What a 70-year-old firebreathing lizard reveals about humanity
Each incarnation of Godzilla reflects the fears of its time
TANAKA TOMOYUKI gazed down at the ocean, and the ocean spoke back to him. A star producer at Toho, a Japanese film studio, Tanaka was flying home over the Pacific, pondering a slot that needed to be filled in the release schedule for 1954. He imagined a creature rising from the depths in the wake of an underwater nuclear explosion and wreaking havoc on land. “Mankind had created the Bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind,” he later recalled.
This article appeared in the Christmas Specials section of the print edition under the headline “Consider the monster”
Christmas Specials December 21st 2024
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