Nick Muntean
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234462
- eISBN:
- 9780823241255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234462.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Mythology and Folklore
This chapter suggests that the figure of the zombie evolves to replace the mere loss of autonomy so emblematic of the voodoo zombie with a far more disturbing existential anxiety—”that one could ...
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This chapter suggests that the figure of the zombie evolves to replace the mere loss of autonomy so emblematic of the voodoo zombie with a far more disturbing existential anxiety—”that one could continue to live, but be nothing.” The chapter draws from historical accounts of the hibakusha—those exposed to the radiation from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and the Muselmänner—the devastated survivors of Nazi war camps. In doing so, it establishes the motif of trauma zombie to include not just the walking dead, but also those so ravaged by experience that, though survivors, they seem as if dead. The chapter examines both Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Stanley Kramer's On the Beach.Less
This chapter suggests that the figure of the zombie evolves to replace the mere loss of autonomy so emblematic of the voodoo zombie with a far more disturbing existential anxiety—”that one could continue to live, but be nothing.” The chapter draws from historical accounts of the hibakusha—those exposed to the radiation from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and the Muselmänner—the devastated survivors of Nazi war camps. In doing so, it establishes the motif of trauma zombie to include not just the walking dead, but also those so ravaged by experience that, though survivors, they seem as if dead. The chapter examines both Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Stanley Kramer's On the Beach.
Tony Shaw
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748625239
- eISBN:
- 9780748670918
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748625239.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter investigates The Day the Earth Stood Still, Storm Centre and On the Beach. Each stresses an issue that caused the US government considerable political discomfort, and which filmmakers ...
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This chapter investigates The Day the Earth Stood Still, Storm Centre and On the Beach. Each stresses an issue that caused the US government considerable political discomfort, and which filmmakers would continue to probe throughout the Cold War. The Day the Earth Stood Still was the first ‘A’ treatment given to a science-fiction theme by a major studio. Storm Centre missed an opportunity to show that during the Red Scare anticommunists were often driven by ulterior motives — economic, personal and racial. On the Beach certainly developed a politically intriguing afterlife. Movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, Storm Centre and On the Beach reveal the non-monolithic nature of the US state-film network, and prove that even during American Cold War cinema's most conservative phase, the US film industry was never officially straitjacketed in the way that Soviet cinema was.Less
This chapter investigates The Day the Earth Stood Still, Storm Centre and On the Beach. Each stresses an issue that caused the US government considerable political discomfort, and which filmmakers would continue to probe throughout the Cold War. The Day the Earth Stood Still was the first ‘A’ treatment given to a science-fiction theme by a major studio. Storm Centre missed an opportunity to show that during the Red Scare anticommunists were often driven by ulterior motives — economic, personal and racial. On the Beach certainly developed a politically intriguing afterlife. Movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, Storm Centre and On the Beach reveal the non-monolithic nature of the US state-film network, and prove that even during American Cold War cinema's most conservative phase, the US film industry was never officially straitjacketed in the way that Soviet cinema was.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846318429
- eISBN:
- 9781846317804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317804.009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter addresses the specific question of the possible uses of science fiction (SF), especially the future story, as negative or positive predictors of possible real-world future developments. ...
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This chapter addresses the specific question of the possible uses of science fiction (SF), especially the future story, as negative or positive predictors of possible real-world future developments. The discussions cover future stories and futurologies; antipodean utopian fictions; and the novels On the Beach and The Sea and Summer.Less
This chapter addresses the specific question of the possible uses of science fiction (SF), especially the future story, as negative or positive predictors of possible real-world future developments. The discussions cover future stories and futurologies; antipodean utopian fictions; and the novels On the Beach and The Sea and Summer.
Peter Szendy
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823264803
- eISBN:
- 9780823266845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823264803.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter discusses how bubble structures—the blob in The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth, 1958), the hologram in Escape from L.A. (John Carpenter, 1996), the submarine in On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, ...
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This chapter discusses how bubble structures—the blob in The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth, 1958), the hologram in Escape from L.A. (John Carpenter, 1996), the submarine in On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959), as well as the camera that falls to the ground and continues to film at the end of Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008) or the ‘magic cave’ of the last moments of Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)—can be seen and read on two levels at once. On the one hand, they appear in one form or another within the continuity of the plot. And, on the other hand, they constitute fragile filmic enclaves within acinema, ephemeral shelters in the general explosion of the cineworld. By narrating and auscultating itself from the perspective of its disappearance, cinema touches on a limit that is different from the one that would place the image and the fable in opposition within it. At stake is what is called its cinefication: in other words the constitution of the cinema and of its signs propped up on or dependent on the ultimate reference of its cineration, its becoming ash.Less
This chapter discusses how bubble structures—the blob in The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth, 1958), the hologram in Escape from L.A. (John Carpenter, 1996), the submarine in On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959), as well as the camera that falls to the ground and continues to film at the end of Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008) or the ‘magic cave’ of the last moments of Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)—can be seen and read on two levels at once. On the one hand, they appear in one form or another within the continuity of the plot. And, on the other hand, they constitute fragile filmic enclaves within acinema, ephemeral shelters in the general explosion of the cineworld. By narrating and auscultating itself from the perspective of its disappearance, cinema touches on a limit that is different from the one that would place the image and the fable in opposition within it. At stake is what is called its cinefication: in other words the constitution of the cinema and of its signs propped up on or dependent on the ultimate reference of its cineration, its becoming ash.
