The course of events is predetermined and cannot be changed. Forces
beyond our control-or even our comprehension-shape our fates. Such is
the deterministic worldview embedded in a wide swath of contemporary
cinema, from arthouse experiments to popular genre films, through both
thematic concerns and narrative structures. These films, especially the
recent spate of "elevated" science fiction and horror, tap into this
deep-seated anxiety by focusing on characters who ultimately fail to
transcend the patterns and structures that define them.
Thomas M. Puhr identifies and analyzes the ways that cinema has dealt
with the tension between fate and free will, from Stanley Kubrick's The
Shining to Christopher Nolan's Tenet. He examines films that express
deterministic ideas, including circular narratives of stasis or
confinement and fatalistic portraits of external forces dictating
characters' lives. Puhr considers determinism at the levels of the
individual, the family, and society, reading films in which characters
are trapped by past or alternate selves, the burdens of family
histories, or oppressive social structures. He explores how films such
as Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis, Ari Aster's Hereditary,
Jordan Peele's Us, and Lucrecia Martel's Zama confront the limits of
human agency. Puhr relates deterministic themes to the nature of
moviegoing: In denying characters any ability to choose alternative
paths, these films mirror how viewers themselves can only sit and watch.
Recasting the works of some of today's most compelling directors, Fate
in Film is an innovative critical account of an unrecognized yet crucial
aspect of contemporary cinema.
