Millions infected, hundreds of thousands of victims, doctors, weeks not leaving their offices, deserted streets and fear in the eyes of the people is the pandemic COVID-19. Why are we not feeling that all that we have seen somewhere? Maybe in the movie “Contagion”, filmed in 2011, but today again included in the ten most popular movies on iTunes? Since the cinema appeared, the Directors have managed to take thousands of movies about the infections, viruses and pandemics — from serious science fiction to the bloody zombie Apocalypse. They reflect the collective fear of humanity to these threats, which change with the eras and get your on-screen embodiment in accordance with them.Чума24 moon July 1969, the landing module “Apollo 11” landed in the Pacific ocean. But the team of the aircraft carrier sent to meet the astronauts were in no hurry to raise the space module on Board. Instead it sent a swimmer who opened the hatch and threw the suits biological protection. The costumes were made of thick Jersey that wouldn’t let out even the smallest microbes, flown in from the moon. Commanders NASA seriously feared that the moon malware can be installed on the Ground and run some terrible disaster. They imagined something like the plague. Why not come up with anything better than to put “Rovers” to quarantine.The astronauts pulled the costumes and went on an aircraft carrier, where they were immediately placed in a special mobile module. They spent more than two days, not yet arrived in Houston, the NASA space center. To the astronauts didn’t go outside the module immediately joined the Laboratory of the quarantine complex. In addition to the crew in the complex have placed doctors and staff. “Twelve people in complete isolation — and this is because something, most likely, does not exist,” wrote The New York Times.”First, NASA believed that the clean room to pack the lunar samples in vacuum, said in an interview Space.com Judith Hayes, the head of the Department of biomedical and environmental research NASA.— I think they are too confuse. Say: “We never did, so not quite sure,” although none of the scientists especially did not believe that the risk really exists.” Generally, this quarantine was from the “better safe than sorry”. “The quarantine was unnecessary precaution, agrees Jason Schwartz, a historian of medicine at Yale school of public health.Remembering the story of the quarantine, the pilot of “Apollo 11” Michael Collins called this moment the weakest link. Charles berry, who was responsible for medical support of the lunar project, in 1999, explained it to reporters: “When you open the hatch, the air out of it comes out. If there was a lunar plague, I don’t know what could happen. I do not believe that there is a lunar plague, though they could not guarantee that it is not.”Where such fears have a serious, educated people, because, as scientists believe, the natural conditions on the moon are so severe that there is not able to survive any single microbe? Perhaps it is worth remembering that public perception, including various infections, is strongly influenced by mass culture. What if the idea of a “moon plague” space chiefs planted the cinema? After the beginning of the space race on the screens began to leave the movies about the different alien contagion. By the way, after the flight of “Apollo-14” in NASA was convinced that lunar germs the Ground is not terrible, and the quarantine was canceled.Good doctorate: Warner Bros. PicturesПервые movies about epidemics were filming in 1910-ies. By 1928, only in America was issued more than 1300 pictures on medical topics (according to the newspaper Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, 2001). Indeed, at the beginning of the century, medicine has made incredible progress. Vaccines against diphtheria, pertussis, tuberculosis and tetanus, the discovery of penicillin — it all struck the imagination of contemporaries and gave the filmmakers a fascinating material. This was done primarily for reasons of morality, because even in such a seemingly innocent scene, as vaccination against smallpox (in the West it is not on hand, and on the back of the thigh), the screen closeup appeared a sexy woman’s leg. In addition, it was believed that injections, surgery, pain and blood can make the audience more violent, impervious to pain. Alarmed censors and separation of medicine from the Church. Then alarmed the doctors: what if the citizens, watching movies about healing the sick, start to put a diagnosis and prescribe medication? And the death scene from dangerous infections in the films is generally recognized unaesthetic.Welcomed by only the pictures, sang the prowess of the doctors who sacrifice themselves for the sake of humanity, so the most significant works of that time is devoted to the exploits of the doctors, fighting outbreaks of dangerous infections.In the film Green light (1937) a surgeon who was fired from the hospital after the death of the patient, is sent to Montana to deal with the spotted fever of the Rocky mountains with the help of the vaccine, risking their lives, test for yourself. In “the Painted veil” bacteriologist Walter FEIN fights a cholera epidemic in Inner China, sacrificing family relationships. The protagonist of the film “Dr. Arrowsmith” goes to the Caribbean, the place where the bubonic plague. Despite the resistance of local rulers, offering to inoculate only part of the population, the doctor distributes life-saving serum to everyone. The film “the rains Came” (1939) takes place in India, where a young Indian doctor fights a cholera epidemic, losing his beloved. The fight against yellow fever in Cuba dedicated to the film “Yellow flag” (1938). With typhus and tuberculosis is fighting a young idealist in the film “the Citadel” by Cronin’s novel (1938).Panic at ulicah the late 1940s—early 1950s, the interest of filmmakers shifting towards popular art and films about heroic doctors saving the world from epidemics, from the category of melodrama moving into the category of Thriller, where not less heroically the police operate. In the movie “Panic in the streets” (1950) police seek a smuggler infected with the plague, to prevent the epidemic. In the film “the Killer, the other new York” that is based on the real threat of the smallpox epidemic in new York in 1947, doctors and authorities act in unison, holding universal vaccination. In the British film “Eighty thousand suspects” (1963) play out of the infection gives the doctor, closing the city into quarantine. In a “Quiet killer” (1992) the main character is a doctor whose patient died from the plague, doing everything possible to alert new York about the danger and stop the epidemic, which manages to take away 22 lives.With the globalization of kinoepopei are increasingly the scale of pandemics. In