Images of the Afterlife in Cinema

These texts were written to accompany the screenings of the Images of the Afterlife in Cinema film season held at the Swedenborg Society during the Autumn of 2010. They seek out parallels and congruencies between the life and thought of the Swedish visionary, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who famously claimed to have travelled into the afterlife, and portrayals of life after death in a variety of cinematic genres. The volume includes essays on Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder (1990); Hirokazu Kore-Eda's After Life (1998); Marc Forster's Stay (2005); Goran Dukic's Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006); Peter Hewitt's Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991); and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's A Matter of Life & Death (1946). Also included is an interview with the award-winning Eisenstein scholar, Robert Robertson, highlighting the Soviet director's familiarity with Swedenborg.