Description
The paper explores themes of love and faith at the end of the world. Using cut-out-poetry as method, words are taken from film scripts that end with the end of the world by nuclear war. These words are cut out and rearranged to construct poems that affectively engage with the apocalyptic ending. This provides a visceral encounter with the end of the world that is not provided in traditional academic writing. Exploring representations of love and faith at the end of the world, it is argued that love and faith construct a paradoxical sense of continuity, despite telling a story that is about the ultimate end. Through revelations of love and/or faith, the end of the world is rendered not-really-an-end-at-all. In these endings, the apocalyptic imagination becomes cathartic. In providing a sense of meaning to the apocalypse, apocalyptic narratives often deny the finality they seem to promise. Instead, both affirmations of love and faith construct an affective resolution in the face of the apocalypse. The political consequences of such endings extend far beyond the cinema. Nuclear war is recentred as an emotional event, rather than a political one. The nuclear threat is framed through traditional apocalyptic myths: the apocalypse as meaningful, transformative, revelatory. Such endings reinforce a sense of apathy, denies the efficacy of human effort, and ultimately encourages a passive-acceptance of what is a human-made crisis.
