Re: Film and tragedy. The approach described below could be defined as “from ritual/mystery to tragedy and back, to the mystery genres.”

The 2nd half of the Fictional Worlds book set focuses on this connection. While these issues are examined throughout all four parts of Fictional Worlds, if you need a concise version, for example teaching a course “Tragedy and Cinema,” you may find essential materials collected in Part Three, titled Tragedy & Mystery. It could effectively serve as a resource/ textbook. See the links below: the Kindle with a purple cover; or the print edition with a dragon.

The key premises: 

* Tragedy as a genre is instrumental in the mechanisms of culture in creating a civilized society. 

* Our modern-day societies have lost their touch with the genre of (classical) tragedy and no longer understand its cultural language. (There are many reasons for this, examined in Fictional Worlds).

* In part, and with mixed results, the cultural functions of High Tragedy are “taken upon themselves” by narrative forms related to crime investigation, and such genres as mystery, crime drama, thriller and film noir (yes, the book argues that film noir is a genre). 

There are many conceptual angles and case studies examining why, when and how the narratives of crime investigation “substitute” the cultural function of tragedy, and also when they fail to do so.

There are 4 chapters in Fictional Worlds III: Tragedy & Mystery: 

(1) on classical Greek tragedy and its screen interpretations; 

(2) “Tales of Intolerance” – a chapter on the films that approach a tragic genre, while examining, with a sense of urgency, contemporary socio-political events; 

(3) Mystery – on how this form (set of genres) effectively and sometimes ineffectively replaces tragedy as a cultural mechanism

(4) Film Noir – is a new narrative/media genre, which has a fusion of many old and novel cultural elements and mechanisms, with a promise of taking one of the central roles in the genre spectrum of the future.

Fictional Worlds has many discussions of tragedy onscreen, for example Shakespeare – Hamlet in Book 1, 2, 4; Othello in Book 1, 2; King Lear in Book 1, 4.

Besides the analyses of classical Greek tragedies on-screen (Pasolini, Cacoyannis, et al), Tragedy & Mystery, Book 3 includes case studies of the following films: 

The last chapter examines the intersections of tragic genre with film noir, existentialism and postmodernism, with brief analyses of Pepe le Moko, Port of Shadows, The Lady from Shanghai, The Conformist, Contempt, Voyager, Nostalgia, Paris,Texas, The Return, and The Good Shepherd. (In the subsequent installment of Fictional Worlds, the screen references to The Odyssey and Joyce’s Ulysses are examined, partly in the contexts of tragedy and mystery).

Tragedy & Mystery is a comprehensive theoretical resource on the tragic genre on-screen and its contemporary transformations, with a set of case studies, suitable as a textbook for the courses on both tragedy and mystery. While best to be read in sequence, as a component of the 4-part Fictional Worlds, Part 3 is designed to also be useful as an independent text.

Fictional Worlds III: Tragedy & Mystery is available in print (2013) and on Kindle (2014); also forthcoming this spring as an illustrated interactive iBook.

Fictional Worlds I: The Symbolic Journey – a preceding part – focuses on the ritual-symbolic code of death-rebirth across narrative forms, essential for understanding tragedy, using an array of examples from film culture. I would start here. And this part is already available as an interactive iBook on iTunes.

This post is not so much a “promotion” as an invitation for a scholarly dialogue. In sum, we can’t properly understand the modern day obsession with crime fiction without a discussion of tragedy. And vice versa.

The film scholars and educators, who may choose to read the above text(s) or use them in the classroom, are most welcome to share their observations and comments. 

For questions: [log in to unmask]