Apocalyptic Dread by Kirsten Thompson
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.
Kirsten Moana Thompson is assistant professor of film studies at Wayne State University and the co-editor of Perspectives on German Cinema.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780791470442 |
| ISBN 10 | 079147044X |
| Title | Apocalyptic Dread |
| Author | Kirsten Thompson |
| Series | Suny Series Horizons Of Cinema |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | State University of New York Press |
| Year published | 2007-03-08 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |