The great anthropologist Claude Lévi Strauss in a rare interview a year ago said that people did not think at the end of the world, which harbors no interest in the arguments that this is apocalyptic and ultimately journalistic inventions, created on purpose to excite the minds of readers, perhaps to distract from matters most series. With all the reverence for this giant of thought, recently deceased, well, at least in this case we can say that he was wrong.
This proves, if nothing else, the catastrophic famine of epic in the public worldwide. A large appetite stimulating majors to bring cinematic disasters of all types and species, as happens at the end of the world made by German director Roland Emmerich in 2012 , in the best tradition jinx released simultaneously worldwide on 13 November. Surprisingly concise title for a film cost about two hundred million dollars, only four digits and nothing else, so essential to look like a mistake. But there is no individual in the world who do not immediately associate the string "two zero one two" the fateful prophecy contained in the Mayan calendar, according to which December 21, 2012 will end the current cosmic cycle, with the consequent destruction of the world . In short, a pre-Columbian Ragnarök, announced a few seconds by a solar storm that would change the structure of the magnetic poles, according to others by the arrival of Planet X, on a collision course with the Earth.
But if Sony Pictures has paid such a staggering figure to make a film from its high content does not mean that there is something more behind than the inspiration of captious journalists. In fact, Levi-Strauss probably had not considered the effect of resonance coming from the web, where the role of traditional communication, rational and logical-sequential, it is absolutely marginal, and where the contrary is a very strong emotional communication, imitation and generating of mutual fascination. But he understood the fly Emmerich, who has become accustomed to apocalyptic scenarios of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow of , remake The Day After the of 1984, as well as the beautiful remake of Godzilla. This time the director, in an interview shot in Italy by the newspaper, "has publicly admitted that the idea came to him listening to the collective voice of the internet, because for years the web has literally flooded with signs of all types and millenarian origin.
However, by definition, a film about such an argument would be no history: the disaster occurs, they all die. Fine. And too many scenes of destruction bored. Emmerich has circumvented the obstacle narrative inventing an international conspiracy, perpetrated by the elite during the G8 summit of the world, determined to save his skin by building secret hyper spaceships, flood-proof. The goal will be back on Earth after the disaster, to repopulate. Obviously the evil secret plan will be impeded by several heroes for the event, first of all Jack Curtis (John Cusack), determined to save his family.
actually nothing new, even the undeclared debt is infinite. More than a century ago, Herbert George Wells, in the best-selling In the days of the comet, described already (almost) end of the world caused by a meteor from outer space. The formidable oncoming celestial body as a sidereal nuncio to punish mankind, afflicted by war, poverty and exploitation. It was probably the first major revision in key science fiction myth of Noah's flood, in effect the first real disaster story becomes almost universal because it provides for regeneration. After Wells
are countless books and films related subjects. The imaginary wellsite fertilized in fact artists, writers, visionaries and even scientists, among them German and Nazi Hanns Hörbinger confident that the true history of the planet had been written by periodic catastrophes inflicted by the moons fall upon the earth.
But the biggest inspiration for Emmerich is the writer James Ballard, the absolute master of natural disasters. In Wind out of nowhere, published in 1961, Ballard described drafts that over one thousand kilometers per hour and sweep any human artifact. Nothing could resist. Here too the rulers decide to save his precious skin, though without success, building a hi-tech Superfortress. Then, in Desert Water , 1963, Ballard explained the slow but inexorable end of the world as a result of heavy rain and a sort of greenhouse, then reworked theme unabated to this day. Not only
. The most impressive scenes of 2012 show that sank gigantic tectonic plates, oceans flood the Himalayas, earthquakes splitting continents, cities that crumble in an instant. Exactly what we read in Degree XII, apocalyptic novel by Leonard Daventry published in 1972: almost a pre-established script. Yet it is not plagiarism, but something vaguely similar psychic economy that governs the epic. The director knows how to manipulate the clever literary traditions and icons common to all, as the bard Homer manipulated oral traditions.
And in a century has gone all right if the imagination has produced variants apocalyptic. With a difference, compared to 2012: almost all provide for the social actors, be they aliens (as in the recent remake of The Day the Earth ), higher intelligence and almost divine, from space, or perfidious powers foreign, or even scientists who do not control their experiments, artificial or even children of humanity itself, as in the Terminator saga, it seems destined to join us against our will for the next twenty years.
