Dystopian Movies

Look at the following photos (click on  the PDF file below) and decide which one best suits the excerpt you read by Paul Auster.  Be prepared to explain why (that is: explain your choice of the photo).

DystopianMovies

 

Then look at the following video clip.  Pau Auster’s wife Siri Hustvedt, talks about consumerism and propagandaIn what way are they linked?  Can you answer some of the questions she is posing?  She raises some interesting issues and I would love you to be prepared to discuss them in class.  Your answers will certainly pave the way to our analysis of "1984" and "Animal Farm".

59 Replies to “Dystopian Movies”

  1. I’ve personally found this interview really interesting. I agree with what Auster’s wife says, according to consumerism, especially to the consequences of propaganda. The inexhaustible process of globalization is causing a ”massification” of the cultures. All the features that are peculiar of a culture, were totally uprooted and have left their place to others use and custom, that have become the same all over the world. The weak point of societies are young people; they are more flexible and it is easy to influence them, according to what Mrs Hustvedt says: “repeating something over and over again, people end up believing it is true…”. This is also the effect of propaganda; every company that wants his products to be sold, tries to convince in every way that this product is the best. Consumerism and Propaganda are linked in this way: more you publicize a product , the most it will be sold. In this day and age it is difficult to brake this process because by now it is too much deep-rooted all over the world.

    Carla Cipolla

  2. Pierluca..

    I think that the picture, that explains better than the others the ideal of a dystopian society, is the first one. In a dystopia society there’s a man, or a group of men that decide everything and the population undergoes the rules and the continuous “resolution” of a face, that embodies the characteristics of a god and of the power. Maybe nobody know if the man that are represented everywhere is a real man or only a face, but nevertheless everyone thinks that he is the power, he is the order and nothing happens if he doesn’t want it.

  3. I personally choose the third picture. It has immediately inspired to me a feeling of oppression, physically because builidings are too tall and prevent men from breathing, but also psycological because, according to what dystopia is, the oppression is linked also to mind. If I can, I will also choose the second picture because the labels over and on the buildings are the best rappresentation of the propaganda, consumerism and the oppression of the system over mankind, typical of dystopia.

    Carla Cipolla

  4. Personally, the image that best suits the excerpt by Paul Auster is the second one. it shows a city full of poster preaching the right every days actions and behaviours. This is the image of the distopian city, the cage of its citizen that every day are obliged to follow the System rules, the ones that are written in the posters. Every single moments of the day is controlled by the system, the number of hours of works, sleep and play are planned and nobody are allowed to change them.

    People are no more able to decide for their own social and private life, and every day and every second they must remember that they are controlled by the sistem and they must OBEY, without expressing their own opinion, if they do the system proceeds with the brainwash or elimination. In this distopian city people are no more human they are like machines working for the system forgetting who they are.

    Martina Nadal

  5. eugenia

    Siri Hustvedt perfectly portrays our modern society. We are ruled by fashion, by politics, by everything.

    I think everyone is ruled by something, no one is immune.

    Consumerism is an integral part of our culture and now it is becoming a part of our life.

    I must admit I really love fashion things, and in this case consumerism had “infect” me.

    Paul Auster’s wife also talks about propaganda and the fact that with the running of the time people start to think that everything that is told as reality and true represents the truth!

  6. I think the picture that best suits the story by Paul Auster is the fourth one, this is a shot taken from the film “Children of Men”, a film that I watched this summer. The film is set in 2027 when the world is affected by a global infertility. This future is a perfect example of dystopian world, it is ruled by illegality and terrorism, the governments of the world are collapsing and the United Kingdom, where the protagonists live, is one of the lasts. Here immigrants are persecuted and closed in prison-like camps, waiting to be sent back to their homelands. The protagonist, Theo, must save the last pregnant girl, who is an illegal immigrant, by trying to escape from UK and find rescue in a ship called “Tomorrow”. And part of the “Human Project”. In my opinion this is a story that suits the excerpt I have read, because it describes a world where the government cares no more to the people but only to save itself and in the movie Theo doesn’t trust the government because he knows that if he gave them the girl they would have sent she back to her country or they would have killed her through experiments, in the story the protagonists doesn’t believe in the government too. As the people “forgot” the airplane, in the film they forgot what a birth is , or what is integration. I think the walls built in the film are invisible but as strong as the one is being built in the passage of the novel.

