Nihilism In Film And Television

Author : Kevin L. Stoehr
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476611335
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nihilism in Film and Television written by Kevin L. Stoehr and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-03-12 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the idea of nihilism, emphasized by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, through its appearance in modern popular culture. The author defines and reflects upon nihilism, then explores its manifestation in films and television shows. Among the subjects examined are the award-winning television series The Sopranos and the film noir genre that preceded and influenced it. Films probed include Orson Welles's masterpiece Citizen Kane, the films of Stanley Kubrick, Neil Jordan's controversial The Crying Game and Richard Linklater's unconventional Waking Life. Finally, the author considers nihilism in terms of the decay of traditional values in the genre of westerns, mostly through works of filmmaker John Ford. In the concluding chapter the author broadens the lessons gleaned from these studies, maintaining that the situated and embodied nature of human life must be understood and appreciated before people can overcome the life-negating effects of nihilism.

Author : John Marmysz
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474424589
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cinematic Nihilism written by John Marmysz and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through case studies of popular films, including Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, Dawn of the Dead and The Human Centipede , this book re-emphasises the constructive potential of cinematic nihilism.

Author : Thomas S. Hibbs
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781602583795
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.9X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shows about Nothing written by Thomas S. Hibbs and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Thomas S. Hibbs
Publisher : Spence Publishing Company
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shows about Nothing written by Thomas S. Hibbs and published by Spence Publishing Company. This book was released on 1999 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Wendy Syfret
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781788167031
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Sunny Nihilist written by Wendy Syfret and published by . This book was released on 2022-07-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Robert J. Yanal
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786482303
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hitchcock as Philosopher written by Robert J. Yanal and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-06-28 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The films of Alfred Hitchcock deal heavily with psychological and philosophical themes, and one needn't look very far into the canon to find them. In Psycho, for example, the personality metamorphosis in Marion Crane that leads her into grand larceny is a pale double of the murderous oedipal divide in Norman Bates. In The Birds, overbearing natural mutations turn what might have been a "creature feature" into a film about fear of the unknowable. This book looks at 12 Hitchcock films and the positions they put forth on three problem areas of epistemology: deception, knowledge of mind, and problematic knowledge of the external world. These philosophical concepts are explained and woven into the author's thorough and thought-provoking discussion of each film. Descartes and Wittengenstein star; Plato, Locke, Hume, Kant and Kierkegaard also make appearances in this new "philosopher's cut" of the master's works.

Author : William Devlin
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813133963
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Philosophy of David Lynch written by William Devlin and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2011-03-25 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From his cult classic television series Twin Peaks to his most recent film Inland Empire (2006), David Lynch is best known for his unorthodox narrative style. An award-winning director, producer, and writer, Lynch distorts and disrupts traditional storylines and offers viewers a surreal, often nightmarish perspective. His unique approach to filmmaking has made his work familiar to critics and audiences worldwide, and he earned Academy Award nominations for Best Director for The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), and Mulholland Drive (2001). Lynch creates a new reality for both characters and audience by focusing on the individual and embracing existentialism. In The Philosophy of David Lynch, editors William J. Devlin and Shai Biderman have compiled an impressive list of contributors to explore the philosophy at the core of the filmmaker’s work. Lynch is examined as a postmodern artist, and the themes of darkness, logic, and time are discussed in depth. Other prominent issues in Lynch’s films, such as Bad faith and freedom, ethics, politics, and religion, are also considered. Investigating myriad aspects of Lynch’s influential and innovative work, The Philosophy of David Lynch provides a fascinating look at the philosophical underpinnings of the famous cult director.

Author : Darren Ambrose
Publisher : John Hunt Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1782794042
Total Pages : 181 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Film, Nihilism and the Restoration of Belief written by Darren Ambrose and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-25 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the clichés which govern much of its current forms, the cinema continues to have a vital political and aesthetic significance. Our commitment to, and our sincerity towards, our ways of being in the world have become catastrophically eroded. Nihilism and despair have taken hold. We must find a way to renew our faith in our capacity to transform the world, a faith that will give us back the reality of a world eroded by the restrictive capitalist ontology of modernity. How can we restore belief in the reality of a world when scepticism and universal pessimism have taken hold? Is it possible to find alternative ways of living, being and thinking? This book will discuss the means by which some filmmakers have grasped the vocation of resisting and transforming the present, of cultivating new forms of belief in the world when total alienation seems inevitable.

Author : Steven Sanders
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813181569
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Philosophy of TV Noir written by Steven Sanders and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-03-17 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film noir reflects the fatalistic themes and visual style of hard-boiled novelists and many émigré filmmakers in 1940s and 1950s America, emphasizing crime, alienation, and moral ambiguity. In The Philosophy of TV Noir, Steven M. Sanders and Aeon J. Skoble argue that the legacy of film noir classics such as The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Big Sleep is also found in episodic television from the mid-1950s to the present. In this first-of-its-kind collection, contributors from philosophy, film studies, and literature raise fundamental questions about the human predicament, giving this unique volume its moral resonance and demonstrating why television noir deserves our attention. The introduction traces the development of TV noir and provides an overview and evaluation of the book's thirteen essays, each of which discusses an exemplary TV noir series. Realism, relativism, and integrity are discussed in essays on Dragnet, Naked City, The Fugitive, and Secret Agent. Existentialist themes of authenticity, nihilism, and the search for life's meaning are addressed in essays on Miami Vice, The Sopranos, Carnivale, and 24. The methods of crime scene investigation in The X-Files and CSI are examined, followed by an exploration of autonomy, selfhood, and interpretation in The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Millennium. With this focus on the philosophical dimensions of crime, espionage, and science fiction series, The Philosophy of TV Noir draws out the full implications of film noir and establishes TV noir as an art form in its own right.

Author : Jerold J. Abrams
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813137195
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick written by Jerold J. Abrams and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2007-05-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the course of fifty years, director Stanley Kubrick produced some of the most haunting and indelible images on film. His films touch on a wide range of topics rife with questions about human life, behavior, and emotions: love and sex, war, crime, madness, social conditioning, and technology. Within this great variety of subject matter, Kubrick examines different sides of reality and unifies them into a rich philosophical vision that is similar to existentialism. Perhaps more than any other philosophical concept, existentialism -- the belief that philosophical truth has meaning only if it is chosen by the individual -- has come down from the ivory tower to influence popular culture at large. In virtually all of Kubrick's films, the protagonist finds himself or herself in opposition to a hard and uncaring world, whether the conflict arises in the natural world or in human institutions. Kubrick's war films (Fear and Desire, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket) examine how humans deal with their worst fears -- especially the fear of death -- when facing the absurdity of war. Full Metal Jacket portrays a world of physical and moral change, with an environment in continual flux in which attempting to impose order can be dangerous. The film explores the tragic consequences of an unbending moral code in a constantly changing universe. Essays in the volume examine Kubrick's interest in morality and fate, revealing a Stoic philosophy at the center of many of his films. Several of the contributors find his oeuvre to be characterized by skepticism, irony, and unfettered hedonism. In such films as A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick confronts the notion that we will struggle against our own scientific and technological innovations. Kubrick's films about the future posit that an active form of nihilism will allow humans to accept the emptiness of the world and push beyond it to form a free and creative view of humanity. Taken together, the essays in The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick are an engaging look at the director's stark vision of a constantly changing moral and physical universe. They promise to add depth and complexity to the interpretation of Kubrick's signature films.