Retro futures: A Vision of the Future in European Science Fiction Films (1979-1991)
Published 2018-07-01
Keywords
- European cinema,
- Science-fiction,
- Dystopia,
- Historicism,
- 1980s
- Totalitarianism,
- Future. ...More
Abstract
This paper posits the emergence of a European trend in science fiction films between 1979 and 1991. Focusing its analysis on a key theme of the genre, it identifies a number of films produced in France, West Germany and the United Kingdom that established a new way of imagining the future. Despite their different origins, films such as Death Watch (La mort en direct, Bertrand Tavernier, 1979), Light Years Away (Les années lumière, Alain Tanner, 1981), Kamikaze 1989 (Wolf Gremm, 1982), Nineteen Eighty-Four (Michael Radford, 1984), Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985) and Delicatessen (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, 1991) all departed from the parameters of contemporary American cinema with mises-en-scène and choices of narratives that gave rise to an alternative way of conceiving the science fiction genre. The conclusion of this research is a call to move beyond the conventions that have defined the articulation of studies of this genre in the interests of enriching the debate about what constitutes a science fiction film.
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