Bryan Turnock
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325895
- eISBN:
- 9781800342460
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325895.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter argues that of all the horror genre's many strands and variations, the original 'slasher' cycle of the 1970s and early 1980s remains the most disreputable and critically vilified, yet ...
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This chapter argues that of all the horror genre's many strands and variations, the original 'slasher' cycle of the 1970s and early 1980s remains the most disreputable and critically vilified, yet its commercial popularity and lasting influence are unquestionable. Whilst rarely making out-and-out slashers themselves, major Hollywood studios cashed in by buying finished films from their independent producers, giving the makers an instant profit and the studios a cheap marketable film virtually guaranteed an audience of teenagers. The chapter examines a film frequently cited as a forerunner of the slasher, one heavily influenced by the Italian giallo genre of crime fiction. In diverging from the established conventions of the giallo, Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) introduced a number of narrative and aesthetic features found in many of the slasher films that followed. The chapter then considers the influence of the video industry on the evolution of the horror genre (and vice versa), and looks at the issue of censorship as it assesses the British 'video nasties' scare of the early 1980s.Less
This chapter argues that of all the horror genre's many strands and variations, the original 'slasher' cycle of the 1970s and early 1980s remains the most disreputable and critically vilified, yet its commercial popularity and lasting influence are unquestionable. Whilst rarely making out-and-out slashers themselves, major Hollywood studios cashed in by buying finished films from their independent producers, giving the makers an instant profit and the studios a cheap marketable film virtually guaranteed an audience of teenagers. The chapter examines a film frequently cited as a forerunner of the slasher, one heavily influenced by the Italian giallo genre of crime fiction. In diverging from the established conventions of the giallo, Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) introduced a number of narrative and aesthetic features found in many of the slasher films that followed. The chapter then considers the influence of the video industry on the evolution of the horror genre (and vice versa), and looks at the issue of censorship as it assesses the British 'video nasties' scare of the early 1980s.
Andrew Patrick Nelson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604734539
- eISBN:
- 9781621031048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604734539.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter presents a comparative analysis of a recent horror remake and its original by adapting the critical approach employed by the literary philosopher Tzvetan Todorov in his seminal 1970 ...
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This chapter presents a comparative analysis of a recent horror remake and its original by adapting the critical approach employed by the literary philosopher Tzvetan Todorov in his seminal 1970 study The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. It compares John Carpenter’s Halloween and its recent remake by Rob Zombie, and then expands this comparison into a demonstration of the larger transformative mechanisms by which American filmmaking has been appropriating earlier texts to new social and political circumstances.Less
This chapter presents a comparative analysis of a recent horror remake and its original by adapting the critical approach employed by the literary philosopher Tzvetan Todorov in his seminal 1970 study The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. It compares John Carpenter’s Halloween and its recent remake by Rob Zombie, and then expands this comparison into a demonstration of the larger transformative mechanisms by which American filmmaking has been appropriating earlier texts to new social and political circumstances.
Murray Leeder and Murray Leeder
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733797
- eISBN:
- 9781800342149
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733797.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter provides an overview and a synopsis of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Halloween is an acknowledged horror classic, and one of the relatively few horror films added to ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview and a synopsis of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Halloween is an acknowledged horror classic, and one of the relatively few horror films added to the National Film Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress, an honour accorded to it in 2006. A large part of the effectiveness of Halloween lies in its willingness to be basic and uncomplicated. Even its stylistic flourishes, highly ambitious for such a low-budget independent production, are smoothly integrated, instead of being showy and ostentatious. Carpenter has characterised Halloween as an exercise in style, and freely uses the term ‘exploitation film’ to describe it. The chapter then considers the relationship between Halloween and the slasher film. It also assesses the role of urban legend themes in Halloween, and how the film evokes a practice that anthropologists and folklorists have dubbed ‘legend tripping’.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview and a synopsis of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Halloween is an acknowledged horror classic, and one of the relatively few horror films added to the National Film Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress, an honour accorded to it in 2006. A large part of the effectiveness of Halloween lies in its willingness to be basic and uncomplicated. Even its stylistic flourishes, highly ambitious for such a low-budget independent production, are smoothly integrated, instead of being showy and ostentatious. Carpenter has characterised Halloween as an exercise in style, and freely uses the term ‘exploitation film’ to describe it. The chapter then considers the relationship between Halloween and the slasher film. It also assesses the role of urban legend themes in Halloween, and how the film evokes a practice that anthropologists and folklorists have dubbed ‘legend tripping’.
