In the aftermath of World War II, filmmakers in the US, Europe, and Japan developed what Susan Sontag termed a “popular mythology” with which to imaginatively address post Auschwitz/post Hiroshima guilt and anxiety. A visiting lecturer at Harvard University this spring, renowned film critic J. Hoberman
(Village Voice) has curated a series of works which reflect on the tensions of the postwar period. His selections include commercial movies, documentaries, and avant-garde films which accompany a course that will analyze the films in relationship to literary analogues (Kafka, Camus), the political rhetoric of the period, and the popular mythology of today.