Why might interdependence, the idea that we are made up of our relations, be horrifying? On the surface, interdependence-the idea that individuals are each made up of their relations-appears to be a beautiful thing. Ecology, social theory, and the driving forces of digital media seem to agree that more and deeper connections to others are better. Yet there is a dark side of interdependence, too, that remains hidden away. Interdependence threatens the western philosophical ideal of individualism, and this threat lurks unseen in the backs of our minds like a dark spectre. Philosophy can give the contours of this spectre, and film can shine a light on its shadowy details. Together, they reveal a horror of relations. Contributors to this volume interrogate the question of interdependence through analyses of contemporary film and give voice to new perspectives on its meaning. Conceived before and written during the COVID-19 pandemic and through a period of deep social unrest, this volume illuminates a dark reality that is both perennial and timely.
Jonathan Beever is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Central Florida and director of the UCF Center for Ethics.
Foreword: Fear of Film: Cinema and Affective Entanglements, Kendall Phillips Introduction: The Horror of Relations, Jonathan Beever Section 1: Familial Relations Chapter 1: Love and Horror: In Bong Joon-Ho's Mother and Lee Chang-Dong's Poetry, Eunah Lee Chapter 2: Predatory Masculinity and Domestic Violence in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter, David Baumeister Chapter 3: "Will God Forgive Us?: Interdependence and Self-Transcendence in Paul Schrader's First Reformed", Vernon W. Cisney Section 2: Social-Political Relations Chapter 4: The Dark Night Of Ecological Despair: Awaiting Reconsecration in Paul Schrader's First Reformed, Chandler Rogers and Tober Corrigan Chapter 5: The Horror of Interdependence: Climate Migration Anxiety by the Radical Right in Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja's Aniara (2018) and Ari Aster's Midsommar (2019), Sydney Lane Chapter 6: Dissecting the Corrupted Body Politic: Fear, 'Body Horror' and the Failure of Relations, Josh Grant-Young Chapter 7: The Danger of Ecological and Economic Interdependence in the Films of Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Elmore and Rick Elmore Section 3: Techno-Ecological Relations Chapter 8: When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth: The Horror of Being Prey and Forgetting Nature, Yet Again, in Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, Eric S. Godoy Chapter 9: Weird Ecologies and the Uncanny in The Happening, Brian Onishi Chapter 10: Resident Evil, the Zomborg, and the Dark Side of Technological Interdependence, Jonathan Beever Chapter 11: When the Flame Goes Out: The Horror of Connected Consciousness, Luis Favela Conclusion: Imaginaries of Interdependence, Jonathan Beever Coda: Difficult Intersubjectivity: Interdependence and Cinematic Ethics, Robert Sinnerbrink
"Beever has produced a timely and relevant exploration of the potentially unsettling condition of interdependence, demonstrating the value of filmic narratives in helping to shape and form the human condition. This collection brings together some of the greatest minds in film and cultural studies to broaden our understanding of cinema and the role it can play in our postmodern, anthropogenic society."--Kyle Bishop, Southern Utah University; author of The Written Dead "Life is all about interrelationships; we are interdependent with much more than just our fellow humans. In a civilization that prides itself on individuality and separateness from nature, we need to embrace the vital shadow of dependency for it depends itself on the beauty of illumination."--Peter Whitehouse, Case Western Reserve University "What becomes of the anthropos in the anthropocene? This book's methodological scope guarantees something for every scholar interested in our entangled, contemporary world. Come for the lucid film analysis, stay for the existential nightmare fuel."--Katherine Kurtz, Villanova University
