Imagine A World
“For me to imagine a world where every crisis did not result in new atrocities, where every newspaper was not filled with war and violence, that is to imagine a world where human beings cease to be human.”
Since it was published in 1955, Jack Finney’s classic novel The Body Snatchers has become regarded as one of the most resonant examples of the power of science fiction to explore social and political paradigms of a given era. In 1956, the first film adaptation provided subtextual commentary on the so-called “Red Scare” that was gripping the nation; while the 1978 remake, released in the wake of the Vietnam war and Watergate scandal, echoed the fears of a population that had ceased to trust its leaders.
This latest adaptation, says Silver, puts a marked twist in the very notion of alien invasion, touching on contemporary cultural issues stemming from fear of pandemic to social and political unrest. “The film poses the idea that an invasion can occur without ships, without the physical presence of aliens. We’re at a time now in which the notion of a pandemic is a real and present threat. What if our destruction could come not at the hands of invaders but through the introduction of microbes? What’s scariest is being confronted by something that could just creep in and take over without anyone knowing until it’s almost too late.”
In a contemporary world, what happens when the people charged with protecting the public are the first to be changed? “If you sense something is wrong but the government, the news, the scientist in charge of stopping a disease…everyone is telling you everything’s okay, people tend to think it’s just paranoia,” says Silver. “That’s how power can slip away – power to stop it or warn people on a mass scale. The main characters in this story have to learn to trust what they’re seeing with their own eyes before it goes past the point of doing anything about it.”
“The Invasion” is a thriller that unfolds through the eyes of a Washington, DC psychiatrist, Carol Bennell, a woman whose child is taken from her at the moment in which the world changes almost overnight. “To me, the crux of the story is this woman’s journey in relation to her child,” says Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman, who stars as Carol. “That’s the thing that interested me. The rush of adrenalin that comes in the desire to save this person that you’ve given birth to—this person you love more than anything in the world—ignites these emotions that otherwise we have no access to. I have two children, so I understand the protection and unconditional love that are attached to those small people.”
Screenwriter David Kajganich notes, “In the Finney novel the alien presence simply wants to survive. But survival takes different forms. You just have to look around our world today to see that power inspires nothing more than the desire to retain it and to eliminate anything that threatens it. It’s no accident that the vehicle for this invasion lands at the nation’s seat of power in Washington, DC.”
“‘The Invasion’ is a thriller that unfolds in a world that is very recognizable world of today,” says producer Joel Silver. “In an era of enormous political, social and environmental paranoia, it really felt for us that now was the right time to make this film. David Kasganich wrote an original screenplay that takes a fresh approach to the ideas in the novel. This movie is thrilling and exciting but with a deeper layer of undertones.”
To bring to life a totally contemporary and realistic take on the story, Silver brought in acclaimed German director Oliver Hirschbiegel, fresh off the multiple award-winning film “Downfall,” his intimate and unsettling portrait of Hitler’s final days. “‘Downfall’ just blew me away,” says the producer. “He brought such intensity, claustrophobia and intimacy to that particular moment in history without losing the incredible realism of his vision. Oliver has a creative need to have things be as authentic as they possibly can, and that’s what we wanted to capture with this science fiction thriller—the sense that it is happening before your eyes in a world you recognize.”
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel offers that, even when dealing with a science fiction story, realism is key for him. “When in doubt, I try to imagine how it would be in real life. I try to avoid any phony, over-the-top filmmaker effects.”
Kidman, who has worked in front of the lens for such diverse filmmakers as Lars von Trier, Baz Luhrmann, Jane Campion and the late Stanley Kubrick, relished the opportunity to work with Hirschbiegel on his first American film after the success of “Downfall.” “I love the way Oliver shoots spontaneously,” she comments. “He’s very much performance-driven. He loves women, too. When you’re working with a man who wants to understand the psychology of a woman—the things she feels, the things that make her rich and wise—that’s what fascinates him.”
People are dying
To help build the world of “The Invasion,” acclaimed production designer Jack Fisk collaborated with director Hirschbiegel and found the German director’s focus on realism refreshing. “Although he was working on a major studio film, he operated pretty much as a European or documentary filmmaker,” Fisk remarks. “The idea was to go to locations, alter them and shoot quickly with minimal lighting. Oliver is used to thinking on his feet and leaving avenues open for exploration, so we quickly adapted to providing him with anything he needed on the spur of the moment.” Fisk adds that “Oliver’s dedication to his perceived reality came to define the locations for the film.”
“‘Downfall’ was so deftly and economically shot,” comments Jeremy Northam. “There is no waste. Oliver knows when to leave the camera and when to move it. It was so interesting working with him.”
