The War of the Worlds

My initial reaction to the 1938 broadcasting of The War of the Worlds: a mixture of appreciation for its creativity, and a god chuckle.  The chuckle, of course because of the reaction of audiences everywhere that weren't aware of the fact that it was fiction, and the appreciation because of the imagination and the many layers.  In class we often talk about the layers of a production, and this broadcast seems to be a great example of the way they come together.  It could have been a simple broadcast of a man reading from a script, but the broadcast went the extra mile with great acting and incredible description.  It didn't end there either.  The many background noises, such as realistic screams and explosions, added an extra layer to the narration, and therefore to the overall impact of the broadcast.  The narration in general was remarkable, as I'm sure most radio narrations were, because of its detailed description.  The first example of this that stood out was when the reporter first describes the image of the alien, with its black eyes and saliva dripping mouth.  I also really enjoyed the fact that the story was read as a real broadcast.  Although this caused chaos, I think that it was a really creative way to go about presenting the tale, and it was so nicely done.  I loved little details added in such as the voice of the reporter being cut off to imply that the alien invasion had gotten serious and cut the line of communication.  However, I chuckled once again at every piano interlude.  The soothing, classical music's contrast with the terrifying reports of an alien attack was pretty amusing.  Yet, it worked quite nicely with the more calm, defeated ending of the story, of which my favorite part involved the reporter sharing an emotional connection with a squirrel.  As silly or dated as The War of the Worlds broadcast may seem to us today,  radio requires a level of imagination and creativity that can hardly be matched, and The War of the Worlds will always be number one in both areas.