Kate:
It strikes me that the responses to your inquiry so far have talked about the representation of ideology in a different sense from what you are noting. While there have been many ideological movies made (e.g. The Fountainhead), and some movies are even about ideology (Godard, or Bertolucci in spots), the four you single out are unique, it seems to me, in their self-conscious metaphorical deconstruction of the apparatus of ideology.
Examples of that in previous film history are harder to find...any further suggestions?
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Katherine Greenwood [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sun 4/20/2003 8:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: film and ideology
Hello all
Without wanting to restate the same terms of debate of the recent discussion
about _The Matrix_ on this list, I wanted to pose a couple of questions about
this film, among others:
Is it important that The Truman Show, The Matrix, Dark City and Fight Club
(among other films) appeared within 2 years of each other and all contain a
similarly overt address to theories/philosophies of ideology? (here I am using
'ideology' in the Althusserian sense of being the representation of the
imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence)?
The question as to whether theory/philosophy 'belong' in popular culture arose
during the recent discussion about The Matrix, and I was wondering if it is new
for Hollywood to contain, to varying degrees, self-conscious references to
contemporary theories of ideology, or has this always been the case? I ask this
more in the sense that I believe these films represent, to varying degrees, an
examination of ideology as a general concept rather than provide examples where
one can apply and critique the treatment of various specific ideologies. Can
anyone suggest any other (historic) examples of popular films which address
ideology? Or is this just me reading what I want to into these films at the
expense of objectivity?
Cheers
Kate
