Metamodernism In Science-Fiction Films? Part 1
‘Megalopolis’ (2024)
“Even in youth Catiline had many shameful intrigues — with a maiden of noble rank, with a priestess of Vesta — and other affairs equally unlawful and impious.”
— Sallust, Catiline’s War, Book XV, pt. 1 (trans. J. C. Rolfe)
“Catiline was found, far in advance of his men, among the dead bodies of the enemy; a most glorious death, had he thus fallen for his country.”
— Florus (c. 74 AD — c. 130 AD), Epitome of Roman History, ‘The Insurrection of Catiline’ (trans. J. S. Watson)
Science fiction films often express highly complex philosophical ideas and are generally dark reflections through a cultural prism of our human anxieties over agency, consciousness, and identity. However, contemporary dominant cultural and philosophical ideologies fundamentally shape these films’ approach to such questions.
As you should already know I cannot accept such clear delineation nor change in our paradigms of cultural modernity through sheer historicity. The end and the beginning of cultural epistemes are more akin to the Ouroboros where the beginning and the end — the Alpha and Omega — are within the same continuum and the same work of creativity.
