Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Films

Films and existential angst

Ladies and gentlemen… 21st Century Philosophy Now is proud to present the first showing in a new series of philosophical film articles by Thomas Wartenberg. In this installment he looks at American Beauty, Fight Club and Being John Malkovich.

If one were to judge solely from the front pages of the New York Times, life in America would seem to be proceeding smoothly. Despite the frequent dips and surges in the stock market, Americans are reported to be generally quite content with their lot. The concerns foremost on Americans’ minds seems to be how to cash in on the internet and whether they can join the swelling ranks of the new internet millionaires and billionaires.

Yet a number of recent films suggest that things are not going as well as the news headlines might have us believe. Indeed, these films have more in common with post-War Paris, the home of French Existentialism, than with the optimistic worldview registered so widely by the American media.

…