HSE Publishing House

This book presents the first attempt at a socio-philosophical understanding of John Carpenter’s cinematography in Russian. “Halloween”, “The Thing”, “They Live” and many other movies by the cult director have long been considered classics and traditionally attract the attention of film researchers. However, even in the West, they rarely become the subject of systematic reflection using a consistent scientific methodology. Referring to the concept of “the political unconscious” introduced by Fredriс Jameson, Evgeny Degtyarev argues that Carpenter’s films broadcast ideological content hidden even from the director himself. According to Degtyarev, an analysis of this content and the socio-historical context in which it arose will help to better understand the meaning of individual films of the master of horror and the significance of his legacy for popular culture as a whole.
The monograph will be of interest to specialists: film critics, cultural scholars and philosophers, as well as to the widest range of readers interested in contemporary cinema and mass culture.