The Thinking Machine #99
Hello/Goodbye
In their series The Thinking Machine, critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin create a new video essay for Filmkrant every month.
There are two particular announcements that many films seem to have great difficulty in explicitly verbalising: the announcement of a pregnancy (“hello”), and the the announcement of a death (‘goodbye’). In fact, these two announcements, considered together, constitute a solid taboo.
We might assume this is true only of very old movies, but the phenomenon is remarkably consistent right up to our present day. Let’s gather some striking examples.