Infrastructure in Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic Film, 1968–2021
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Book Presentation:
Lessons from society’s frameworks at the end of the world.
Dystopian and post-apocalyptic movies from 1968 to 2021 usually conclude with optimism, giving the audience a window into what is possible in the face of social dysfunction. The infrastructure that peeks through at the edges of the frame surfaces some of the concrete ways in which dystopian and post-apocalyptic survivors have made do with their damaged and destroyed worlds. In this book, Christian B. Long argues that if the happy endings so common to mass-audience films do not provide an all-encompassing vision of a better world, the presence of infrastructure, whether old or retrofitted or new, offers a starting point for the continued work of building toward the future.
Film imaginings of energy, transportation, water, waste, and their combination in the food system reveal what might be essential infrastructure on which to build the new post-dystopian and post-apocalyptic communities. We can look to dystopian and post-apocalyptic movies for a sense of where we might begin.
Contents:
List of Images
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Infrastructure in Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic film, 1968-2021
Chapter 1 Energy: Power is Power, Renewable or Not
Chapter 2 Transportation: Filling Potholes at the End of Humanity’s Road
Chapter 3 Water: Privatization Against Public Good
Chapter 4 Food: Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Food Systems
Chapter 5 Waste: The Social Relations of Trash and Recycling
Chapter 6 Conclusion
Works Cited
> From the same author:
> On a related topic:
Architecture, Film, and the In-between (2023)
Spatio-Cinematic Betwixt
Dir. Vahid Vahdat and James F. Kerestes
Subject: Technique > Aesthetics
Filming the City (2016)
Urban Documents, Design Practices and Social Criticism through the Lens
Dir. Edward Clift, Mirko Guaralda and Ari Mattes
Subject: Technique > Aesthetics
Frank Lloyd Wright in the Movies (2025)
Iconic California Sites on Film
Subject: Technique > Set Design
Critical Approaches to TV and Film Set Design (2018)
Subject: Technique > Set Design
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