Steven West
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325277
- eISBN:
- 9781800342248
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325277.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses the first character seen on screen in Wes Craven's Scream named Casey, portrayed by Drew Barrymore, in a sequence generally regarded as an arresting self-contained set piece. ...
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This chapter discusses the first character seen on screen in Wes Craven's Scream named Casey, portrayed by Drew Barrymore, in a sequence generally regarded as an arresting self-contained set piece. It explains how Scream serves as a short film in its own right, priming the audience for the film's principal gimmick. It also describes the way Scream acknowledges the standard role of a prologue in a slasher film, which follow the terrorisation and murder of a short-lived character as a means of establishing the antagonist prior to the introduction of the central characters. The chapter mentions the ominous caller in Scream that is voiced by Roger Jackson who represented the vocals of the killer through a universal, gender-defying voice-changing device employed by the antagonist. It talks about Scream's opening scene and the slasher format that has its origins in an enduring urban legend referred to as 'The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs'.Less
This chapter discusses the first character seen on screen in Wes Craven's Scream named Casey, portrayed by Drew Barrymore, in a sequence generally regarded as an arresting self-contained set piece. It explains how Scream serves as a short film in its own right, priming the audience for the film's principal gimmick. It also describes the way Scream acknowledges the standard role of a prologue in a slasher film, which follow the terrorisation and murder of a short-lived character as a means of establishing the antagonist prior to the introduction of the central characters. The chapter mentions the ominous caller in Scream that is voiced by Roger Jackson who represented the vocals of the killer through a universal, gender-defying voice-changing device employed by the antagonist. It talks about Scream's opening scene and the slasher format that has its origins in an enduring urban legend referred to as 'The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs'.
Steven West
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325277
- eISBN:
- 9781800342248
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325277.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Wes Craven's Scream (1996) emerged at the point where the early Eighties American slasher cycle had effectively morphed into the post-Fatal Attraction trend for Hollywood thrillers that incorporated ...
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Wes Craven's Scream (1996) emerged at the point where the early Eighties American slasher cycle had effectively morphed into the post-Fatal Attraction trend for Hollywood thrillers that incorporated key slasher movie tropes. Scream emerged as a spiritual successor to Wes Craven's unpopular but critically praised previous film New Nightmare (1994), which evolved from his frustration at having lost creative control over his most popular creation, Freddy Krueger, and rebirthed the character in a postmodern context. Scream appropriates many of the concepts, conceits, and in-jokes inherent in New Nightmare, albeit in a much more commercial context that did not alienate teenage audiences who were not around to see the movies that were being referenced. This book offers a full exploration of Scream, including its structure, its many reference points (such as the prominent use of Halloween as a kind of sacred text), its marketing (“the new thriller from Wes Craven” — not a horror film), and legacy for horror cinema in the new millennium.Less
Wes Craven's Scream (1996) emerged at the point where the early Eighties American slasher cycle had effectively morphed into the post-Fatal Attraction trend for Hollywood thrillers that incorporated key slasher movie tropes. Scream emerged as a spiritual successor to Wes Craven's unpopular but critically praised previous film New Nightmare (1994), which evolved from his frustration at having lost creative control over his most popular creation, Freddy Krueger, and rebirthed the character in a postmodern context. Scream appropriates many of the concepts, conceits, and in-jokes inherent in New Nightmare, albeit in a much more commercial context that did not alienate teenage audiences who were not around to see the movies that were being referenced. This book offers a full exploration of Scream, including its structure, its many reference points (such as the prominent use of Halloween as a kind of sacred text), its marketing (“the new thriller from Wes Craven” — not a horror film), and legacy for horror cinema in the new millennium.
Mathias Clasen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190666507
- eISBN:
- 9780190666545
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190666507.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) kicked off the slasher film wave with its disturbing depiction of Michael Myers’s killing spree in a small American town. This chapter argues that Halloween’s ...