But if there are social actors, then the drama never really end, the cosmic eviction notice will come to some, perhaps most, yet not for everyone. Also, comes into play the issue of moral responsibility. It is filled with science fiction novels of the '50s and '60s. Even without the always quoted Philip K. Dick, who raised the issue in Man games with prizes in Deus Irae and other novels, where, however, a residual humanity struggle to avoid self-extinction, there is no doubt that the authors who have grappled with the genre have always connected the end of the world with the destructiveness of human reason.
Among the hundreds of examples of the scientist and writer Roshwald Mordecai, author of Level 7, 1959, and A Small Armageddon, 1962, both nuclear holocaust, and then Charles Eric Maine, among the first to describe The Darkest of Nights , 1962, concluding a pandemic, triggered by expressing bacteriological imprudent. Not to mention The Day of the Triffids, the 1951 masterpiece by John Wyndham, which combines a coming cataclysm from the sky (meteorites that blind anyone to observe) than that man obtains by his own hands, altering the genetic structure of plants.
However, these human representations of Armageddon do not bite like the one created by Emmerich, almost as a kind of addiction with the time he made acceptable, even "domestic". Because something has fundamentally changed the perception of divine punishment, which is traditionally associated with the destruction. It almost seems that the prospects chiliastic followers of Joachim of Fiore not terrorize anymore, and for centuries, to the point that the philosopher Immanuel Kant already raised the question of the end of the world in new terms. In
Das Ende aller Dinge , ie The end of all things , wise expressly dedicated to all apocalyptic thinking and published in 1794 in volume 23 of the journal Berlinische Monatsschrift, "as Kant argued, inter alia, it is known that the moral maturity and intellectual humanity excludes the very idea of \u200b\u200ba God who delivers exemplary punishments. Therefore, the Judgement would not be a projection, present in all people who use reason, but that still need to find a chief judge of good and evil. In contrast, the spread of a conscious and conscientious adult would lead mankind to respect their moral condition and choose good, also dissipating projections millenarian and the depths of terror that are wide open in front of the hypothesis of a global holocaust.
will be so? Is doubtful, partly because of quell'Aufklärung invoked by Kant, of that final clarification, in short, that lighting autogenous should prepare a better future, is that if they see that much around. On the contrary, common sense suggests that the runaway box office success of the disaster movie has probably other reasons. It may sound strange, but the end of the world illustrated by large productions such as the 2012 Emmerich is no fear, and can even be cathartic, just because the content promises an event without a way out. In fact, the panic ignited minds when it spots an escape route, albeit cramped. But if the doors are locked, if not there is no escape, then waits of the inevitable, even greeting him with a macabre final toast.
This proves, if nothing else, the catastrophic famine of epic in the public worldwide. A large appetite stimulating majors to bring cinematic disasters of all types and species, as happens at the end of the world made by German director Roland Emmerich in 2012 , in the best tradition jinx released simultaneously worldwide on 13 November. Surprisingly concise title for a film cost about two hundred million dollars, only four digits and nothing else, so essential to look like a mistake. But there is no individual in the world who do not immediately associate the string "two zero one two" the fateful prophecy contained in the Mayan calendar, according to which December 21, 2012 will end the current cosmic cycle, with the consequent destruction of the world . In short, a pre-Columbian Ragnarök, announced a few seconds by a solar storm that would change the structure of the magnetic poles, according to others by the arrival of Planet X, on a collision course with the Earth.
But if Sony Pictures has paid such a staggering figure to make a film from its high content does not mean that there is something more behind than the inspiration of captious journalists. In fact, Levi-Strauss probably had not considered the effect of resonance coming from the web, where the role of traditional communication, rational and logical-sequential, it is absolutely marginal, and where the contrary is a very strong emotional communication, imitation and generating of mutual fascination. But he understood the fly Emmerich, who has become accustomed to apocalyptic scenarios of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow of , remake The Day After the of 1984, as well as the beautiful remake of Godzilla. This time the director, in an interview shot in Italy by the newspaper, "has publicly admitted that the idea came to him listening to the collective voice of the internet, because for years the web has literally flooded with signs of all types and millenarian origin.
However, by definition, a film about such an argument would be no history: the disaster occurs, they all die. Fine. And too many scenes of destruction bored. Emmerich has circumvented the obstacle narrative inventing an international conspiracy, perpetrated by the elite during the G8 summit of the world, determined to save his skin by building secret hyper spaceships, flood-proof. The goal will be back on Earth after the disaster, to repopulate. Obviously the evil secret plan will be impeded by several heroes for the event, first of all Jack Curtis (John Cusack), determined to save his family.
actually nothing new, even the undeclared debt is infinite. More than a century ago, Herbert George Wells, in the best-selling In the days of the comet, described already (almost) end of the world caused by a meteor from outer space. The formidable oncoming celestial body as a sidereal nuncio to punish mankind, afflicted by war, poverty and exploitation. It was probably the first major revision in key science fiction myth of Noah's flood, in effect the first real disaster story becomes almost universal because it provides for regeneration. After Wells
are countless books and films related subjects. The imaginary wellsite fertilized in fact artists, writers, visionaries and even scientists, among them German and Nazi Hanns Hörbinger confident that the true history of the planet had been written by periodic catastrophes inflicted by the moons fall upon the earth.
