Kingsepp
PhD Student
Stockholm University, Department of Journalism, Media and Communication
APOCALYPSE THE SPIELBERG WAY? FROM HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER TO WORLD-CONQUERING VIDEO GAME: SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, BAND OF BROTHERS AND MEDAL OF HONOR
Keywords: Utopia, hyperreality, remediation film-videogame
Abstract:
It has been said that narrative in Steven Spielberg«s films totally evades politics and history. It has also been said that his films give men an excuse for their behaviour (Kolker cit. by Lewis in Film International # 1 2003:1). I find this quite interesting as I watch them from another aspect: in the context of popular film, politics, history and ethics are all present, more or less explicitly, in the form of myth. The secularization of Western society does not imply that religion and myth have disappeared - as many scholars have remarked, religion and myth are instead being embedded more discreetly in cultural forms, which actually makes them more omnipresent and perhaps even more powerful. In late modern or post-modern society, especially popular media are considered to be important carriers of not only myth and religion (including ethics) but also myth as political ideology and our collective memory of history. Fredric Jameson combines all these aspects of myth in his notion of the concept and function of Utopia being the underlying impulse of both all contemporary works of art - commercial mass culture as well as modernist high culture - and of ideology.
Steven Spielberg has a reputation of not just making films but also creating a whole range of products related to them. Inspired by Fredric Jameson«s analysis of Jaws (in "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture", 1979), I examine Spielberg«s highly successful 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, the TV series Band of Brothers (2001) and the popular video game Medal of Honor: Frontline (2002), all sharing the same topic: the Apocalyptic scenario of the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. Spielberg«s well known strive for authenticity in these war films may here be seen as an example of creating a hyperreality and a simulacrum in Baudrillard«s sense. In my paper, I focus on the videogame and the transformation of the mythical content from film/TV to interactive media.
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