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John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) kicked off the slasher film wave with its disturbing depiction of Michael Myers’s killing spree in a small American town. This chapter argues that Halloween’s emotional and imaginative power has its wellspring in human nature. The film’s horror scenario—the threat of being killed by another human—reflects an evolutionarily ancient hazard, one that has left deep traces in our constitution. Conspecific predation has been a constant danger of social life for millions of years, and the film effectively evokes that danger in a contemporary setting. Halloween gets its power from depicting, and aligning audiences with, likeable and peaceful characters in quiet and safe suburbia, which is suddenly infested with a homicidal agent, Michael Myers, who is simultaneously subhuman and superhuman. Myers became a horror icon because he is a supercharged representation of an ancient danger, a hostile conspecific outside rational reach.Less
John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) kicked off the slasher film wave with its disturbing depiction of Michael Myers’s killing spree in a small American town. This chapter argues that Halloween’s emotional and imaginative power has its wellspring in human nature. The film’s horror scenario—the threat of being killed by another human—reflects an evolutionarily ancient hazard, one that has left deep traces in our constitution. Conspecific predation has been a constant danger of social life for millions of years, and the film effectively evokes that danger in a contemporary setting. Halloween gets its power from depicting, and aligning audiences with, likeable and peaceful characters in quiet and safe suburbia, which is suddenly infested with a homicidal agent, Michael Myers, who is simultaneously subhuman and superhuman. Myers became a horror icon because he is a supercharged representation of an ancient danger, a hostile conspecific outside rational reach.
Adam Charles Hart
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190916237
- eISBN:
- 9780190916275
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190916237.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Chapter 3 refines the discussion of the sensational address and horror spectatorship by analyzing the first-person camerawork that I dub “Killer POV.” Killer POV—a subjective camera without a reverse ...
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Chapter 3 refines the discussion of the sensational address and horror spectatorship by analyzing the first-person camerawork that I dub “Killer POV.” Killer POV—a subjective camera without a reverse shot—is at the center of many of the most influential writings on modern horror. However, these discussions often start from the assumption that the camera’s point of view produces identification with the unseen killers or monsters whose perspectives we presume to be represented. This chapter attempts to disengage our understanding of horror spectatorship from such models to provide an alternative reading of Killer POV that engages with the genre’s structures of looking and being looked at while remaining sensitive to what precisely is being communicated to viewers by these shots. Killer POV signals to the viewer the presence of a threat without displaying the killer onscreen. This chapter reads Killer POV through the lens of the sensational address, understanding it in terms of its effects on the spectator. In this reading, Killer POV does not elicit fantasies of mastery and control, but, rather, separates the dominating, sadistic look of the killer from the viewer’s powerless look at Killer POV.Less
Chapter 3 refines the discussion of the sensational address and horror spectatorship by analyzing the first-person camerawork that I dub “Killer POV.” Killer POV—a subjective camera without a reverse shot—is at the center of many of the most influential writings on modern horror. However, these discussions often start from the assumption that the camera’s point of view produces identification with the unseen killers or monsters whose perspectives we presume to be represented. This chapter attempts to disengage our understanding of horror spectatorship from such models to provide an alternative reading of Killer POV that engages with the genre’s structures of looking and being looked at while remaining sensitive to what precisely is being communicated to viewers by these shots. Killer POV signals to the viewer the presence of a threat without displaying the killer onscreen. This chapter reads Killer POV through the lens of the sensational address, understanding it in terms of its effects on the spectator. In this reading, Killer POV does not elicit fantasies of mastery and control, but, rather, separates the dominating, sadistic look of the killer from the viewer’s powerless look at Killer POV.
Murray Leeder
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733797
- eISBN:
- 9781800342149
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733797.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The 1970s represented an unusually productive and innovative period for the horror film, and John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) is the film that capped that golden age — and some say ruined it, by ...
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The 1970s represented an unusually productive and innovative period for the horror film, and John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) is the film that capped that golden age — and some say ruined it, by ushering in the era of the slasher film. Considered a paradigm of low-budget ingenuity, its story of a seemingly unremarkable middle-American town becoming the site of violence on October 31 struck a chord within audiences. The film became a surprise hit that gave rise to a lucrative franchise, and it remains a perennial favourite. Much of its success stems from the simple but strong constructions of its three central characters: brainy, introverted teenager Laurie Strode, a late bloomer compared to her more outgoing friends, Dr. Loomis, the driven, obsessive psychiatrist, and Michael Myers, the inexplicable, ghostlike masked killer. This book offers a bold and provocative study of Carpenter's film, which hopes to expose qualities that are sometime effaced by its sequels and remakes. It explores Halloween as an unexpected ghost film, and examines such subjects as its construction of the teenager, and the relationship of Halloween the film to Halloween the holiday, and Michael Myers's brand of ‘pure evil’.Less
The 1970s represented an unusually productive and innovative period for the horror film, and John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) is the film that capped that golden age — and some say ruined it, by ushering in the era of the slasher film. Considered a paradigm of low-budget ingenuity, its story of a seemingly unremarkable middle-American town becoming the site of violence on October 31 struck a chord within audiences. The film became a surprise hit that gave rise to a lucrative franchise, and it remains a perennial favourite. Much of its success stems from the simple but strong constructions of its three central characters: brainy, introverted teenager Laurie Strode, a late bloomer compared to her more outgoing friends, Dr. Loomis, the driven, obsessive psychiatrist, and Michael Myers, the inexplicable, ghostlike masked killer. This book offers a bold and provocative study of Carpenter's film, which hopes to expose qualities that are sometime effaced by its sequels and remakes. It explores Halloween as an unexpected ghost film, and examines such subjects as its construction of the teenager, and the relationship of Halloween the film to Halloween the holiday, and Michael Myers's brand of ‘pure evil’.
