Terror and the Cinematic Sublime

Terror and the Cinematic Sublime PDF

Author: Todd A. Comer

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-02-11

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0786472073

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This collection considers film in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Eleven essayists address Hollywood movies, indie film, and post-cinematic media, including theatrical films by directors such as Steven Spielberg, Darren Aronofsky, Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee, and post-cinematic works by Wafaa Bilal, Douglas Gordon and Peter Tscherkassky, among others. All of the essays are written with an eye to what may be the central concept of our time, the sublime. The sublime--that which can be thought but not represented (the "unpresentable")--provides a ready tool for analyses of trauma, horror, catastrophe and apocalypse, the military-industrial complex, the end of humanism and the limits of freedom. Such essays take the pulse of our cultural moment, while also providing the reader with a sense of the nature of the sublime in critical work, and how it continues to evolve conceptually in the 21st century.

Terror and the Cinematic Sublime

Terror and the Cinematic Sublime PDF

Author: Todd A. Comer

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-01-30

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1476601763

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This collection considers film in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Eleven essayists address Hollywood movies, indie film, and post-cinematic media, including theatrical films by directors such as Steven Spielberg, Darren Aronofsky, Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee, and post-cinematic works by Wafaa Bilal, Douglas Gordon and Peter Tscherkassky, among others. All of the essays are written with an eye to what may be the central concept of our time, the sublime. The sublime--that which can be thought but not represented (the "unpresentable")--provides a ready tool for analyses of trauma, horror, catastrophe and apocalypse, the military-industrial complex, the end of humanism and the limits of freedom. Such essays take the pulse of our cultural moment, while also providing the reader with a sense of the nature of the sublime in critical work, and how it continues to evolve conceptually in the 21st century.

The Supernatural Sublime

The Supernatural Sublime PDF

Author: Raúl Rodríguez-Hernández

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2019-07

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1496214994

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The Supernatural Sublime explores the long-neglected element of the supernatural in films from Spain and Mexico by focusing on the social and cultural contexts of their production and reception, their adaptations of codes and conventions for characters and plot, and their use of cinematic techniques to create the experience of emotion without explanation. Deploying the overarching concepts of the supernatural and the sublime, Raúl Rodríguez-Hernández and Claudia Schaefer detail the dovetailing of the unnatural and the experience of limitlessness associated with the sublime. The Supernatural Sublime embeds the films in the social histories of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Mexico and Spain, both of which made a forced leap into modernity after historical periods founded on official ideologies and circumscribed visions of the nation. Evoking Kant’s definition of the experience of the sublime, Rodríguez-Hernández and Schaefer concentrate on the unrepresentable and the contradictory that oppose purported universal truths and instead offer up illusion, deception, and imagination through cinema, itself a type of illusion: writing with light.

The Nostalgic Sublime and the Role of Terror in Contemporary Culture

The Nostalgic Sublime and the Role of Terror in Contemporary Culture PDF

Author: Matthew Leggatt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9781138220997

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This book re-examines the role of the sublime across a range of disparate cultural texts, from architecture and art, to literature, digital technology, and film, detailing a worrying trend towards nostalgia and arguing that, although the sublime has the potential to be the most powerful uniting aesthetic force, it currently spreads fear, violence, and retrospection. In exploring contemporary culture, this book touches on the role of architecture to provoke feelings of sublimity, the role of art in the aftermath of destructive events, literature�s establishment of the historical moment as a point of sublime transformation and change, and the place of nostalgia and the returning of past practices in digital culture from gaming to popular cinema.

Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers

Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers PDF

Author: Julian Hanich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-02-09

Total Pages: 633

ISBN-13: 1136991581

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Hanich looks at fear at the movies – its aesthetics, its experience and its pleasures--in this thought-provoking study. Looking at over 150 different films including Seven, Rosemary's Baby, and Silence of the Lambs, Hanich attempts to answer the paradox of why we enjoy films that thrill us, that scare us, that threaten us, that shock us –affects that we otherwise desperately wish to avoid.

