The Hunger Games (USA: Gary Ross, 2012)

The Hunger Games (USA: Gary Ross, 2012: 142 mins)

Blatt, Ben. "A Textual Analysis of The Hunger Games." Slate (November 20, 2013)

Bures, Frank, et al. "Dispatches From the Ruins: Why do we crave the awful futures of apocalyptic fiction?" Aeon (May 16, 2017) ["In the first two decades of the new millennium, stories of the post-apocalypse have permeated pop culture, from books such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl (2009) and Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014) to films and TV programmes such as The Walking Dead (2010-), the Hunger Games series (2012-15) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). While post-apocalyptic fictions of previous eras largely served as cautionary tales – against nuclear brinksmanship in On the Beach(1959) or weaponised biology in The Stand (1978) – today’s versions of these tales depict less alterable, more oblique and diffuse visions of our doom. So why can’t we seem to get enough of humanity’s unavoidable collapse and its bleak aftermath? "]

Connell, Richard. "The Most Dangerous Game." (1924)

Enelow, Shonni. "The Great Recession: Restrained but resilient, a style of acting has taken hold that speaks to an era’s anxieties."  Film Quarterly (September-October 2016) ["This is another way to read the emotional withdrawal or refusal in these performances: as a response to a violent or chaotic environment, one that doesn’t offer an alternate vision of an open and embracing future. For even when representing an alienating or unfeeling world, actors of earlier eras generally appealed to the camera and their audiences to receive their feelings and implicitly trusted them to respond generously, either through vicarious sentiment or humanist compassion. Expressive acting—of which Method acting is one dominant form—is built on the conviction that audiences want an actor’s emotions to be in some way available to them. There’s a basic optimism in that conviction: the optimism that the world would be better if we all told each other the truth about what we feel. In contrast, many of today’s most lauded American film actors give performances that evince no such optimism about emotional expression. Returning to Winter’s Bone, for example, it’s clear that within the fiction of the film, Ree doesn’t trust the world to care about her well-being. But rather than contrast her character’s suspicion with an appeal to the (presumably) sympathetic film audience, Lawrence maintains her wariness throughout. Likewise, Mara doesn’t cut Lisbeth’s lowered gaze and near-inaudible, clipped speech with any revelation or outburst that would make us think she could be—or really is, deep down—other than she appears. There aren’t hidden motivations in these performances, and in fact, close to no subtext (the idea of subtext, with its inherently psychological schema, is parodied in Carol by a would-be writer who takes notes on the difference between what characters in movies say and what they really feel)."]

Fisher, Mark. "Remember Who the Enemy Is." The North Star (November 8, 2013)

Hudson, David. "Gary Ross's The Hunger Games." Notebook (Last updated March 24, 2012)

Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." (1948)

Koski, Genevieve, et al. "Battle Royale / Hunger Games Series (Pt. 1)." The Next Picture Show #3 (November 24, 2015) ["With the final installment of the blockbuster YA series THE HUNGER GAMES hitting theaters, we look back to the material many accused HUNGER GAMES author Suzanne Collins of ripping off: 2000's BATTLE ROYALE, a hyper-violent Japanese film adaptation of a hyper-violent manga about kids killing kids in a government-mandated slaughter. In this episode, we get into the many similarities – and many more differences – between the two, as well as BATTLE ROYALE's reputation and place in the larger scope...]

---. "Battle Royale / Hunger Game Series (Pt. 2)." The Next Picture Show (November 24, 2015)

LeGuin, Ursula K. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." (1973)

Morabito, Stella. "The Strange Bedfellow-Politics of The Hunger Games." The Federalist (December 15, 2014) ["How can both the Left and the Right claim ‘The Hunger Games’ movies as their own?']

Pharr, Mary F. and Leisa A. Clark, eds. Of Bread, Blood, and the Hunger Games : Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy. McFarland and Co., 2012. [Edited book collection of essays available in the BCTC Library: PS3603.O4558 Z84 2012 ]

Read, Jason. "Primer for the Post-Apocalypse: The Hunger Games Trilogy." Unemployed Negativity (September 5, 2011)

Ross, Gary. "The Hunger Games." The Treatment (March 21, 2012)

Rothman, Joshua. "The Real Hunger Games: Battle Royale." Culture Desk (August 3, 2012)

Schippers, Mimi. "Compulsory Monogamy in The Hunger Games." Sociological Images (December 2, 2013)