  7. Obviously consumerism influences us mainly through advertising and commercial. The factor that made consumerism explode, in my opinion, was television. TV is part of our life, I think my generation doesn’t know what is life like without it. TV is the best way to influence people, I mean, it strikes you even if you aren’t watching . In fact the jingle of a commercial is what makes you remember that product. An example is the “Pocket Coffee” one: it is the same since I remember, almost 20 years, and I guess everybody remembers the jingle. Propaganda has the same aim of advertising, “if you repeat things over and over again people begin to believe it’s true”, the only difference is the consequence of them, the first one is the vote, the second one the purchase.

    Riccardo Bagattin

  8. I think that both the first and the third photos best suits the excerpt by Paul Auster because both describe an authoritarian government in which people feel small. In particular the first is the most appropriate to represent a totalitarian government that control thousands of people, make masses believe that this is the best government, that this is the best situation for people that had never been before (that is what George Orwell wrote in 1984).

    The third picture makes me think about how small a person in front of the power is. I can feel a sense of oppression that I could have living under control an authoritarian government. The high buildings are comparable to the wall that people are building in the extract of Paul Auster.

    In the video clip Siri Hustvedt speaks about propaganda that is the foundation over is based an authoritarian government. In George Orwell’s 1984 is always repeated “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength” and by dint this slogan people begun to believe in that. Another dystopian novel is concentrated on consumerism, that is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where all the people had to buy things when they become old, that happened very often, so they are subjugated by fashion. Nowadays, in our society it is reducing the critic consumption of things: often people buy things that aren’t necessary, or chance too early technological things, like mobile phone. But it is not only our fault: nowadays things are made to work only a lapse of time that often coincides with the guarantee, than we have to change them. So the consumer mentality is corroding our society, but maybe because of the economical crisis we could find a solution: if people don’t have money they don’t buy, so it could be a reduction of useless things.

    Federica Battistin

  9. Federica, unfortunately for you the first photo is taken from the film adaptation of Orwell’s novel “1984”. What was your mental picture of Big Brother? I am quite curious to know. Since you are exceptionally good at drawing, why don’t you draw it for us?

    I read some really enlightening comments on Siri Hustvedt’s video. I was sure her comments would create much debate and reactions of different sorts.

    Ilaria the photos were meant somehow to link the passage to our society, since dystopic novels are meant to comment on our lifestyles and our societies. As you point out, when a person controls our mind that person controls our body too, that person can “use” us as if we were “lifeless” beings. To your comment “the more we have the more we become” I would reply “the more we have the more we lose, we fail to be”. Through advertising you do not just push people towards feeling the urge of having things they do not necessarily need, but also (and this is quite alarming) of becoming and looking like the stereotypical images promoted by advertising or commercials (i.e. to be successful you need to have lots of money; if you want to pick up a woman drive an expensive car: to be read: women are so shallow that they will date you for your money only; to pick up a man you need to be good-looking, half-naked and possibly half-witted: to be read: if you do not want to remain a single woman for the rest of your life, stop thinking, stop eating and think of looks only, because this is what men want from you, your body only.) It goes without saying that these stereotypes are negative both towards men and women.

    Marco, good point: propaganda is brainwashing!

    Francesco M. the name of the author we are studying is Paul AUSTER!!!!

    Riccardo, I have not watched the film “Children of Men”, but thanks to your detailed summary, I will definitely watch it soon. You mentioned the jingle of “Pocket Coffee”. Why did you do that? Now, I can’t get it out of my mind. Will I be able to sleep tonight or will I need to drive to a motorway cafè to buy myself a box of Pocket Coffee chocolates? 🙂

    Federica B. are you suggesting someone should take money away from us so that we wouldn’t spend it? 🙂

  10. I chose the second picture, because it rapresents better how a dystopian society must be.

    In this place we are not free to be ourselves and only the Government decides what we must do.In the second photo there are some signs that oblige us to obey,to consume,to buy,to watch TV,ecc…There is a sign that impressed me:”NO THOUGHT”(on the top of the skyscraper).Human cannot think with thair head.In my opinion the Government cannot impose a thing like that.

