Re: Apocalypse films

From: marco poloni (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Jan 20 2009 - 17:09:56 PST

I agree with Jonathan. I have a couple of suggestions of films on the atomic bomb, maybe some have already been mentioned on this thread, can't remember: “Black Rain” an early Imamura film, and “Crossroads” by Bruce Conner. you might want to have a look on an interesting biopic by the Dubini brothers “Das Verschwinden des Ettore Majorana”, a documentary on the italian physicist who disappeared out of a refusal (so goes their thesis) to participate with Fermi et.al. to the production of the american nuclear bombs. i also did a couple of short experimental films about Majorana. Best, Marco

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan M Hall <(address suppressed)>
Sent: Jan 20, 2009 6:00 PM
To: (address suppressed)
Subject: Re: Apocalypse films

Dear Margaret,

I think a discussion of apocalypse could easily and helpfully include material that comments on and reflects the atomic bomb experience.  There's an endless amount of material on the subject, much of it, not surprisingly, from the US and Japan.  Experimental Japanese work includes The Navel and A-Bomb [Heso to genbaku] (Hosoe Eiko) 1960 and the animation piece Shadow [Kage] (Hayashi Seiichi) 1968.   On the American side, I think Leslie Thornton's recent Let Me Count the Ways, 10...9...8...7... , which was recently part of a program at the SF Cinematheque, would be of great interest. For historical reasons it's not surprising, but Americans have seemed much more hesitant to engage their own atomic bomb/apocalypse in its most recent and concrete manifestation, so provoking your students to do so would be valuable and intellectually rewarding for them, I bet.

You might also consider Steven Okazaki's White Light/Black Rain (2006) or  a chapter in Mark Nornes' book on Japanese documentary.  US-Japan Film Wars and Hibakusha Cinema are also helpful books.  I use all these materials with a good deal of success in the classroom.

Yours sincerely,
Jonathan M Hall
University of California Irvine

On 20 Jan 2009, at 03:35, Margaret Jamieson wrote:





Hi List:

I'm teaching a class on apocalypse films and would welcome any suggestions, especially: shorter films, experimental films, non-fiction, international films, and other platforms, like games or installations. The premise of the course is to follow the anxieties of culture through apocalypse films, and the readings go from  Boccaccio  to Wheeler Winston Dixon, and the films from Birth of a Nation to Bruce Connor (with, rest assured, lots of aliens in between), so I'm very open to ideas.  

Thank you for your generosity, as always--MJ

__________________________________________________________________ For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <(address suppressed)>.



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Marco Poloni, Korsörer Strasse 1, D-10437 Berlin
gsm +41.78.6322028, skype marcopoloni

__________________________________________________________________ For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <(address suppressed)>.