Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? (1958)

“Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?” is a short film from 1958 concerned with the dangers of automation.  The film follows a day in the life of a family  consisting of a man, woman, and child and attempts to convey how the increasingly automated technology drives people apart. The most striking scene for me was the scene from which the film draws its title, the Man returns home from work and is sitting at the table eating dinner while the wife sits in the living room, each sitting in complete silence while the television plays a show that sounds like a normal conversation between a man and his wife, replacing their usual dialogue.  I also got a kick out of the music box that opened up and rotated out cigarettes toward the end, that is something we would probably never see in modern film.

“Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?” reminded me very strongly of the control revolution not only because it’s concerned with the automation of production but because its a very strong backlash against they flow of technology. I think it was unique from the literature we read in that it depicts life in the home and at an an everyday level, as opposed to the elite and the bureaucratic. The characters in the film are unnamed and could be any American citizens in the 1950’s, and it depicts how they might have felt or reacted to rapid changes in technology.  It also reminded me heavily of Orwellian literature.