Citation

Aaron M. Cinema journal 2014; 53(2): 71-92.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, University of Texas Press)

DOI

10.1353/cj.2014.0019

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article explores fiction film's limited but highly symbolic representation of suicide, of, that is, an individual's witting or self-willed self-killing. In doing so, it distinguishes mainstream cinema's mortal economies. These, the death-dealing visual and narrative logic of film itself, depend on the interplay of identity and power, of--more immediately--gender, nation, and race. This complex interplay is animated here through an analysis of Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Hany Abu-Assad's Oscar-nominated film Paradise Now (2005) and comes to determine my identification of mainstream cinema as necropolitical.

Language: en