is never directly engaged. The audience merely learns that Roseanne's aunt, who loved literature, lived in this edifice. 

Well stocked with running water, books, and presumably food from the infinite number of country stores, the house becomes the locus of living. It's comfort is not only the reward for a hard day of sowing seeds or constructing a shack, but is the perfect place for a baby to come into the world. It's sterility ensures that no medicines are necessary for either mother or baby. Dancing to records and even electric lights powered by a generator: the trappings of the modern house comfortably slide into an age of global devastation. 

Like the closing scene of "Five," which shows the white, heterosexual couple as the legitimate heir to the kingdom of the world, locating the action within this unique structure shows that survival in the post apocalypse will not entail sacrificing the comforts of home or transgressing upon the sacrosanct laws of maintaining property within an historical lineage.