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This book is an ambitious attempt to produce an interdisciplinary
reading of a set of relatively recent Hollywood films that appear to
make references to the biblical genre of apocalyptic and
associated ideas of Christian martyrdom and eschatology: End of
Days, Armageddon, Alien3, The Rapture, The Seventh Sign.
It is a 'preposterous' reading (Mieke Bal's term), reversing a
common-sense impulse to view what comes first chronologically
(the biblical text) as an unproblematic template rather than as itself
the consequence of subsequent, contextualized readings. The
cinematic reworkings Copier describes shift our understanding of
both texts (biblical and cinematic) and genre. Within this process,
the apocalyptic subject-the martyr-adopts variable poses that
reflect the effects of this disorienting reversal: across the five films
analysed, the martyr moves from identifiably Christian
motivations to the representation of patriotic American
masculinity, or even to something that, in a contrary sense,
powerfully challenges the conventional masculinity of any
martyrdom that counts as significant.
To achieve a genuine interdisciplinarity, Copier not only avoids
reading each film as if it were simply the visual counterpart to a
(biblical) narrative, but also analyses in the case of each film
what the 'shot list' of a key sequence reveals about the semiotics
at work within its construction. Unlike most encounters between
religion and film, her film analysis goes far beyond the
identification of themes and motifs. Here the author engages
with the larger field of film studies, and especially with film as
a visual medium.