the film Outbreak (1995) from Africa to the States gets hemorrhagic fever, the symptoms suspiciously resembling Ebola. (The premiere took place, when in Zaire there was an outbreak of the disease, so that was really scary.) In “Carriers” (2009) a group of friends trying to hide from the pandemic plague, but to escape the disease, they cannot. Lovers of the fantastic melodrama “Last love on earth” (2011) victims of a pandemic of the virus, depriving people of all the senses — smell, touch, hearing…meanwhile the plot is strikingly similar to the current pandemic COVID-19: an unknown virus quickly spreads across the different territories, spreading terror and panic, while doctors are struggling with life-saving vaccine. The authors predicted everything we see today: international flights as a way of spreading the infection, attempts to find a vaccine, the ability of the authorities to bring the situation under control and in a short time to organize a large-scale care to patients. Not without the journalist who dezinformare society, announcing that a cure for the virus supposedly already sold in pharmacies. But the most interesting thing in the film the virus comes from China, and its bearer is a bat.Disease of cosmoscope in 1957 into orbit flew a Soviet satellite that launched the space race, the Directors turned to the theme of alien microbes (maybe these films had seen the chiefs of the lunar program, NASA?) Already in 1958, the screens out “Lord of the cosmos X-7” (1958), where returning to Earth on a spaceship, “space master” brings with it a poisonous mold which is excellent��udaetsya in cosmic rust, impending pandemic. Mysterious infection enters Earth expedition to Mars (“Angry Red planet” 1959). Even more terrifying epidemic threatens the microbe from the movie “the Andromeda Strain” (1971) brought from space crashed military satellite and instantly destroyed almost the entire population of a small American town. Doctors can find a solution and prevent universal catastrophe. Martian virus in the film “the alpha Incident” (1978) killing in a dream, and the infected struggling to stay awake, hoping to wait for the vaccine.In the film “Beyond the time barrier” (1960) earthlings are victims brought from space of the epidemic, becoming deaf, sterile mutants, and all because of atomic bomb tests damaged the stratosphere. “The last man on Earth” (1964) takes us to 1968: on the epidemic ravaged the earth, only one living person — the rest of a terrible plague has transformed into vampires who die under the rays of the sun, afraid of mirrors and can’t stand garlic. Another version of the Apocalypse painted in the movie “omega Man” (1971), which takes place in Los Angeles in 1977, two years after biological warfare between the USSR and China. After the war spread the disease one half of the population destroyed, and the other turned into mutants. With them waging war doctor, has retained human form because of the vaccine, introduced themselves, and at the end of the film reports that he has discovered the last group of uninfected.Art disasters have existed for centuries, but the twentieth century is distinctive in the nature and scale of destruction. The works, depicting a bleak future of mankind, occur during large disasters. All these events have caused in society a lot of questions about the prospects for our civilization, “but instead of answers we have received a statement of his own death, comprehensive destruction”. (Fictions of Destruction: Post-1945 Narrative and Disaster in the Collective Imaginary, 2013).Sambiloto: United Film Distribution Sarapeum in the image of a global catastrophe after a global pandemic has become the zombie Apocalypse. Most likely, the push to mass creation of such paintings was the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 and the destruction of the twin towers of the world trade center in new York, is no accident these movies in large quantities and punctually go since 2002.Zombie Apocalypse — this is a catastrophic scenario of development of human civilization, when an epidemic turns people into the living dead cannibals (zombies) and the world is deserted in the desert. Most people become zombies under the influence of viruses, so the zombie Apocalypse has features of an epidemic. Neither the army nor the police are able to cope with it, so happened to survive people have to protect themselves to��about how can and carry on with reanimated corpses fighting a losing battle.However, in these films the loss of human nature is seen as a tragedy of “former people” who have become targets of destruction. The infected are afraid to lose the human form much more than to die, and often ask them to kill, but would not turn into a subman (in the film “day of the dead”, 1985, for example, the hero amputated arm so he wouldn’t become a zombie after a bite of the living dead).Stories about zombies were brought to Haiti by American soldiers who participated in the military occupation of the island (1915-1934). In 1932, the incredible success enjoyed the film “White zombie” with Bela Lugosi, has grossed $8 million with a budget of $50 million”Theme continued in the films the 1960s. it is True, then it wasn’t zombies, just mutants affected by malicious virus. In the films “dawn of the dead” (1968) George Romero and “28 days later” (2002) Danny Boyle’s call them the infected. But in the remake of “dawn of the dead” (2004) and the more comedic horror film “the Zombie by name of Sean” (2004) they have real zombies. “Welcome to Zombilend” (2009), “world War Z” (2013), “Burden” (2017) — the list is endless.The virus-infected beings have very different features and characteristics. In the movie “I am legend” (2007), people under the influence of the infection turn into animal-like creatures, die from sunlight, but retaining a semblance of social organization. In the film “28 days later” living dead retain intellect with incredible aggressiveness in the Comedy “the Zombie by name of Sean” — have immense power, but completely lack the ability to think. In the movie “Warm bodies” zombies unite people in the fight against the common enemy and return to human society.”People are very worried about the future, said in an interview with the BBC writer Max Brooks, author of the book “World war Z”, which formed the basis of the same movie.— They are constantly exhausted these terrifying global catastrophe. I think many people think that the world is crumbling, they, like the 1970s, you need a safe place to digest their apocalyptic fears. They can’t read about the real epidemics or nuclear war is too terrible. Tales of the zombie given the opportunity to survive the end of the world, because people are very concerned about how it will look, and it does not interfere with sleep at night, because it’s all fiction”.Elena TUEV
