The decade of the 2010s and the early 2020s have witnessed the release of several high-profile films in different European countries which featured male protagonists over 60 years of age who were faced with reformulations of their notions of maleness and masculinity and subsequent losses of meaning. Films such as La Grande Bellezza in Italy, Western in Germany, Dolor y Gloria in Spain or The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry in the UK presented a variety of male protagonists in search for meaning while existing in different national and socioeconomic contexts within a wider European milieux.
Dr. Luis Freijo (Research Associate at the Department of Film Studies at King’s College London) will be presenting this lecture as part of his work on the project „AGE-C: Ageing and Gender in European Cinema“. His lecture proposes to connect ageing, masculinity and representation through the psychoanalytic works of Viktor Frankl and his system of “logotherapy” (1959). Frankl, psychiatrist and survivor of the Holocaust, proposed that the “primary motivational force in man” is the search for meaning. Applying logotherapy to La Grande Bellezza, Western, Dolor y Gloria and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, this lecture proposes to compare similarities and differences in how these searches for meaning by ageing male characters are articulated. The analysis will enable to chart how ageing is conceived and how it intersects with other notions of class, gender values, national constructions and European politics and economic dynamics. Ultimately, the purpose of this lecture is to explore a methodology for a flexible understanding of European identity as it relates to ageing and masculinity.
15. November 2023 – 18:15 – 19:45PM
Goethe-Uni, Campus Westend, PEG
1.G191