Barry Forshaw
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733650
- eISBN:
- 9781800342071
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733650.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses the other serial killers in the cinema before Hannibal Lecter. In 1959, the writer Robert Bloch was inspired by the gruesome case of the Wisconsin mass murderer Ed Gein, with ...
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This chapter discusses the other serial killers in the cinema before Hannibal Lecter. In 1959, the writer Robert Bloch was inspired by the gruesome case of the Wisconsin mass murderer Ed Gein, with his keepsakes of bones and human skin. He transmuted elements of the Gein case into the phenomenally successful Psycho (published 1959), reconfiguring the real-life Gein as the chubby, unprepossessing mother's boy Norman Bates, who dispatches a variety of victims in gruesome fashion. Subsequently, Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of the novel (1960) laid down the parameters for a variety of genres: the serial killer movie, the slasher film, and the modern big-budget horror film which utilises above-the-title stars rather than the journeyman actors who had populated such fare previously. But above all else, Hitchcock and his talented screenwriter Joseph Stefano created a template for the intelligent, richly developed, and charismatic fictional serial killer in their version of Norman Bates. Hitchcock's film was to influence a generation of film-makers and writers; among them Thomas Harris.Less
This chapter discusses the other serial killers in the cinema before Hannibal Lecter. In 1959, the writer Robert Bloch was inspired by the gruesome case of the Wisconsin mass murderer Ed Gein, with his keepsakes of bones and human skin. He transmuted elements of the Gein case into the phenomenally successful Psycho (published 1959), reconfiguring the real-life Gein as the chubby, unprepossessing mother's boy Norman Bates, who dispatches a variety of victims in gruesome fashion. Subsequently, Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of the novel (1960) laid down the parameters for a variety of genres: the serial killer movie, the slasher film, and the modern big-budget horror film which utilises above-the-title stars rather than the journeyman actors who had populated such fare previously. But above all else, Hitchcock and his talented screenwriter Joseph Stefano created a template for the intelligent, richly developed, and charismatic fictional serial killer in their version of Norman Bates. Hitchcock's film was to influence a generation of film-makers and writers; among them Thomas Harris.
Murray Leeder and Murray Leeder
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733797
- eISBN:
- 9781800342149
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733797.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines adolescence as a central theme in Halloween (1978) in a slightly different way, as invoking (and attempting to resolve) the rootlessness of adolescence in the Lost Generation. ...
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This chapter examines adolescence as a central theme in Halloween (1978) in a slightly different way, as invoking (and attempting to resolve) the rootlessness of adolescence in the Lost Generation. The character of Laurie Strode is divided between the realms of adults and children, but this capacity for category mobility ultimately proves valuable. Cast in the roles both of virgin and mother, her ability to properly navigate, embrace adult responsibilities and retrain a child's intuition is ultimately what allows Laurie to save herself. The 1950s and John Carpenter's childhood saw the birth of the teen horror film, which followed swiftly on the heels of the ‘invention’ of the American teenager as a discrete segment of the population. In a sense, Halloween is an inheritor to the ‘horror teenpics’ or the ‘weirdies’ of the 1950s, and similarly owed much of its success to its ability to knowingly target the large teenage demographic. The slasher films that followed Halloween would do the same, and it seems no major exaggeration to say that, if slasher films collectively are ‘about’ anything, they are about adolescence.Less
This chapter examines adolescence as a central theme in Halloween (1978) in a slightly different way, as invoking (and attempting to resolve) the rootlessness of adolescence in the Lost Generation. The character of Laurie Strode is divided between the realms of adults and children, but this capacity for category mobility ultimately proves valuable. Cast in the roles both of virgin and mother, her ability to properly navigate, embrace adult responsibilities and retrain a child's intuition is ultimately what allows Laurie to save herself. The 1950s and John Carpenter's childhood saw the birth of the teen horror film, which followed swiftly on the heels of the ‘invention’ of the American teenager as a discrete segment of the population. In a sense, Halloween is an inheritor to the ‘horror teenpics’ or the ‘weirdies’ of the 1950s, and similarly owed much of its success to its ability to knowingly target the large teenage demographic. The slasher films that followed Halloween would do the same, and it seems no major exaggeration to say that, if slasher films collectively are ‘about’ anything, they are about adolescence.
