Fragments of Tragedy in Postmodern Film


Book Description

Despite the theories about the “death of tragedy”, this book explores fragments and reflections of tragedy in postmodern film. Tragedy has changed and evolved with human society, and its continuous chain from Ancient Greece to modern times has been broken by postmodernism. However, certain aspects of tragedy have continued to be used by literature and film: in particular, films with themes of chaos, violence, popular culture, paranoia, virtual reality and alienation often use aspects of tragedy. The focus of this study is on these facets adopted by postmodern film.




Refiguring Tragedy


Book Description

This book brings together case studies delving into different, unstudied aspects of the Nachleben of selected lost tragedies either in their once extant form or in their fragmentary state in later periods of time. It seeks to explore the ways in which the plays in question were reworked, discussed, represented or reperformed within varying frameworks. Notably enough, research on the reception of tragic fragments could yield insight not only into the receiving work, but also into the facets of the source text that have attracted attention in its subsequent refigurations. It could thus shed light on the ideological and cultural routes through which these fragmentary tragedies were received by the poet, the scholar, the artist, the viewer, the reader and the spectator in each case. The complex process of the refiguration of a fragmentarily preserved play within different contexts could form a yardstick of its cultural power and elucidate the dynamics of fragmentation in modern times. Τhe volume is of particular interest to scholars in the fields of classics, reception, cultural and performance studies, as well as to readers fascinated by Greek tragedy and its vibrant afterlife.




Greek Fragments in Postmodern Frames


Book Description

This volume focuses on the adaptation of Greek tragedy between 1970 and 2005 in order to interrogate the relationship between tragedy and postmodernism. Analysis of a range of adaptations from this period demonstrates intertextual engagements with prototype texts that have much in common with the main ideas expressed in poststructuralist thought.




Christopher Nolan


Book Description

Christopher Nolan is the writer and director of Hollywood blockbusters like The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and also of arthouse films like Memento and Inception. Underlying his staggering commercial success however, is a darker sensibility that questions the veracity of human knowledge, the allure of appearance over reality and the latent disorder in contemporary society. This appreciation of the sinister owes a huge debt to philosophy and especially modern thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida. Taking a thematic approach to Nolan's oeuvre, Robbie Goh examines how the director's postmodern inclinations manifest themselves in non-linearity, causal agnosticism, the threat of social anarchy and the frequent use of the mise en abyme, while running counter to these are narratives of heroism, moral responsibility and the dignity of human choice. For Goh, Nolan is a 'reluctant postmodernist'. His films reflect the cynicism of the modern world, but with their representation of heroic moral triumphs, they also resist it.




Adapting Greek Tragedy


Book Description

Adaptations of Greek tragedy are increasingly claiming our attention as a dynamic way of engaging with a dramatic genre that flourished in Greece some twenty-five centuries ago but remains as vital as ever. In this volume, fifteen leading scholars and practitioners of the theatre systematically discuss contemporary adaptations of Greek tragedy and explore the challenges and rewards involved therein. Adopting a variety of methodologies, viewpoints and approaches, the volume offers surveys of recent developments in the field, engages with challenging theoretical issues, and shows how adapting Greek tragedy can throw new light on a range of contemporary issues — from our relation to the classical past and our shifting perceptions of ethnic and cultural identities to the place, function and market-value of Greek drama in today's cultural industries. The volume will be welcomed by students and scholars in Classics, Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies, as well as by theatre practitioners.




Objects and Intertexts in Toni Morrison’s "Beloved"


Book Description

Objects and Intertexts in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”: The Case for Reparations is an inspired contribution to the scholarship on one of the most influential American novels and novelists. The author positions this contemporary classic as a meditation on historical justice and re-comprehends it as both a formal tragedy— a generic translation of fiction and tragedy or a “novel-tragedy” (Kliger)—and a novel of objects. Its many things—literary, conceptual, linguistic— are viewed as vessels carrying the (hi)story and the political concerns. From this, a third conclusion is drawn: Fadem argues for a view of Beloved as a case for reparations. That status is founded on two outstanding object lessons: the character of Beloved as embodiment of the subject-object relations defining the slave state and the grammatical object “weather” in the sentence “The rest is...” on the novel’s final page. This intertextual reference places Beloved in a comparative link with Hamlet and Oresteia. Fadem’s research is meticulous in engaging the full spectrum of tragedy theory, much critical theory, and a full swathe of scholarship on the novel. Few critics take up the matter of reparations, still fewer the politics of genre, craft, and form. This scholar posits Morrison’s tragedy as constituting a searing critique of modernity, as composed through meaningful intertextualities and as crafted by profound “thingly” objects (Brown). Altogether, Fadem has divined a fascinating singular treatment of Beloved exploring the connections between form and craft together with critical historical and political implications. The book argues, finally, that this novel’s first concern is justice, and its chief aim to serve as a clarion call for material— and not merely symbolic—reparations.




Hercules Performed


Book Description

Hercules Performed explores the reception of the ancient Greek hero Herakles – the Roman Hercules – on the western stage from the sixteenth century to the present day, focusing on live theatre, including tragedy, comedy and musical drama. Each chapter considers a particular work or theme in detail, exploring the interplay between classical models and a wide variety of modern performance contexts. The volume is one of four to be published in the Metaforms series examining the extraordinarily persistent figuring of Herakles-Hercules in western culture, drawing together scholars from a range of disciplines to offer a unique insight into the hero’s perennial appeal.




Ghosts of Theatre and Cinema in the Brain


Book Description

Pizzato focuses on the staging of Self and Other as phantom characters inside the brain (in the 'mind's eye', as Hamlet says). He explores the brain's anatomical evolution from animal drives to human consciousness to divine aspirations, through distinctive cultural expressions in stage and screen technologies.




Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism


Book Description

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.




Britton on Film


Book Description

"Renowned film scholar and editor Barry Keith Grant has assembled all of Britton's published essays of film criticism and theory for this volume, spanning the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The essays are arranged by theme: Hollywood cinema, Hollywood movies, European cinema, and film and cultural theory. In all, twenty-eight essays consider such varied films as Hitchcock's Spellbound, Jaws, The Exorcist, and Mandingo and topics as diverse as formalism, camp, psychoanalysis, imperialism, and feminism. Included are such well-known and important pieces as "Blissing Out: The Politics of Reaganite Entertainment" and "Sideshows: Hollywood in Vietnam," among the most perceptive discussions of these two periods of Hollywood history yet published. In addition, Britton's critiques of the ideology of Screen and Wisconsin formalism display his uncommon grasp of theory even when arguing against prevailing critical trends."




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