Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the MillenniumIn 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
Apocalyptic Dread Kierkegaard and the Cultural Landscape of the Millennium | 1 |
Cape Fear and Trembling | 29 |
Strange Fruit Candyman and Supernatural Dread | 59 |
Dolores Claiborne Memorial Dread | 83 |
Se7en in the Morgue Dystopian Dread | 105 |
Signs of the End of the World Apocalyptic Dread | 127 |
War of the Worlds Uncanny Dread | 145 |
Notes | 155 |
175 | |
181 | |
Other editions - View all
Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium Kirsten Moana Thompson Limited preview - 2012 |
Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium Kirsten Moana Thompson No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
alien invasion ambivalence American anxiety apocalyptic dread becomes body Bowden family Cabrini Cabrini-Green Cady's Candyman Cape Fear 1991 Cape Fear River castration Christian cinema Concept of Dread crime crisis crop circles culture Danny Danny's daughter death desire Detective Mills disaster displaced Doe's Dolores Claiborne Dolores's doppelgänger eclipse eschatological faith Ferrier figure film film's flashback foregrounds future Gothic Graham Helen Lyle Hess historical Hollywood horror houseboat husband John Doe Kersek Kierkegaard kill Leigh look lynching Max Cady melodrama memorial dread Merrill millennial millennium Mills's mirror mise-en-scène monster mother movie murder myth narrative narrator past rape relationship repressed reveals Robert Mitchum Robitaille Robitaille's Samuel Bowden says scene science-fiction scopic dread Scorsese Scorsese's Se7en Selena serial killer Seven Deadly Sins sexual abuse shot signs social Somerset space spectatorial Spielberg story suggests supernatural television theological threat trauma turn uncanny unconscious underscores urban legend Vera's victim violence visual York