One of the predominant visual motifs of the film was the gradual leak of color from the world as the Snatchers gained dominance. “The Snatchers are not as attracted to color as the humans and so color—or the lack thereof—was one way to tell them apart,” Fisk describes.
Hirschbiegel and Fisk collaborated with Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West (“Quills”) to bring that motif into the wardrobe design. “Oliver is greatly responsible for the Snatcher look,” notes West. “From the first meeting, he said, ‘How do you see these Snatchers?’ I imagined that as they are drained of everything human, they would also be drained of color, personality, and individualism. Their clothes are monochromatic and utilitarian. Their color palette is gray, brown and navy blue but all solid. It’s pretty much a new order.
Don’t go to sleep. I’m looking for you
Hirschbiegel’s dedication to authenticity came to define the locations for the film. Rather than fabricate a set on a soundstage, he sought to shoot the film primarily in practical locations, preferably the story’s true locations.
Principal photography on “The Invasion” began in Baltimore’s Downtown / Inner Harbor area, which portrayed itself as well as doubling on occasion for Washington, DC. The company then moved to the nation’s capital, the film’s primary setting. Production utilized locations and landmarks recognized worldwide, including the National Mall, George Washington University Hospital in the city’s Foggy Bottom district, the Cleveland Park Metro Station, Georgetown, and the historic Union Station.
Shooting in Washington gave Daniel Craig a particular thrill: “Driving down Pennsylvania Avenue with the Capitol in front of me, with six cop cars behind me and with my lights on was fun,” he remembers. “I was suddenly going, ‘This is fantastic!’”
The footage gathered on the National Mall was augmented by additional footage shot on a private wheat farm that became the space shuttle “Patriot” crash site where the CDC’s Tucker Kaufman arrives to investigate. The site was adjacent to the Fort Howard VA Medical Center. “On this bigger crash site, we built one wing of the shuttle and plowed it into a trench so that only parts of it stuck out,” says Fisk.
For the last six days of DC filming, the cast and crew set up in the residence of the Ambassador of Chile located near Sheridan Circle along the district’s famed Embassy Row on Massachusetts Avenue. The ambassador’s historically significant three-story mansion—designed in 1909 by prestigious architect Nathan Wyeth, who also designed the West Wing of the White House, including the Oval Office—portrays the Czech Embassy in the film.
Though many of the DC locations were tricky, Fisk and location manager Todd Christensen found that the project itself and the people associated with it helped enormously with securing them. “I think that we got an entrée to a lot of great locations because of Oliver’s and Nicole’s involvement,” Fisk notes. “It turned this film into something that people wanted to be a part of. The U.S. Park Service in Washington was incredibly helpful to us. They do so many events in Washington and were very receptive to our ideas. There were restrictions, of course—like how long we were on the Mall—but it was all very workable, and overall it was extremely smooth.”
Following Washington, DC, the cast and crew moved back to Baltimore for the final four weeks of filming, where locations included the Towers of Harbor Court, Baltimore Hospital, the Convention Center, the Legg Mason Building, and the Molecular Biology Department of Johns Hopkins University’s Mudd Hall, the central building of the University’s three-part biology complex. As the location contained active labs with living organisms, the crew was instructed to not enter any room or touch any lab item, which was fitting for the story’s themes.
One of the film’s pivotal scenes was filmed on the roof helipad of the Baltimore Police Department Headquarters, in a sequence that involved a Black Hawk helicopter and picture copters, piloted by veteran movie helicopter pilots Ben Skorstad (“Air Force One”) and David Paris (“Black Hawk Down”).
“We were very fortunate because the United States Army allowed us to utilize one of their actual Special Forces helicopters along with the services of one of their pilots,” Silver remembers. “There were obviously a lot of logistics involved, but we were so grateful for the assistance of the military in making it possible to have a Black Hawk land on police headquarters in the middle of Baltimore, which, I must say, was pretty spectacular.”
The Invasion (2007)
Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Malin Akerman, Jackson Bond, Jeffrey Wright, Celia Weston, Veronica Cartwright, Josef Sommer, Susan Floyd, Alexis Raben, Joanna Merlin
Screenplay by: Dave Kajganich
Production Design by: Jack Fisk
Cinematography by: Rainer Klausmann
Film Editing by: Hans Funck, Joel Negron
Costume Design by: Jacqueline West
Set Decoration by: Leslie McCarthy-Frankenheimer, Maria Nay
Art Direction by: Caty Maxey, James F. Truesdale
Music by: John Ottman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, disturbing content and terror.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: August 17, 2007
Visits: 90
