Investigating Disappearances and Traditional Methods of Accountability

It’s the UConn PopCast, and in this episode we discuss Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1973 movie World on a Wire, shown on West German television over two nights, and then lost for decades. When it was restored and re-released nearly 40 years later, the movie quickly gained acclaim as a lost masterwork of science fiction cinema.

We discuss the movie’s sophisticated and pioneering presentation of the simulation hypothesis, and its deep engagement with Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra and simulation.

We examine the deep influence of the movie on blockbusters like The Matrix and Inception, consider the Cold War context of its production, and ask where World on a Wire places in the pantheon of philosophically informed - and philosophically influential - cinema.

The UConn PopCast is proud to be sponsored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute.

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