The Meaning of Death in Classical Hollywood

In this book, I would like to examine ways in which death is made meaningful in classical Hollywood films. The question of whether death is, or should be, meaningful in general is far from settled. It has frequently been argued that death ought to be meaningless to us. Some philosophers have claimed that as an ungraspable nothingness, which is beyond our lived experience, death should not concern us. So long as we exist, death is not with us; and when death does come, we do not exist. Death is, or should be, nothing to us.1 As the universal fate of all mortals, it reduces difference between humans;2 and as inevitable from the moment we are born, it is a matter that, regardless of what we do, has always already been settled and cannot be caused or avoided.3 Yet, in fact, Western thought has always been occupied with death and its meanings, and death has been used to account for, to question, and to justify art, philosophy, religion, entertainment, political formations, violence, life as we know it, and our various ways of being.4