TY - ABST

T1 - The Future Happening Right Now

T2 - genre/nostalgia<br/>

AU - Bagger, Christoffer

PY - 2021/1/5

Y1 - 2021/1/5

N2 - A genre which gained much prominence in the early days of cinema was what was broadly termed the” Mythical Ages”genre (Sweeney 2007). What these titles would have in common was a (more or less earnest) contrasting of differenthistoric (and sometimes mythical or prehistoric) time periods with the present age through either parallel plots orextended flashbacks. Notable examples include Intolerance (1916), Leaves from Satan’s Book (1919), Destiny (1921) andThree Ages (1923).Newer examples of this genre – most notably Cloud Atlas (2012) – represent an innovation of the genre in their renewedfocus on contrasting the present not only with different period of the past, but also with futures. Through a close formalanalysis and segmentation, the author argues how the film highly emphasizes the future – and a particularly postapocalyptic future at that- as a causal result of the present and past in its narrative construction.The end result is that the film doesn’t merely contrast different genres and time periods – it shows their interrelatednessand interdependency. The present, future and past cannot be meaningfully separated – and the film opts to show this bymatter-of-factly using science fiction genres to display fictional futures alongside with other, non-fantastical genres.

AB - A genre which gained much prominence in the early days of cinema was what was broadly termed the” Mythical Ages”genre (Sweeney 2007). What these titles would have in common was a (more or less earnest) contrasting of differenthistoric (and sometimes mythical or prehistoric) time periods with the present age through either parallel plots orextended flashbacks. Notable examples include Intolerance (1916), Leaves from Satan’s Book (1919), Destiny (1921) andThree Ages (1923).Newer examples of this genre – most notably Cloud Atlas (2012) – represent an innovation of the genre in their renewedfocus on contrasting the present not only with different period of the past, but also with futures. Through a close formalanalysis and segmentation, the author argues how the film highly emphasizes the future – and a particularly postapocalyptic future at that- as a causal result of the present and past in its narrative construction.The end result is that the film doesn’t merely contrast different genres and time periods – it shows their interrelatednessand interdependency. The present, future and past cannot be meaningfully separated – and the film opts to show this bymatter-of-factly using science fiction genres to display fictional futures alongside with other, non-fantastical genres.

UR - https://www.herts.ac.uk/research/groups-and-units/media-research-group/genrenostalgia-2021

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

Y2 - 5 January 2021 through 6 January 2021

ER -