Antti Selkokari made a great point in yesterday's Titanic discussion, about
recent expensive films showing more and more technological destruction.
But the desire to experience the edge of death vicariously--through sublime
spectacle--also goes back to the beginnings of cinema in the romanticism
and melodrama of 19th-century theatre.  Other than the excesses of
technology, rather than natural disaster (and Titanic gives us the
nostalgia of both), is this desire/fear for sublime death onscreen so
different today?  Is it also the desire for punishment, as Antti suggests,
guilt at the pleasure of technology (while the Third World suffers)?
 
Mark Pizzato
Dept. of Dance and Theatre
UNC-Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223
[log in to unmask]
(704) 547-4488
FAX: 704-547-3795
 
----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama.