Friday, November 21, 2008
The End of the World
So, the other day I was in the cinema, awaiting anxiously the beginning of the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace, hoping in vain that it could match up to its predecessor … Anyway, what I really want to talk about is actually regarding the close to maybe 5/6 movie trailers I saw before the actual movie.
If anyone has been watching movies lately, have you noticed that most of what we've been churning out lately are apocalyptic films? After watching the first trailer for 2012, I admit my interest was kind of piqued. But by the time I finished watching Keanu Reeves predict The Day The Earth Stood Still, I couldn't take it any longer. I might be stretching it a bit, but I'm pretty certain that maybe 1 in 3/4 films these days refer to some kind of the end of the Earth. Doomsday. December 21 2012. Wikipedia does a far better job of summarizing and giving examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_film
And as you can see, there's definitely at least one of those type of films per year. What strikes me more so is the fact that if you do a simple comparison, the number of these films have increased by the decades. Looking back on the lectures we've had so far, I'm reminded of the discussions we've had regarding the Real and the Reality. The doomsday film, to me, could be a manner in which our symbolic (notion of reality) has been stretched to encompass everything - our death, the end of the world, can all be explained and attributed to a particular reason, most typically viruses, natural disasters, economic problems, terrorism. More than often, it is something we can comprehend, rather than something such as giant aliens attacking the world ala War of the Worlds.
Herein, however, lies a paradox: the fact that the movie industry still continuously churns out such movies and make money from them refer to our appetite for the remainder of the Real - doomsday films allow us to somewhat voyeuristically experience the "eruption of the Real", and thankfully, our savvy reflexivity, at the same time, always safeguards us by leading us (at the end of the film) to think, "it's just a film" - the actors don't die in real life, since we made it past 2000 we would make it past 2012 (or whichever apocalyptic date you identify with). Yet in times of increasing uncertainty, do we not walk away from these films with the discomfort accompanying the belief that these could really happen? Is this, perhaps, as what we were mentioning in class, the initial signs of our symbolic order breaking down, and being unable to comprehensively allay our fears?
In any case, I guess that's why the movie industry produces a wide-range of movies. For someone like me who actually likes doomsday films (before they bordered on the point of being repetitive and a stark reminder of my impending death), but has that inkling of discomfort after walking out of a film like that, I guess one of the possible (escapist) solutions will be to skip the big blockbuster films of destruction, and turn to the family-friendly comedy that's playing in the next theatre. So maybe I'll see you there?
[disclaimer: I wrote this article with my own understanding of what has been covered so far in class. If I'm even interpreting any of these terms wrongly, I would deeply appreciate anyone explaining to me my mistakes!]
If anyone has been watching movies lately, have you noticed that most of what we've been churning out lately are apocalyptic films? After watching the first trailer for 2012, I admit my interest was kind of piqued. But by the time I finished watching Keanu Reeves predict The Day The Earth Stood Still, I couldn't take it any longer. I might be stretching it a bit, but I'm pretty certain that maybe 1 in 3/4 films these days refer to some kind of the end of the Earth. Doomsday. December 21 2012. Wikipedia does a far better job of summarizing and giving examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_film
And as you can see, there's definitely at least one of those type of films per year. What strikes me more so is the fact that if you do a simple comparison, the number of these films have increased by the decades. Looking back on the lectures we've had so far, I'm reminded of the discussions we've had regarding the Real and the Reality. The doomsday film, to me, could be a manner in which our symbolic (notion of reality) has been stretched to encompass everything - our death, the end of the world, can all be explained and attributed to a particular reason, most typically viruses, natural disasters, economic problems, terrorism. More than often, it is something we can comprehend, rather than something such as giant aliens attacking the world ala War of the Worlds.
Herein, however, lies a paradox: the fact that the movie industry still continuously churns out such movies and make money from them refer to our appetite for the remainder of the Real - doomsday films allow us to somewhat voyeuristically experience the "eruption of the Real", and thankfully, our savvy reflexivity, at the same time, always safeguards us by leading us (at the end of the film) to think, "it's just a film" - the actors don't die in real life, since we made it past 2000 we would make it past 2012 (or whichever apocalyptic date you identify with). Yet in times of increasing uncertainty, do we not walk away from these films with the discomfort accompanying the belief that these could really happen? Is this, perhaps, as what we were mentioning in class, the initial signs of our symbolic order breaking down, and being unable to comprehensively allay our fears?
In any case, I guess that's why the movie industry produces a wide-range of movies. For someone like me who actually likes doomsday films (before they bordered on the point of being repetitive and a stark reminder of my impending death), but has that inkling of discomfort after walking out of a film like that, I guess one of the possible (escapist) solutions will be to skip the big blockbuster films of destruction, and turn to the family-friendly comedy that's playing in the next theatre. So maybe I'll see you there?
[disclaimer: I wrote this article with my own understanding of what has been covered so far in class. If I'm even interpreting any of these terms wrongly, I would deeply appreciate anyone explaining to me my mistakes!]
# posted by Yisha Choo @ 7:47 PM 
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I’m not sure I understand what you mean by -“The doomsday film, to me, could be a manner in which our symbolic (notion of reality) has been stretched to encompass everything - our death, the end of the world, can all be explained and attributed to a particular reason, most typically viruses, natural disasters, economic problems, terrorism.” Do you mean that we are at a stage where the real is demystified, and as such, incorporated into our symbolic order?
I think this goes back to what professor Kalmar described at the totalization of the symbolic- reality, to the point were that border between the real and reality no longer exist because the real ceases to be in our reality.
One more thing, I don’t think there is any difference between Aliens (the example from war of the worlds) is more comprehendible then viruses, economic crisis, etc-there all things we as humans have yet to understand fully.
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I think this goes back to what professor Kalmar described at the totalization of the symbolic- reality, to the point were that border between the real and reality no longer exist because the real ceases to be in our reality.
One more thing, I don’t think there is any difference between Aliens (the example from war of the worlds) is more comprehendible then viruses, economic crisis, etc-there all things we as humans have yet to understand fully.
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