    This remind me to the novel “1984” of G. Orwell, that only the Big Brother governs all the society eliminating the freedom of thought.

    Giulia Marzio

  11. i think the first picture suits better this extract. i don’t know from which film this image is be taken but when i try to image the regime reigning in paul auster’s book i can figure in my mind nothing but this: a huge goo-like figure of the “great” president that stalk above all of us, watching us and trying to analize all your feelings and thought, ready to destroy us “for the sake of the country”. the poor workers that builds the wall in the novel are the little and impotent ones in the picture, just in the hand of the 2 dark eyes that reign over them, hidden behind a huge wall of a fake universal welfare

    giacomin elena

  12. Of course I prefer the first picture, because it refers to 1984 and it shows in a good way the power of charisma in a totalitarian regime. Propaganda is the base of almost every dystopian regime, and we can consider also consumerism like a sort of dystopia: we are forced to consume and consume until we have destroyed the whole world. It is not a terrible world like 1984’s, but surely it is a world with a predetermined ending, if we don’t change something.

  13. I chose the second photo, because I think that it is the one which best gets the idea of what a dystopian society is: the image represents a grey city in which there are a lot of signs that impose you specifical things you are obliged to do. This interferences of the government in the private life of the people deprives them of their privacy, which I think is an essential right. Moreover, the imposition of this few activities (work, sleep, play, watch TV) makes the people’s life so repetitive and monotonous that the only idea of it makes you feel sick.

    Jana Stefani

  14. i think that the best pictures is the first, because associated with the word ”dystopia” is the pictures that could remand to a land that is the opposit of utopia.in fact i think that this orrible view of world could be reality only if we are in a regime where we cannot think,speak or smething else with our mind and we are forced to think like someone else.

    luca

  15. The first image represents the control of the population by an absolute power, the omnipresent eye that reads the intentions of people and influences their actions. This image gives also a face, it is a personification of this power and makes it material and then makes it even more frightening; because a threat that has physical reality is even more oppressive than an abstract entity: the individual feels closely controlled by a material presence.

    I think that fashion can be the best example of propaganda: that is, it imposes ways of dressing and tries to convince people to dress in that way, creating a false need to conform to it.

    Certainly in this process media and especially television play a decisive role. The constant bombardment of inputs to consume, to purchase certain kind of clothes, but also to buy many other objects “hypnotises” the users, especially younger people. The society of our century will be remembered for globalization and for these encouragements to an unbridled consumerism.

    Raggiotto Francesco

  16. well,consumerism and propaganda are strongly linked in the society of today. They fully represent the huge power of the global economic system and his capability to get in our life, whether we want it or not. You switch on TV and you have to watch 5 minutes of advertising per 10 minutes of any program, you switch on the radio and it’s just the same; pick up the newspaper and look at how many of its (coloured!) pages are covered by an advert. Even in the web sites there are windows that opens automatically everywhere and you cannot doing anything but look passively at them! we may not understand or may not care of advertising and its powerful slogans, but certainly we are going to know them in our subconscious, sooner or later. The consumerist society we are living in nowadays is mainly based on the unconscious involving of people by means of propaganda. It’s so widespread everywhere that it has become part of us. And we cannot do anything in order to control it, as we are the final link of the chain, the consumers. We are those who advertising and products are made for. Unfortunately we are forced to buy what the system want we buy and exploit; and the system sells always what the richest producers want to put on the market, since they can promote their brands in the best way. So, without realizing it, we are making a few rich people richer and thousands of poor people poorer. Small corner shops are disappearing giving way to super and hypermarket which are growing evrywhere. The most worrying thing is that now, living in the worst economic crysis of the last century, people usually take their cars to go even to the furthest hypermarkets, where they can find the big well-advertised brands at a good price, instead of walking round the corner, enter a small grocer’s, buying only what you can find there, maybe a little bit more expensive but with the guarantee of a great quality of local products. They are going to vanish in a short time, and what we can really do, in order to escape from this “reality which is going to be simplyfied into something that can be easily bought and sold”, as Siri Hustvedt said, is trying to save them. In my opinion, that’s the only way by which we can resist to this destructive culture.

