The Book of Eli Documentary and a theory

Levi-Strauss Theory
Levi-Strauss introduced the notion of binary oppositions as a useful way to consider the production of meaning with narratives. He argued that all construction of meaning was dependant, to some degree on these oppositions, for example good vs. evil, male vs. female, etc.

In today's lesson we are looking at watching a documentary on the post apocalyptic film and answering some questions along;

1. What questions are posed by post apocalyptic films?
2. What are the "walking dead"? How have they been used in other films?
3. What might be the key to survival in post apocalyptic narratives?
4. How far will Eli go to survive?
5. What would survivors of the apocalypse ask?
6. In The Book of Eli, what has happened to Bibles and why?
7. How is religion used in TBOE? How is religion used in reality?
8. How do societies in reality avoid catastrophes?
9. Who will the future leaders be in post apocalyptic scenarios?
10. What does Eli represent?

Questions that are posed in PA films are "how would we survive?", "how would we strive to maintain our humanity?", "who would guide us?","who would lead us into the future?", "how would we rebuild the word?", etc. The "book" is the centre piece of the film, it can be used for good or evil. The walking dead are numb people that are connected but not connected, their bodies are on shut down, they have no senses available to them, in other films the walking dead can be shown differently for example in I am Legend they are presented as zombies, it keeps the idea of something living but not living, they are used to show no hope, anger and sadness, maybe even lack of energy. The key to survival in most PA films is "hope", most of this genres films end with some kind of hope, for example Eli being able to make the bible available to everyone, I am Legend shows that the female character is given the cure to turn the world back to normal and The Road also shows that the son finds a new family to look after him. However in real life, you would need skills from around 50-100 years ago due to lack of food, clothes, no technology, etc. Eli goes very far to survive, he kills animals to eat to be able to survive, he searches around houses to find new clothes, and even exchanges in shops some of his wipes he uses to clean himself just to charge his iPod, this shows exactly how much little things mean in this film. The survivors would ask "is there a God?", obviously Eli believes there is and doesn't lose hope, in The Road the characters also believe, however in I am Legend the main character explains how there are so and so amount of people but now there is a small amount he then shouts "THERE IS NO GOD" because he loses hope. In TBOE, we are shown that because of the war all of the bibles were destroyed and there was just that 1 bible left and everyone had hope there would be at least 1 they could find, in which Eli ends up keeping on to it and remembers every single word inside it as he reads it every single day. Religion is very important in TBOE as it is expressed in a strong way. "He who controls the past, leads the future", Eli's actor Washington explains that Eli chooses to share even when he is struggling and still decides to help her, a true leader is kind and loyal. Democrat societies have a way of listing themselves. An example of a future leader is Donald Trump, due to the way he presents himself, you can even say that he is like Carnegie in TBOE, another is Barack Obama is more like Eli due to the way he is looked up to. Eli represents hope, altruistic, knowledge, faith that humanity can rebuild, he is shown as a good person, for example in the bible it states "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" which is used in the film for the fighting scene in which Eli ends up chopping off the mans arm.