Cinematic Angst: The Aesthetics of Darkness and Disquiet

GERMAN 172 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Stanley Cavell observed that the latent anxiety in viewing films stems from the medium’s relentless demonstration that our convictions about reality rest on fragile foundations. Cinema, by its very form, presents a world that is both present and absent, immersive yet untouchable, exposing the instability of meaning and the uncertainty of reality. Kierkegaard describes angst as “the dizziness of freedom,” while Heidegger sees it as a fundamental mood that reveals the “groundless ground” of our human existence. Film does not merely depict these tensions—it enacts them through its very form. Its aesthetic and structural choices manipulate time, space, and perspective, drawing the viewer into an experience where meaning and reality are unstable.

We will analyze the work of seminal directors, including Luis Buñuel, Fritz Lang, Carl Dreyer, Andrei Tarkovsky, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lars von Trier, Ari Aster, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, David Lynch, and Michael Haneke. Through weekly screenings and critical readings in film theory, psychology, as well as philosophy, the seminar interrogates how cinematic strategies construct an aesthetic of darkness and disquiet, engaging with broader notions of angst and the elusive logic of the unconscious.

Course Notes

Language of instruction: English.