  17. I think that the photo which best suits the excerpt taken from “The Country of Last Things” is the second one.THAT is a dystopian society:you’re always told by the government what to do. In the second picture there are big posters with imperative vebs put everywhere in the city in order to influence people to do those things:they have to obey, to consume, the government already established how long people have to work, to sleep and to play. I think the key-poster is NO THOUGHT, in fact in a dystopian society people don’t have to think about anything, otherwise they will be punished (as we read in “1984” for example).

    In the videoclip Siri Hustvedt treats somehow the same argument:she is curious to find out how consumerism influnces our personalities, the way we live, the way we THINK, everything is simplified in something easier to be “bought and sold”. Our culture is a culture of repetition and as it happens with propaganda:”if we repeat something over and over again, people begin to believe it’s true” and this is what we said even in Auster, this is what happens in the society described in the passage we read. Perhaps our society is becoming a “dystopian” one..

  18. This interview is really interesting.i agree with mrs hustvedt and I think that

    the key word of the speech is repetition,she wonders why people get addicted to consumerism that has become the most important feature of our society, the reason is just the repetition of the importance of buying in order to be part of the society through this kind of propaganda people get convinced that material things are the means to be integrated and to be part of a group,an emblematic example of this mechanism can be found among teenagers, for them the most important thing is being part of a group finding an identity that can’t be criticized,and since in our society the prerogative to be part of a teenagers group is to be fashionable, they are persuaded to buy and this breeds consumerism.this is only a little aspect of this topic but I think it is useful to understand this vicious circle.and when people are bombarded by the positive aspects of buying they lose their critical eye and begin to think this is true,and this is what happens in 1984 or in the country of last things,people believe the rules are true just because the government repeats them over and over again.I think that we should consider the real values of our society,such as friendship love family honesty.

    Montrasio Valentina

  19. For me the third picture represent in the best way the Paul Auster’s exercept because there is the contrast between the system, the beg wall, and the single person that cannot explain his own “originality”.

    Aboutthe video: No it’s all wrong for me. According to Marx there is forst the economy and then the moral, this is the only answer to all questions about consumerism. People that interrrogate themself about consumarism are big philosophers but they cannot see the Marx’s answer. Who despise consumarism has only got a mask on his face because of Mark’s theory! That’ all!

    MrLory1990

  20. Obviously my favourite picture is the first, because it is from the 1984 movie (that unfortunately I have not seen yet). About the video I agree with Siri Hustvedt and I believe that consumerism could be considered a form of dystopia because it is a process that only creates problems: the consumerism society destroys the bigger part of the sources of the planet to create products without a essential use, it also creates a lot of waste and the consumerism force to spend money in non useful things instead in positive projects, like renewable energy sources or Third World’s countries aims.

    Damiano Verardo

  21. Unfortunately (or fortunately, it depends on the point of view) the society we live in is ruled by the huge power of consumerism and by the anxiety that most people have of always buying new things. From the moment we wake up till when we go to bed, lots and lots and lots of different types of advertising literally hammer our brains by inviting us buying goods. Obviously consumerism and propaganda are linked, the mass-consumption of a certain good always requires a huge and spread advertising compaign; without propaganda there wouldn’t be mass-consumption.

    Naturally speaking we associate the word “consumerism” with the shopping of clothes, shoes,mobile phones…but, from my point of view,there is another type of consumerism that we often don’t take into consideration, that is the one of food. Many people have the idea that their fridges and cupboards must always be full of food ,and when they go food-shopping they always fill the shopping trolley (…and then they go home and realize that they forgot to buy the only thing they went shopping for!). Obviously the are addicted to that.

    “What does it mean to be able to resist to visual and verbal culture?” Well, as Eugenia said “Everyone is ruled by something, no one is immune”,in this world it is very difficult not being influenced by what the medias suggest us, as willy-nilly “consumer culture influences our personalities, the way people live, the way they think”. It is very difficult to resist to it, and most of the times we are not aware that we are being brainwashed, especially if we don’t ask ourselves questions, and if we don’t stop for a moment to think of what we are doing.

    Chiara Pinardi

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