Film adaptations: I Am Legend
The Omega Man film straddles three contrasting Turnings--one a period of idyllic Wonder-bread American conservatism, the other more anxious and apocalyptic.
1970 seems to be a watershed year for the transition from the "childhood" of post-war America and a tumultuous adolescence: It was the beginning of environmentalism and the end of hippie era.
The source novel, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson was written in 1954, in the salad days of the first Turning. Its first film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth was released in 1964, set 10 years in the future, when humanity is decimated by plague. In Omega Man the demise of humanity is the result of biological warfare between China and Russia. The fact that the event is set so near in the future (1975) is indicative of the general sense of urgency about the fate of the planet. It was both an awakening (second Turning) and a shock to the system, but 40 years later, the same sense of foreboding still exists, as depicted in the third film adaptation, I Am Legend in 2007, starring Will Smith.
Most film adaptations of novels weave in contemporary societal elements. The Omega Man film conflated 1950s conservatism, engendered in Heston films such as The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, with the Black Power movement. Rosalind Cash as the character of Lisa, engages with Heston in the first interracial kiss to appear in a film.
Last Man on Earth (1964)
Omega Man (1971)
I Am Legend (2007)
1970 seems to be a watershed year for the transition from the "childhood" of post-war America and a tumultuous adolescence: It was the beginning of environmentalism and the end of hippie era.
The source novel, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson was written in 1954, in the salad days of the first Turning. Its first film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth was released in 1964, set 10 years in the future, when humanity is decimated by plague. In Omega Man the demise of humanity is the result of biological warfare between China and Russia. The fact that the event is set so near in the future (1975) is indicative of the general sense of urgency about the fate of the planet. It was both an awakening (second Turning) and a shock to the system, but 40 years later, the same sense of foreboding still exists, as depicted in the third film adaptation, I Am Legend in 2007, starring Will Smith.
Most film adaptations of novels weave in contemporary societal elements. The Omega Man film conflated 1950s conservatism, engendered in Heston films such as The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, with the Black Power movement. Rosalind Cash as the character of Lisa, engages with Heston in the first interracial kiss to appear in a film.
Last Man on Earth (1964)
Omega Man (1971)
I Am Legend (2007)
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