Cinema
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The first chapter of Inglourious Basterds is titled “Once upon A Time in Nazi-occupied France” and this signals that we are in the realm of a fairy-tale, and “wish-fulfillment fantasy” as Quentin Tarantino said. Lt. Aldo Raine, an American with Native American roots, assembled a group of Jewish Nazi hunters, saying that each one of…
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“I think they built Hollywood on the West Coast because they were always dreaming of a New World. When they arrived here, the only way to keep dreaming was to make movies. Film was the fourth dimension.” – Denis Villeneuve In the introduction to his work Nomos of the Earth Carl Schmitt wrote that the…
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At the start of his career as an animator, Hayao Miyazaki worked at studio Todei Doga in Tokyo. He quickly became disillusioned with it and almost quit the company. He later recalled: “Had I not seen The Snow Queen during a film screening hosted by the company labor union, I honestly doubt that I would…
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Dune: Messiah, the novel which is a source material for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three, was written by Frank Herbert mainly to emphasize the notion he tried to introduce in the original Dune novel. Herbert’s work was heavily influenced by his conservative and libertarian ideas, which imply that concentrated political power is dangerous. Herbert once…
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Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill is made to be seen in one sitting since only thus can the whole bloody affair be fully grasped, as what it truly is. Vol. 1 is highly aestheticized, we see the Bride on a killing spree seeking vengeance, eliminating the Deadly Vipers under Bill’s command. Vol. 2 ties the whole…
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The purpose of this reflection on Faramir and Chani, as they are portrayed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s and Frank Herbert’s novels, and how their role is changed in the films made by Peter Jackson and Denis Villeneuve, is not to lament over those changes. It is to show how they reflect different languages of a novel…
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In the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: The Space Odyssey “The Dawn of Man”apes are seen fighting over resources, more concretely, a hole filled with water. We see the violent beginnings of human race in the pre-historic times, and in the famous scene the very piece of bone which is used to beat down…
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In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One, under the influence of melange, spice which can be found only on Arrakis, Paul sees the visions of a holy war, and in shock, tells his mother: “It’s coming. I see a holy war spreading across the universe like unquenchable fire. A warrior religion that waves the Atreides banner…
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“The Delphic oracle, which for modern poets – Yeats, for example – can conjure up mystic romantic visions, was for Sophocles and his audience, a fact of life, an institution as present and solid, as uncompromising… as the Vatican is for us. States and individuals alike consulted it as a matter of course about important…
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Hias, the prophet, speaks: „ I look into the distance, to the end of the world. Before the day is over the end will come. First time will tumble, and then the earth. The clouds will begin to race, the earth boils over; this is the sign. This is the beginning of the end. The…
