Watching Cosmic Time

“Moore convincingly argues that cinema in the forties and fifties perpetuated the presumption that the universe is fundamentally orderly. He focuses engagingly on suspense films that incorporate clocks in a way that allows the audience to literally watch time as an emblem of an orderly universe. Moore’s overall purpose, though, is to encourage us to reflect on the role time plays in how we access, interpret, and respond to what we experience.”


—David Basinger, Roberts Wesleyan College





“This insightful study of postwar cinema considers how visual and audio elements in suspense films attended to the passing of time. Watching time was emblematic of order under stress from war and its aftermath. Thoroughly attentive to the details of his cinematic texts, Matthew Moore convincingly argues that filmic worldviews and geopolitical events intersected as suspense films explored moral decision-making and the paradoxes of power. Highly recommended.”


—Stanley C. Pelkey, University of Kentucky School of Music





“Moore’s exploration of key mid-twentieth-century films against the backdrop of World War II and the problem of order versus chaos is a tour de force of insightful analysis. His attentiveness to clocks and time references in these films made me want to go back and watch them again. Moore’s thick description of the geopolitical backdrop of the movies draws the reader in to reflect on how the anxieties of the mid-twentieth century are still with us today.”


—J. Richard Middleton, Northeastern Seminary, Roberts Wesleyan College





“This book’s greatest strength is Moore’s attention to the humanities writ large as he deftly interweaves disciplines ranging from the geopolitics of modern European history to theology and religious allegory as underpinnings for his discussion of these films’ presentations of cosmic and metachronic time. This strategy provides both rich context and a compelling vision for how these works from cinema history correlate to the frisson of the contemporary film-viewing experience—from making meaning to the power of personal agency.”


—Karen (Ren) vanMeenen, editor, Afterimage