Mathias Clasen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190666507
- eISBN:
- 9780190666545
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190666507.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The chapter gives an outline of the history of American horror across media, from prehistoric roots to postmodern slasher films and horror videogames. A specifically American literary horror ...
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The chapter gives an outline of the history of American horror across media, from prehistoric roots to postmodern slasher films and horror videogames. A specifically American literary horror tradition crystallizes in the mid-1800s, with authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, and is developed in the twentieth century by writers including H. P. Lovecraft. In that century, horror films—beginning with Universal’s monster films of the 1930s—became the dominant medium for the genre. Horror became a mainstream genre during the 1970s and 1980s, with the emergence of popular writers like Stephen King and many lucrative film releases. Slasher films dominated the 1980s and were reinvented in a postmodern version in the 1990s. Horror videogames became increasingly popular, offering high levels of immersion and engagement. The chapter shows that horror changes over time, in response to cultural change, but changes within a possibility space constrained by human biology.Less
The chapter gives an outline of the history of American horror across media, from prehistoric roots to postmodern slasher films and horror videogames. A specifically American literary horror tradition crystallizes in the mid-1800s, with authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, and is developed in the twentieth century by writers including H. P. Lovecraft. In that century, horror films—beginning with Universal’s monster films of the 1930s—became the dominant medium for the genre. Horror became a mainstream genre during the 1970s and 1980s, with the emergence of popular writers like Stephen King and many lucrative film releases. Slasher films dominated the 1980s and were reinvented in a postmodern version in the 1990s. Horror videogames became increasingly popular, offering high levels of immersion and engagement. The chapter shows that horror changes over time, in response to cultural change, but changes within a possibility space constrained by human biology.
Paul Kahn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231164382
- eISBN:
- 9780231536028
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231164382.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This book argues that philosophy must take up the fundamental concerns of love, death, justice, knowledge, and faith as they are found in contemporary culture. It demonstrates how this can be ...
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This book argues that philosophy must take up the fundamental concerns of love, death, justice, knowledge, and faith as they are found in contemporary culture. It demonstrates how this can be achieved by turning to popular film. The book discusses such well-known movies as Forrest Gump (1994), The American President (1995), The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), The History of Violence (2005), Gran Torino (2008), The Dark Knight (2008), The Road (2009), and Avatar (2009). It explores the powerful archetypes covered in these films and assesses the hold they have upon us. The book's inquiry proceeds in two parts. First, it uses film to explore the nature of action and interpretation, arguing that narrative is the critical concept for understanding both. Second, it explores the narratives of politics, family, and faith as they appear in popular films. It engages with genres as diverse as romantic comedy, slasher film, and pornography, and explores the social imaginary through which we create and maintain a meaningful world. It finds in popular films a new setting for a philosophical inquiry into the timeless themes of sacrifice, innocence, rebirth, law, and love.Less
This book argues that philosophy must take up the fundamental concerns of love, death, justice, knowledge, and faith as they are found in contemporary culture. It demonstrates how this can be achieved by turning to popular film. The book discusses such well-known movies as Forrest Gump (1994), The American President (1995), The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), The History of Violence (2005), Gran Torino (2008), The Dark Knight (2008), The Road (2009), and Avatar (2009). It explores the powerful archetypes covered in these films and assesses the hold they have upon us. The book's inquiry proceeds in two parts. First, it uses film to explore the nature of action and interpretation, arguing that narrative is the critical concept for understanding both. Second, it explores the narratives of politics, family, and faith as they appear in popular films. It engages with genres as diverse as romantic comedy, slasher film, and pornography, and explores the social imaginary through which we create and maintain a meaningful world. It finds in popular films a new setting for a philosophical inquiry into the timeless themes of sacrifice, innocence, rebirth, law, and love.