Apocalyptic Dread by Kirsten Moana Thompson

Apocalyptic Dread by Kirsten Moana 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 Associate Professor of Film Studies at Wayne State University and coeditor (with Terri Ginsberg) of Perspectives on German Cinema.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780791470442
ISBN 10	079147044X
Title	Apocalyptic Dread
Author	Kirsten Moana 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.