Marxist Interpretation of "Underworld"

Marxist Interpretation of "Underworld"

A MARXIST READING OF UNDERWORLD

If you are aiming for Merit and Excellence, you must develop in-depth, detailed responses with sophistication of ideas and fluency of style. This work will help you attain that. The following are incomplete statements/paragraphs for you to complete and memorise. They will help add the necessary depth to your essays. Take note of the writing style: it is worth emulating. There are wide margins for you to add annotations to explain the new vocabulary and concepts.

Len Wiseman’s 2002 film Underworld is worth studying because it is a polysemic text that is open to many interpretations. On one level, it is simply a hybridised action-vampire film that keeps its audience engrossed on an aesthetic level. The plot is intricate and the audience responds by wondering what will happen next.

Underworld is open to interpretation on a more intellectual level. It can be argued that the film is an allegory of the sort of class struggle that ………………………………. wrote about in his 1867 work Das Kapital. In the film, the vampires can be seen as representing the bourgeoisie or the aristocracy, while the lycans represent the proletariat. Most significantly, this is represented via the mise-èn-scene. The vampires live in a vast Gothic mansion with such details as …………………………………
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whereas the lycans live underground in sewers amid squalor. The lower status of the lynacs is further emphasised because it is literally as well as metaphorically beneath the vampires. Even minor props used on set reflect this. The vampires drink blood, or red wine from …………………………………… while the lycans drink …………………………. from ……………………………………… clearly suggesting a lack of refinement.

The lycans are clearly dissatisfied with the status quo of their existence because …. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… and the vampire coven is obviously content with the...

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