The CardBoard
The Movie 'Contagion' - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: Emergency (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-11.html)
+--- Forum: Covid-19 (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: The Movie 'Contagion' (/thread-19333.html)


The Movie 'Contagion' - Genuine Realist - 04-06-2020

I enjoyed the Steven Soderburgh movie 'Contagion' enormously on its release in 2011, bought it, and rewatched it. These days it has a lot more relevance than one would like, down to the virus in question originating from a bat - 'somewhere in the world the wrong bat met the wrong pig' - and in China. The disease in question in the movie is far more lethal than C-19. Unfortunately, the remedy is much more easily at hand. National politics are engaged only peripherally. The real story is of a CDC energized far more quickly and efficiently than our real life model in 2020. OTOH, patient zero is an American traveler to Hong Kong, who becomes ill and dies in Minneapolis. The lethal quality of the virus, which has a mortality rate of between 20 and 30 percent, is recognized almost immediately. So you don't have the problem of dawning awareness that afflicted this real life response from the outset.

I'm late to this party, so probably already everyone is aware of it. But it is still of interest to note that the title 'Contagion' is rather clever. There is not one contagion in the movie, but three - and the other two bear on some of other themes (particularly communication) in an interesting way.

RE: The Movie 'Contagion' - magnus - 04-06-2020

Slight thread drift (sorry about that), Contagion has been in the top 5 movie purchases/rentals on Google Play since early February if not late January.

RE: The Movie 'Contagion' - 2006alum - 04-06-2020

If there's one other movie I could recommend that feels extremely relevant right now, it's the 2016 movie Arrival. There are so many great parallels in terms of not thinking about time linearly, about needing to act in the present as if we are living in the future, and about the urgent need for global cooperation rather than finger pointing.

RE: The Movie 'Contagion' - Genuine Realist - 04-06-2020

(04-06-2020, 09:35 AM)2006alum Wrote:  If there's one other movie I could recommend that feels extremely relevant right now, it's the 2016 movie Arrival. There are so many great parallels in terms of not thinking about time linearly, about needing to act in the present as if we are living in the future, and about the urgent need for global cooperation rather than finger pointing.

The thread drift is fine, but I do want to keep the issues of the other contagions in 'Contagion', which have to do with the problem of (mis)information developing. The movie addresses that, too, which is a big hint. There are actually three patient zeros in the drama. 

'Arrival', which is terrific, is based on a short story by Ted Chang, who writes really thoughtful (but perhaps too austere) science fiction stories. Highly recommended - in moderate doses, over time.

RE: The Movie 'Contagion' - M T - 04-06-2020

If you watched the movie, you may want to watch these clips from members of the cast
  https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/control-contagion

RE: The Movie 'Contagion' - 82lsju - 04-06-2020

two interesting books on the 1918 influenza

"The Great Influenza by" John Berry.  An interesting read about the pandemic

"Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It" by Gina Kolata. It is mostly about the work years later to identify and learn about the virus.

RE: The Movie 'Contagion' - BostonCard - 04-06-2020

Good documentary on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/influenza/

BC

RE: The Movie 'Contagion' - Snorlax94 - 04-09-2020

Just finished re-watching Contagion tonight and it was eerie how prescient it was.

I kind of wished I had gotten to it sooner — I think I would’ve practiced social distancing better and earlier if I had.

I love the opening sequence of characters touching doors, reaching into a shared bowl of nuts, grabbing bus poles. It should be a public service announcement for everyone — sick or healthy — to practice better hygiene. It’s one thing to constantly tell people to wash their hands, but the scenes of contamination in the movie would drive home why.

And c’mon, who doesn’t see the parallels between forsythia and hydroxychloroquine, and between Jude Law’s character and certain media companies today that claimed covid-19 was just a cold.