Apocalyptic Film
• Watch the movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
• Read one attached reading, Susan J. Napier, “Waiting For The End Of The World: Apocalyptic Identity”
• Write a 6 pages paper which including the following questions.
1. Main thesis based on:
Did you agree with the Napier article’s on Nausicaa that claims that animation is perhaps better at ‘conveying the unconveyable’ than our live-action apocalyptic films we’ve been watching? Once again we are dealing with issues of the sublime & catharsis…but how is it different when animated?
2. (Optional) You could also write about following aspects based on the main thesis:
a) What is are the explicit criticisms of 80s society that are embedded in Nausicaa? What is the warning the film is sending to viewers? How does it ‘read differently’ in 2018? Or does it?
b) Does Nausicaa offer us a ‘conservative apocalypse’? (Are traditional order & authority restored?) Why does this require a death & rebirth? (And of a teenage girl, as opposed to the male figure in blue, prophesied in ancient times?)