Revolting fantasies

reviewing the cinematic image as fruitful ground for creative, theological interpretations in the company of Julia Kristeva

Alison Jasper

pp. 199-214

in: Williams Ortiz Gaye, Clara B. Joseph (eds), Theology and literature, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Abstract

Are the movies good for us? In her book, Intimate Revolt: The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis, Julia Kristeva (2002a) defends what she calls a revolutionary culture whose mode and purpose is a liberating process of questioning and interpretation, derived from both philosophy and psychoanalysis, which challenges what Guy Debord has defined as the 'society of the spectacle"—a society dominated by deadening, stereotypical images or representations which paralyze our imagination and lead to the banalization of evil and horror in the service of global capitalism. In this piece I attempt to apply some of Kristeva's insights about a revolutionary culture of interrogation and interpretation to two commercially successful films—The Silence of the Lambs ( Jonathan Demme 1991) and Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan 1994)—in order to test her conclusions. I argue that Kristeva's understanding of revolution or revolutionary culture contributes to what I have described as a "theological" process of making—provisional—meaning.

Cited authors

Kristeva Julia

Debord Guy