Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the MillenniumState University of New York Press, 2012 M02 1 - 207 pages 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 | |
Familial Dread | 29 |
Candyman and Supernatural Dread | 59 |
Memorial Dread | 83 |
Dystopian Dread | 105 |
Apocalyptic Dread | 127 |
Uncanny Dread | 145 |
Notes | 155 |
Works Cited | 175 |
Index | 181 |
Other editions - View all
Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium Kirsten Moana Thompson Limited preview - 2007 |
Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium Kirsten Moana Thompson No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
abuse aliens already American anxiety apocalyptic apocalyptic dread appears becomes begins believes body Book of Revelation Bowden Cabrini-Green Cady Cady’s calls Candyman Cape Fear castration chapter Christian connection continues crime crisis crop circles culture Danny daughter death desire Detective Doe’s Dolores Dolores Claiborne Dolores’s dread face faith father figure film film’s final flashback foregrounds further future Graham hand Helen Hess historical horror husband invasion John kill later Leigh live look memory Mills mirror monster mother murder narrative natural opening original past play political present produced rape reflection relationship repressed reveals says scene secrets Selena serial killer seven sexual shot shows signs social Somerset space Steven Spielberg story suggests tells threat trauma turn uncanny unconscious understanding urban victim violence wife women
Popular passages
Page 14 - Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man ; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Page 20 - It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall, this rushing annihilation, for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination — for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it.
Page 162 - Thou, Nature, art my goddess ; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother ? Why bastard...
Page 156 - Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
Page 11 - Rayford watched through the binocs as men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skins.
Page 21 - ... that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar...
Page 19 - The prohibition induces in him anxiety, for the prohibition awakens in him freedom's possibility. What passed by innocence as the nothing of anxiety has now entered into Adam, and here again it is a nothing — the anxious possibility of being able.
Page 113 - O Progeny of Heaven, Empyreal Thrones, With reason hath deep silence and demur Seized us, though undismayed : long is the way And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light...
Page 56 - You're strong, Cady. You're going to live a long life, in a cage. That's where you belong, and that's where you're going. And this time for life. Bang your head against the walls, count the years, the months, the hours, until the day you rot!