But the biggest inspiration for Emmerich is the writer James Ballard, the absolute master of natural disasters. In Wind out of nowhere, published in 1961, Ballard described drafts that over one thousand kilometers per hour and sweep any human artifact. Nothing could resist. Here too the rulers decide to save his precious skin, though without success, building a hi-tech Superfortress. Then, in Desert Water , 1963, Ballard explained the slow but inexorable end of the world as a result of heavy rain and a sort of greenhouse, then reworked theme unabated to this day. Not only
. The most impressive scenes of 2012 show that sank gigantic tectonic plates, oceans flood the Himalayas, earthquakes splitting continents, cities that crumble in an instant. Exactly what we read in Degree XII, apocalyptic novel by Leonard Daventry published in 1972: almost a pre-established script. Yet it is not plagiarism, but something vaguely similar psychic economy that governs the epic. The director knows how to manipulate the clever literary traditions and icons common to all, as the bard Homer manipulated oral traditions.
And in a century has gone all right if the imagination has produced variants apocalyptic. With a difference, compared to 2012: almost all provide for the social actors, be they aliens (as in the recent remake of The Day the Earth ), higher intelligence and almost divine, from space, or perfidious powers foreign, or even scientists who do not control their experiments, artificial or even children of humanity itself, as in the Terminator saga, it seems destined to join us against our will for the next twenty years.
But if there are social actors, then the drama never really end, the cosmic eviction notice will come to some, perhaps most, yet not for everyone. Also, comes into play the issue of moral responsibility. It is filled with science fiction novels of the '50s and '60s. Even without the always quoted Philip K. Dick, who raised the issue in Man games with prizes in Deus Irae and other novels, where, however, a residual humanity struggle to avoid self-extinction, there is no doubt that the authors who have grappled with the genre have always connected the end of the world with the destructiveness of human reason.
Among the hundreds of examples of the scientist and writer Roshwald Mordecai, author of Level 7, 1959, and A Small Armageddon, 1962, both nuclear holocaust, and then Charles Eric Maine, among the first to describe The Darkest of Nights , 1962, concluding a pandemic, triggered by expressing bacteriological imprudent. Not to mention The Day of the Triffids, the 1951 masterpiece by John Wyndham, which combines a coming cataclysm from the sky (meteorites that blind anyone to observe) than that man obtains by his own hands, altering the genetic structure of plants.
However, these human representations of Armageddon do not bite like the one created by Emmerich, almost as a kind of addiction with the time he made acceptable, even "domestic". Because something has fundamentally changed the perception of divine punishment, which is traditionally associated with the destruction. It almost seems that the prospects chiliastic followers of Joachim of Fiore not terrorize anymore, and for centuries, to the point that the philosopher Immanuel Kant already raised the question of the end of the world in new terms. In
Das Ende aller Dinge , ie The end of all things , wise expressly dedicated to all apocalyptic thinking and published in 1794 in volume 23 of the journal Berlinische Monatsschrift, "as Kant argued, inter alia, it is known that the moral maturity and intellectual humanity excludes the very idea of \u200b\u200ba God who delivers exemplary punishments. Therefore, the Judgement would not be a projection, present in all people who use reason, but that still need to find a chief judge of good and evil. In contrast, the spread of a conscious and conscientious adult would lead mankind to respect their moral condition and choose good, also dissipating projections millenarian and the depths of terror that are wide open in front of the hypothesis of a global holocaust.
will be so? Is doubtful, partly because of quell'Aufklärung invoked by Kant, of that final clarification, in short, that lighting autogenous should prepare a better future, is that if they see that much around. On the contrary, common sense suggests that the runaway box office success of the disaster movie has probably other reasons. It may sound strange, but the end of the world illustrated by large productions such as the 2012 Emmerich is no fear, and can even be cathartic, just because the content promises an event without a way out. In fact, the panic ignited minds when it spots an escape route, albeit cramped. But if the doors are locked, if not there is no escape, then waits of the inevitable, even greeting him with a macabre final toast.
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