Independence Day keeps cropping up in my research. For me, it isn't the best representation of the apocalyptic sublime in film and is more of a America is great film.
In this film the threat of the End of the World is an alien invasion. They have come to 'exterminate' the human race and drain the earth of it's natural resources before moving on to the next planet. They successfully wipe out a few cities.
As with a lot of these films, the threat is discovered by a scientist who does his best to infiltrate the white house and let everyone know (2012, Day After Tomorrow)... Perhaps it just Roland Emmerich...
I don't know if I would be able to write much about this film in my dissertation, there's no direct comparison to art work of the 17/1800's to discuss the apocalyptic sublime with.
Even now I am struggling to find something to say about it. I will read a bit more about it and update this blog later.
" In films of the moral and psychological apocalypse, there is no one enemy--an asteroid or, in Cronenberg's eXistenZ, an army of bad guys to escape, because the enemy is us. Many of these films have a clinical, aloof approach to their material that often hides deep angst and longing. But their failure to offer remedies, or even the typical, soothing Hollywood panacea of "closure" often make them seem nastier and more heartless than they are. By the same token, it's the triumphant victories of man over nature in the literal apocalypse film which give them a veneer of positive, redemptive values. "
Melancholia is a psychological apocalypse film where as Independence day is literal.
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