„Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and Mind, smitten with Pride, it immediately breaks all the Measures of my Patience; neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an Animal and such a Vice could tally together.“
(Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels) |
László Samuelis: IV. Apocalyptic Visions
„Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and Mind, smitten with Pride, it immediately breaks all the Measures of my Patience; neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an Animal and such a Vice could tally together.“
(Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels)
The formulation of apocalypses in literature is easier than in motion picture, because it can be deduced from its basic ideology. Ideologies can be formulated only in written form or verbally. Because of the nature of motion picture, it does not propose such ideological base for developing apocalyptic visions of the authors. In motion picture, visual quality works as the origin for the apocalyptic experience and the dramatic structure is the instrument for working out the apocalyptic image to apocalyptic vision.
The second significant attribute of apocalypses on motion picture is the development of subjective tone within a film. The author’s experience is the origin of subjectivity that refers to the visual reconstruction of reality. The visual reconstruction may be done with using the latest techniques of filmmaking, hiring the special digital effects crew and action director. At this point I must highlight an already mentioned issue about the coherency between visual outlook or image and the film’s structure. The film’s concept must be coherent to unify these basic items. The result of working out the whole process of filmmaking and the concept of apocalypses, paradoxically, do not allow such wide range of valid apocalyptic visions. An apocalypse from subjective viewpoint is for example Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, which is a subjective personal war apocalypse. The most of Stanley Kubrick’s and Lars von Trier’s films have apocalyptic atmosphere.
Another serious issue about apocalyptic visions of movie authors is the consciousness of creating the direct message. As I mentioned above, the didactical quality of dystopian movies became conventional, and at this point I must accept this tendency, although I do not agree with it. Some films degraded the dystopian science-fiction genre to illustrations of good and bad human qualities. This infantile concept means the explicit purpose of exploitation of motion picture.
Finally, in addition to the topic of direct message I would like to highlight the importance of eliminating the moral or intellectual message in films. Films do not have any messages at all. What the audience senses as a message after watching a movie, is the intellectual consequence proposed by the structure or shape of the film with the help of identification that has emotional attributes. The same applies for the dystopian science-fiction genre, when apocalyptic visions work as a simple illustration.
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