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The Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold, 1957)

Mar

5

National Scott Day

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Scott Carey (Grant Williams) standing in a palm of someone's hand, his arms outstretched as if pleading. DP: Ellis W. Carter.

Despite its sensationalist pulpy title and #ColdWar premise, Jack Arnold's adaptation of the Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man (1956) is an existentialist treatise.

“A strange calm possessed me. I thought more clearly than I had ever thought before – as if my mind were bathed in a brilliant light.”

– Scott Carey

The Incredible Shrinking Man plays with the understanding of what it means to be acknowledged as a human, and one's place in the world. The story is told through the eyes of the titular Shrinking Man – Scott Carey – who after being exposed to strange fog, finds himself increasingly lost in this world.