Films: The Corporation, Inside Man, Why We Fight, Mission Impossible III, The Island, Kekexili
Books: 1984, Brave New World, The Universe in an Atom, The True Story of Ah Q
What do all these films and novels have in common? Well, overt in many and hidden in the rest is a voice of social critique, images of a dire future, an alternate present, or just a plain commentary of the many wrongs of the world. Each one seems to offer another puzzle piece to a larger vision - a vision that I have yet to fully realize. For example, The Corporation links themes from Inside Man and the Island by 1) showing how many corporations profited heavily off Nazi Germany just like the rich philanthropist in Inside Man who built his wealth on such an enterprise 2) how in The Island clones have become a vehicle for harvesting body parts which relates to the fact that since the 1970s in the US living organisms can be patented and licensed for profit. The link between MI:3 and Why We Fight is a bit more clear: the villian in MI:3 uses Ethan Hunt to create “terrorists and wars” in order for large governements to subsequently invade and rebuild those countries for the benefit of sustaining the millitary industrial complex.
1984 and Brave New World however focus mostly on governments and ways of governing and controling societies and people, Both authors have incredible vision and imagination, their narratives continuing to be relevant to modern society. Anyways, I feel that finally I’ve begun to come back to society at large, trying to construct for myself an image of how governments, societies, individuals, environments, and economics interact on a global basis, to struggle to understand how we as a civilization came to where we are and to see where we might be headed.