Anatomy Ofmelancholia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4824040 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Sinnerbrink (0000-0002-3330-3038, Macquarie University) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 111-126 |
| Publication date | 2014-10-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Angelaki (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0969-725X • E-ISSN: 1469-2899 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0969725x.2014.984446 |
| OpenAlex | W2025799227 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 11 |
This article analyses some of the aesthetic and philosophical strands of Lars von Trier's Melancholia, focusing in particular on the film's remarkable Prelude, arguing that it performs a complex ethical critique of rationalist optimism in the guise of a neo-italictic allegory of world-destruction. At the same time, I suggest that Melancholia seeks to “work through” the loss of worlds – cinematic but also cultural and natural – that characterises our historical mood, one that might be described as a deflationary apocalypticism or melancholy modernity. From this perspective, Melancholia belongs to a genealogical lineage that links it with two earlier films important for von Trier: Ingmar Bergman's Shame [Skammen] (1968) and Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice (1986). All three films share a concern with apocalypticism, world-sacrifice, and historical melancholia; but they also explore different responses to the imagined experience of a catastrophic loss of world. By examining these films in relation to Melancholia we can trace the logic of this loss, culminating in Melancholia's radical gesture of world-sacrifice; this aestheticisation of world-destruction has the paradoxical ethical meaning, I suggest, of preparing for a post-humanist beginning
Apocalypticism · Art · Epistemology · Judaism · Literature · Melancholia · Mood · Nihilism · Psychoanalysis · Sacrifice · Theology · Kierkegaardian Philosophy and Influence · Literature and Cultural Memory · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology · Philosophy · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |