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The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott

Adam Barkman; Ashley Barkman and Nancy Kang

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott, edited by Adam Barkman, Ashley Barkman, and Nancy Kang, brings together eighteen critical essays that illuminate a nearly comprehensive selection of the director’s feature films from cutting-edge multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Chapters examine such signature works as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma and Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and American Gangster (2007).

This volume divides the chapters into three major thematic groups: responsibility, remembering, and revision; real, alienated, and ideal lives; and gender, identity, and selfhood. Each section features six discrete essays, each of which forwards an original thesis about the film or films chosen for analysis. Each chapter features close readings of scenes as well as broader discussions that will interest academics, non-specialists, as well as educated readers with an interest in films as visual texts. While recognizing Scott’s undeniable contributions to contemporary popular cinema, the volume does not shy away from honest and well-evidenced critique.

Each chapter’s approach correlates with philosophical, literary, or cultural studies perspectives. Using both combined and single-film discussions, the contributors examine such topics as gender roles and feminist theory; philosophical abstractions like ethics, honor, and personal responsibility; historical memory and the challenges of accurately rendering historical events on screen; literary archetypes and generic conventions; race relations and the effect of class difference on character construction; how religion shapes personal and collective values; the role of a constantly changing technological universe; and the schism between individual and group-based power structures.

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott assembles the critical essays of scholars working in the fields of philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies. An international group, they are based in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Italy, Greece, Korea, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The guiding assumption on the part of all the writers is that the filmmaker is the leading determiner of a motion picture’s ethos, artistic vision, and potential for audience engagement. While not discounting the production team (including screenwriters, actors, and cinematographers, among others), auteur theory recognizes the seminal role of the director as the nucleus of the meaning-making process. With Scott an active and prolific presence in the entertainment industry today, the timeliness of this volume is optimal.

Lexington Books

Pages: 310 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-7872-0 • Hardback • March 2013 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-1-4985-1177-3 • Paperback • February 2015 • $62.99 • (£48.00)

978-0-7391-7873-7 • eBook • March 2013 • $59.50 • (£46.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Aesthetics, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Popular Culture

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott, edited by Adam Barkman, Ashley Barkman, and Nancy Kang, brings together eighteen critical essays that illuminate a nearly comprehensive selection of the director’s feature films from cutting-edge multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Chapters examine such signature works as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma and Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and American Gangster (2007).

This volume divides the chapters into three major thematic groups: responsibility, remembering, and revision; real, alienated, and ideal lives; and gender, identity, and selfhood. Each section features six discrete essays, each of which forwards an original thesis about the film or films chosen for analysis. Each chapter features close readings of scenes as well as broader discussions that will interest academics, non-specialists, as well as educated readers with an interest in films as visual texts. While recognizing Scott’s undeniable contributions to contemporary popular cinema, the volume does not shy away from honest and well-evidenced critique.

Each chapter’s approach correlates with philosophical, literary, or cultural studies perspectives. Using both combined and single-film discussions, the contributors examine such topics as gender roles and feminist theory; philosophical abstractions like ethics, honor, and personal responsibility; historical memory and the challenges of accurately rendering historical events on screen; literary archetypes and generic conventions; race relations and the effect of class difference on character construction; how religion shapes personal and collective values; the role of a constantly changing technological universe; and the schism between individual and group-based power structures.

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott assembles the critical essays of scholars working in the fields of philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies. An international group, they are based in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Italy, Greece, Korea, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The guiding assumption on the part of all the writers is that the filmmaker is the leading determiner of a motion picture’s ethos, artistic vision, and potential for audience engagement. While not discounting the production team (including screenwriters, actors, and cinematographers, among others), auteur theory recognizes the seminal role of the director as the nucleus of the meaning-making process. With Scott an active and prolific presence in the entertainment industry today, the timeliness of this volume is optimal.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 310 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-7872-0 • Hardback • March 2013 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-1-4985-1177-3 • Paperback • February 2015 • $62.99 • (£48.00)

978-0-7391-7873-7 • eBook • March 2013 • $59.50 • (£46.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Aesthetics, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Popular Culture

Author

Adam Barkman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Redeemer University College. He is the author of C. S. Lewis and Philosophy as a Way of Life (Zossima Press, 2009), Through Common Things: Philosophical Reflections on Global Popular Culture (Winged Lion, 2010), and Above All Things: Essays on Christian Ethics and Popular Culture (Winged Lion, 2011), and is the co-editor of Manga and Philosophy (Open Court, 2010)and The Philosophy of Ang Lee (University Press of Kentucky, 2013).

