Apocalypse in Film (eBook)

Karen A. Ritzenhoff is professor in the Department of Communication at Central Connecticut State University and is also affiliated with the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. She is the co-editor of Screening the Dark Side of Love: From Euro-Horror to American Cinema (2012) and Selling Sex on Screen: From Weimar Cinema to Zombie Porn (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).Angela Krewani is professor for Media Studies at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany. She is the co-editor of Hollywood – Recent Developments (2005) and McLuhan’s Global Village Today (2014).

AcknowledgementsIntroductionKaren A. Ritzenhoff and Angela Krewani PART ITHE EARLY DEPICTIONS OF DISASTERChapter 1World War One and Hollywood’s First Modern Armageddon: Understanding Wartime and Post-Conflict Representations of a Global Cataclysm in Civilization (1916) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)Clémentine Tholas-DissetChapter 2The End of the World: Loss and Redemption in Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)Karen RandellPART IIGLOBAL DEMISE AND COLD WARChapter 3‘Radiation’s rising, but one mustn’t grumble too much’: Nuclear Apocalypse Played as Farce in Richard Lester’s The Bed-Sitting Room (1969)Thomas PraschChapter 4The Legacy of Dr. Strangelove: Stanley Kubrick, Science Fiction Blockbusters and the Future of HumanityPeter KrämerChapter 5‘Gentleman, You Can’t Fight in Here’: Gender Symbolism and the End of the World in Dr. Strangelove and MelancholiaCatriona McAvoyPART IIIMELANCHOLIA AND OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF THE APOCALYPSEChapter 6 Is There an End to It? Fictional Shelters and Shelter-FictionSolvejg NitzkeChapter 7Melancholia and the Apocalypse WithinPierre FloquetChapter 8Eco Apocalypse: Environmentalism, Political Alienation and Therapeutic AgencyPhilip Hammond and Hugh Ortega BretonPART IVPOLITICS OF SHOWING THE UNTHINKABLEChapter 9Disaster Films: The End of the World and the Risk Society HeroFrederick WasserChapter 10 The (Gender) Politics of Disaster in 2012 (2009)Charles Antoine CourcouxChapter 11Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice: A Religious Humanist ApocalypseTatjana LjujićChapter 12Dead Narratives: Defining Humanity Through StoriesA. Fiona Pearson and Scott Ellis PART VMOVING BEYOND THE END OF THE WORLDChapter 13Opposing Thatcherism: Filmic Apocalypse as a Political Strategy in 1980s BritainAngela KrewaniChapter 14Painting in Time: On the Use of Digital Visual Effects in Melancholia (2011)Andreas KirchnerChapter 15The Corporate and Corporeal: Min(d)ing the Body—Conscience and Consumption in Early 21st Century Hollywood DystopiaWendy SterbaIndexAbout the Editors and Contributors