IT’S THE END AS WE KNOW IT!!! Film History and Apocalyptic Narratives

Course Description

Most of the contemporary highest-grossing films have been apocalyptic fantasies: “Avengers: Endgame,”, “World War Z”, “Mad Max: Fury Road” or “A Quiet Place"" address the human predilection for telling stories that use a “sense of an absolute ending”. However, it is important to remember that fantasizing about the apocalypse is a phenomenon not only experienced in the US but almost everywhere else in the world. In fact, humans throughout history have always imagined the end of their world order; and since the invention of the Cinématographe, movies have represented a powerful medium to portray these visions of armageddon.

The course proposes an approach to the critical analysis of apocalyptic cinema from a look at the historical trajectory of apocalyptic films in world cinema. The main objective of this course is to understand that the “apocalypse” encompasses much more than western pop-culture portrayals, and explore how conceptions of the end of the world vary through different cultures and periods of time. Thus, through the acquisition of basic interpretation and analysis tools for film texts, students will analyze other visions of the end of the world, far from the common American film canons.

This course explores the evolution of this sociocultural phenomenon through the analysis of an extensive and culturally diverse corpus of films about the end of the world. From the selection and screening of 5 non-Hollywood apocalyptic films that allow deepening the critical approach, emphasis will be placed on the reflection on the historical, aesthetic, and social aspects that determine the production context. This way, students will be asked to observe how each portrayal of a catastrophic future is actually a means to reflect on specific signs of the times. For instance, in the Argentine film ""Invasion"" (1969), invading aliens are used as a metaphor to talk about the terrors committed by General Videla's dictatorship. Therefore, each apocalyptic film encapsulates the symptoms of a specific historical socio-cultural panorama, a determined cosmovision, and, at the same time, a critique of the surrounding system.

In addition, the course also aims for students to question how they conceive the scenario of the ""end of the world"" and to make a retrospective analysis of the source where these images come from. This entails an attempt to understand how their personal understanding of the “end” also represents symptoms of their own fears and anxieties.

Ultimately, this course provides a deep understanding of how apocalyptic narratives in cinema have served as social metaphors due to their flexibility for criticism in contexts of crises throughout history.