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Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - dabigv13 - 04-13-2020

Interested in what people are reading and watching that may be tangentially related to our predicament. 

I found Contagion to be too close for comfort as a film. Black Death is a 2010 Sean Bean horror film that was fun to watch. 

Masque of the Red Death was a worthy reread. May take a stab at the Decameron which I've never read.

RE: Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - BostonCard - 04-13-2020

(04-13-2020, 11:38 AM)dabigv13 Wrote:  Interested in what people are reading and watching that may be tangentially related to our predicament. 

I found Contagion to be too close for comfort as a film. Black Death is a 2010 Sean Bean horror film that was fun to watch. 

Masque of the Red Death was a worthy reread. May take a stab at the Decameron which I've never read.

https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/03/25/bulgakovs-biting-vision-of-an-avoidable-plague

Or maybe watch Chernobyl?  Not pandemic, but lots of lessons there.

BC

RE: Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - Genuine Realist - 04-13-2020

(04-13-2020, 12:02 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  
(04-13-2020, 11:38 AM)dabigv13 Wrote:  Interested in what people are reading and watching that may be tangentially related to our predicament. 

I found Contagion to be too close for comfort as a film. Black Death is a 2010 Sean Bean horror film that was fun to watch. 

Masque of the Red Death was a worthy reread. May take a stab at the Decameron which I've never read.

https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/03/25/bulgakovs-biting-vision-of-an-avoidable-plague

Or maybe watch Chernobyl?  Not pandemic, but lots of lessons there.

BC

(a) 'Contagion' is a superb movie, one I had purchased and re-viewed a few times long before the present . The cast is incredible - an actor as gifted as John Hawkes is content to take a minor supporting role. The movie is also eerily prophetic, down to a virus that originates from an encounter of bat with pig in Macao (? - the casino city near Hong Kong), and the refusal of Chinese authorities to acknowledge the full extent of responsibility. The title is very clever  - there are actually three 'contagions' in the plot, and three different Patient Zeros (or originators, in the case of the non-medical contagions.) 

It does differ from the current reality in that Presidential actions are not central to the plot, occurring in the background. It celebrates the CDC, and also private researchers. The experts in the movie have an easier time than in the C-19 reality, because Patient Zero, though contracting the disease abroad, dies in Minneapolis. Also, the CFR or IFR is so frighteningly high that drastic, immediate action is required, with no debate.

(b) 'Chernobyl' is not so topical, since the major theme is the refusal of the Soviet Union (and particularly the petty bureaucrats directly responsible) to acknowledge error or the full extent of the disaster. Thus far, we have not had a credibility gap in the West as to current information (though we certainly do on responsibility). It does bear forcefully on the extent to which we can trust reports from the CCP. 

The short answer is, not at all.

RE: Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - 82lsju - 04-13-2020

two books I;ve read (and posted about before)

"The Great Influenza" by John Berry
"Flu:  The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that caused it" by Gina Kolata

has anyone read 

"America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918" by Alfred Crosby

RE: Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - oregontim - 04-13-2020

(04-13-2020, 11:38 AM)dabigv13 Wrote:  Interested in what people are reading and watching that may be tangentially related to our predicament. 

I found Contagion to be too close for comfort as a film. Black Death is a 2010 Sean Bean horror film that was fun to watch. 

Masque of the Red Death was a worthy reread. May take a stab at the Decameron which I've never read.

'Year of Wonders' by Geraldine Brooks, a novel set in the times of black plague, London in early 18th century. Good fiction, and surprisingly relatable to now.

RE: Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - BostonCard - 04-13-2020

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/influenza/

PBS had a documentary about the 1918 pandemic.

BC

RE: Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - dabigv13 - 04-13-2020

Lots of good recommendations here, thank you.

The PBS American Experience documentaries are usually good. The one on the West Virginia coal wars I remember being very interesting.

RE: Plague/Pandemic Literature and Film - cctop - 04-13-2020

It's only tangentially related but I just re-watched "I Am Legend" with my kids.  Will Smith is a military doctor and sole survivor in New York City of a pathogen that basically turns people into zombies.

For those of you who have seen Charlton Heston's "Omega Man", it's based on the same book.

If you watch the film, be sure to look up the alternate ending on YouTube.  It's more true to the book but it didn't play well with test audiences, so they changed it for release.