Teaching a Meaning of Life phil & film course this semester considered
this a bit. Lots of films about nihilism but that's a bit different from
really being nihilistic. Maybe Viridiana? Perhaps a bit too much implied
ruefulness. Bunuel's Las Hurdes maybe comes closer but maybe too much
tinged with despair. Others that despair at the absence of values rather
than embracing it: La Dolce Vita (ambiguous) and Ken Jacobs / Jack
Smith / Bob Flieschner's Blond Cobra. Christopher MacLaine's The End
just despairs, though with too much implied regret. Scorpio Rising has
elements, but embraces death and disorder in a way that reverses values
rather than denying them. Some Italian giallo horror / zombie movies may
come close. In class ended up showing Stranger than Paradise, where the
characters literally face the void, as an illustration of their general
lack of care; but that movie distances itself from its characters too
much. The movie that comes to mind is Paranoia, an Italian Carroll Baker
movie in which, as I remember it, she plays a character who is purposely
driven mad; if I remember, that movie had a nasty cynicism that seemed
to embrace rather than regret nihilism. It's been a long time, though,
and I can't really vouch for it with confidence.
j
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