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Apocalyptic dread : American film at the turn of the millennium / Kirsten Moana Thompson.
Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.H6 T497 2007
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Thompson, Kirsten Moana.
- Series:
- SUNY series, horizons of cinema
- The SUNY series, horizons of cinema
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Horror films--United States--History and criticism.
- Horror films.
- Disaster films.
- United States.
- Disaster films--United States--History and criticism.
- Science fiction films--United States--History and criticism.
- Science fiction films.
- Apocalypse in motion pictures.
- Physical Description:
- xii, 195 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Albany : State University of New York Press, [2007]
- Summary:
- In Apocalyptic Dread, Kirsten Moana Thompson examines how fears and anxieties about the future are reflected in recent American cinema. Through close readings of such films as Cape Fear, Candyman, Dolores Claiborne, Se7en, Signs, and War of the Worlds, Thompson argues that a longstanding American apocalyptic tradition permeates our popular culture, spreading from science-fiction and disaster films into horror, crime, and melodrama. Drawing upon Kierkegaard's notion of dread-that is, a fundamental anxiety and ambivalence about existential choice and the future-Thompson suggests that the apocalyptic dread revealed in these films, and its guiding tropes of violence, retribution, and renewal, also reveal deep-seated anxieties about historical fragmentation and change, anxieties that are in turn displaced onto each film's particular "monster," whether human, demonic, or eschatological.
- Contents:
- 1 Apocalyptic Dread, Kierkegaard, and the Cultural Landscape of the Millennium 1
- 2 Cape Fear and Trembling: Familial Dread 29
- 3 Strange Fruit: Candyman and Supernatural Dread 59
- 4 Dolores Claiborne: Memorial Dread 83
- 5 Se7en in the Morgue: Dystopian Dread 105
- 6 Signs of the End of the World: Apocalyptic Dread 127
- 7 War of the Worlds: Uncanny Dread 145.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-179) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0791470431
- 9780791470435
- 079147044X
- 9780791470442
- OCLC:
- 67405639
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