“Green Sun” and “Red Alert. When Hollywood sounded the alarm
Monday, October 10 at 10:30 p.m. on Arte
See again Green Sun today is a cinematic shock, and an experience as unsettling as necessary. In this cult science fiction film released in 1973, Richard Fleischer immerses us in 2022 in a devastated New York, where a caste continues to live in opulence and the vast majority tries to survive on a hostile planet. Natural resources have been depleted, and an all-powerful multinational produces the nutritious cookies described as made from seaweed. The images of people masked to protect themselves from epidemics, a constant heat wave or a nature in perdition inevitably jostle the citizen of 2022 in the aftermath of a summer peppered with natural disasters.
Le rapport Meadows
“Are artists diviners? », questions Jean-Christophe Klotz in the captivating documentary which follows the broadcast on Monday October 10 of Green Sun on Arte. He interviews actors from the film, film critics, climate specialists… They all rewatch the film and are surprised at its clairvoyance. When it was released in 1973, it was the first Hollywood science fiction film to evoke an environmental catastrophe for which man was responsible by exploiting nature without counting. He also has the intuition that the climate crisis is likely to have political and social consequences.
This documentary – which, be careful, reveals the end of the film! – recalls that it was filmed in 1972. This was the start of the major conferences on climate. It is also the year when the report coordinated by Dennis Meadows on “the limits of growth” and the risk of depletion of natural resources. The director’s son, Mark Fleischer, then a child, remembers the “feeling of accomplishing something important” on set. Since then, scientific knowledge has only warned of the consequences of inaction. “We waited too long to be spared, worries climate scientist Rafe Pomerance. The question now is: what will be the price to pay? »