Apocalypse Now? Towards a Cinematic Realized Eschatology

Christopher Deacy’s chapter (Ch. 4) focuses on the eschatological provenance of films which, at face value at least, would seem to militate against an eschatological frame of reference. Deacy has in mind here the way in which films that have an earthly, this-worldly orientation have a crucial role to play in eschatology-film work as they concur with debates in Christian theology over so-called ‘realized eschatology’, where the eschaton is believed to have been inaugurated already. Even in films that do bear witness to a traditional afterlife schema, Deacy indicates that it is nevertheless the case that earthly realities are being used as the point of departure, to the point that it is this life, rather than the afterlife, which is being affirmed, and that death comprises nothing more than an opportunity for providing ethical lessons about how to behave in the here and now.