Terror in the Desert

Terror in the Desert PDF

Author: Brad Sykes

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2018-04-16

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1476672415

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Set in the American Southwest, "desert terror" films combine elements from horror, film noir and road movies to tell stories of isolation and violence. For more than half a century, these diverse and troubling films have eluded critical classification and analysis. Highlighting pioneering filmmakers and bizarre production stories, the author traces the genre's origins and development, from cult exploitation (The Hills Have Eyes, The Hitcher) to crowd-pleasing franchises (Tremors, From Dusk Till Dawn) to quirky auteurist fare (Natural Born Killers, Lost Highway) to more recent releases (Bone Tomahawk, Nocturnal Animals). Rare stills, promotional materials and a filmography are included.

Devouring Whirlwind

Devouring Whirlwind PDF

Author: Will H Rockett

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1988-11-17

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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As the popularity of the genre increases and special effects are pushed to greater extremes of terror and cruelty, more and more people have begun to wonder, what is the attraction of horror films? Do they have any socially redeeming features? Rockett offers some surprising and provocative answers to these questions in his analysis of the cinema of cruelty. First commenting on our fascination with experiences that transcend the world of ordinary reality, he looks at film as a means of expressing the dark side of human nature. Next, he examines the essential ingredients that go into the making of a horror film, the variations that are found within the genre, and the links between the best horror cinema and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. Echoing Artaud, Rockett argues that human beings are attracted to horror in films because of an unconscious craving for a reality in which the demonic supernatural acts as a living whirlwind, devouring the darkness and bringing viewers closer to the transcendence they are actually seeking. The final chapter shows how the finest works in the horror genre achieve this underlying aim. He discusses filmmakers such as Roman Polanski, who have been able to provide the realism and artistic quality that contemporary audiences demand while preserving the ambiguity and terror necessary to experience the power of transcendent force. Rockett's skillful and imaginative exploration of the subject will be appreciated by scholars and general readers concerned with popular culture, film, literature, drama, and contemporary social issues.

War on Terror and American Film

War on Terror and American Film PDF

Author: McSweeney Terence McSweeney

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2016-02-16

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0748693114

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This compelling, theoretically informed and up-to-date exploration of contemporary American cinema charts the evolution of the impact of 9/11 on Hollywood film from Black Hawk Down (2001), through Batman Begins (2005), United 93 (2006) to Olympus Has Fallen (2013). Through a vibrant analysis of a range of genres and films - which in turn reveal a strikingly diverse array of social, historical and political perspectives - this book explores the impact of 9/11 and the war on terror on American cinema in the first decade of the new millennium and beyond.

Horror after 9/11

Horror after 9/11 PDF

Author: Aviva Briefel

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2012-08-24

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0292742428

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Horror films have exploded in popularity since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, many of them breaking box-office records and generating broad public discourse. These films have attracted A-list talent and earned award nods, while at the same time becoming darker, more disturbing, and increasingly apocalyptic. Why has horror suddenly become more popular, and what does this say about us? What do specific horror films and trends convey about American society in the wake of events so horrific that many pundits initially predicted the death of the genre? How could American audiences, after tasting real horror, want to consume images of violence on screen? Horror after 9/11 represents the first major exploration of the horror genre through the lens of 9/11 and the subsequent transformation of American and global society. Films discussed include the Twilight saga; the Saw series; Hostel; Cloverfield; 28 Days Later; remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, and The Hills Have Eyes; and many more. The contributors analyze recent trends in the horror genre, including the rise of 'torture porn,' the big-budget remakes of classic horror films, the reinvention of traditional monsters such as vampires and zombies, and a new awareness of visual technologies as sites of horror in themselves. The essays examine the allegorical role that the horror film has held in the last ten years, and the ways that it has been translating and reinterpreting the discourses and images of terror into its own cinematic language.