Ashley Barkman is a part-time lecturer of philosophy and English at Redeemer University College and is the author of several articles on philosophy and pop culture including chapters in 30 Rock and Philosophy (Wiley, 2010), The Walking Dead and Philosophy (Open Court, 2012), and The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy (Wiley, 2012)

Nancy Kang is Assistant Professor of Multicultural and Diaspora Literatures at the University of Baltimore. She also served as Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow in the Humanities at Syracuse University (2007-2011), affiliated with the Native Studies Program, the Asian & Asian American Studies Interdisciplinary Minor, and the Department of English. Her publications include current or forthcoming articles in Canadian Literature, Women’s Studies, The African American Review, Callaloo, Essays on Canadian Writing, and various chapters in edited collections.

Table of Contents

I. Responsibility, Remembering, Revision
1. “Good Badmen”: Reading Race in Black Rain, American Gangster,
and Body of Lies
Nancy Kang
1. A Double-Edged Sword: Honor in The Duellists
James Edwin Mahon
1. The Trans-Religious Ethics of Kingdom of Heaven
Michael Garcia
1. Levinasian Responsibility in Someone to Watch Over Me, Black Rain,
and White Squall
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns
1. Re-Membering Vietnam in Somalia: Black Hawk Down and Ethical
Militarism in American Historical Memory
David Zietsma
1. 1492 and the Ethics of Remembering
Silvio Torres-Saillant
II. Real Lives, Alienated Lives, Ideal Lives
1. What’s Wrong with Building Replicants? Artificial Intelligence in
Blade Runner, Alien, and Prometheus
Greg Littmann
1. A Villainous Appetite: Erôs, Madness, and the Food Analogy in
Hannibal and Legend
Antonio Sanna
1. Detecting Puzzles and Patterns in Numb3rs: No One Escapes
“Scott Free”
Janice Shaw
1. Celebrating Historical Accuracy in The Duellists
Carl Sobocinski
1. Conceptions of Happiness in Matchstick Men and A Good Year
Basileios Kroustallis
1. Techno-Totalitarianism in Alien
Dan Dinello
III. Gender, Identity, Selfhood
1. Through Space, Over a Cliff, and Into a Trench: The Shifting
Feminist Ideologies of Alien, Thelma & Louise, and G.I. Jane
Aviva Dove-Viebahn
1. Why Doesn’t Hannibal Kill Clarice? The Philosophy of a Monstrous
Romantic in Hannibal
Matthew Freeman
1. In the Guise of Character: Costumes, Narrative, and the Reality of
Artifice in Thelma & Louise
Lorna Piatti-Farnell
1. Becoming Authentic in Matchstick Men Through the Ultimate Con
Elizabeth Abele
1. Virginity in Alien: The Essence of Ripley’s Survival
Sydney Palmer
1. Gladiator, Gender, and Marriage in Heaven: A Christian Exploration
Adam Barkman
Index
Contributors

Reviews

What do Alien and Gladiator have to do with Aristotle and German Philosophers? Not only will you find them talked about in this book, but you'll also see the breadth and depth of Ridley Scott's own philosophical thinking as highlighted by the various authors in their easily readable and engaging chapters.

— Robert Arp, independent researcher and editor of 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think

"The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott is an enthralling series of essays written from a variety of perspectives on the work of a much underrated filmmaker, focusing not only on his most well-known films such as Alien and Blade Runner, but surveying lesser-known works such as Legend and Someone to Watch over Me. The editors deserve to be congratulated on their efforts in providing a book that tells us as much about the realities of contemporary film directing as about Scott himself."

— Laurence Raw, author of The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott

Adam Barkman; Ashley Barkman and Nancy Kang

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott

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