Movies as mythologically informed literature. Cinema Discourse looks at current and classic movies from a literary, and particularly a mythological, point of view.
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17th February 2008

On Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe, or Venus Redux  

By John David Ebert

It could be said that Walter Benjamin’s analysis of the non-reproducibility of an actor’s aura misses a certain point, since it was by means of the very technological process of filming and then projecting upon a gigantic screen the images of actors like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando that conferred upon them auras of mythic grandeur which they would not otherwise have possessed. Benjamin, it seems, did not understand the essentially myth-making power of film. Read the rest of this entry »

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17th February 2008

Sunshine: A Review

Sunshine: A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

The director of this film, Danny Boyle, is no believer in technological progress. Indeed, the film concerns an ever increasing series of technological disasters and systems failures that grow more urgent as the plot unfolds, each disaster giving rise to the next like a series of Russian dolls placed one inside the other. On the ship’s mission to deliver a payload that will reignite a dying sun, anything that can go wrong does go wrong. Boyle does not leave us with any confidence that our technologies will save us, despite the film’s Pyrrhic victory at the end. Read the rest of this entry »

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