To read any of these scripts and/or essays please email:
j@jackhassett.com
PHILOSOPHY
On the Authentic Being:
Heidegger & Kierkegaard
A comparative analysis of Heidegger’s “Being and Time” and Kierkegaard’s works including “Fear and Trembling” and “Either/Or”, most specifically in their relation to the “authentic being.”
Navigating the Transcendent in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
Exploring the differences in scope, movement and the individual in the two great Russian’s works and how each shape the sublime and transcendent in their respective texts.
Kierkegaard’s Despair in the Film’s of Bergman and Malick
A close reading of Malick’s Tree of Life and Bergman’s Winter Light, exploring their fundamental contrasts through the lens of Kierkegaard’s notion of despair.
Transcendental Filmmaking
in the Modern Era
New York University senior thesis essay synthesizing Paul Schraeder’s original theory of transcendental cinema, Hegel’s aesthetics, and 21st century filmmaking.
The Sublime and the Absurd via Pierre Bezukhov
Analyzing Kant’s theory of the Sublime and comparing it to Hegel’s Weltgeist (World-Spirit) and Camus’ absurdism through the character of Pierre in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”.
Being in the Self-World
“The self creates a world for the self in order to understand the self in relation to the world of the self (Self-World).”
Mythos vs The Transcendence of Film
A transposition of Georg Lukacs’ “Theory of the Novel” to the world of cinema, exploring how two certain approaches to cinema yield seemingly opposite results.
Levin’s Reflection v Karenin’s Reason-Bound Living
External suppression and internal limitlessness in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
The Tracks of Existentialism Through the History of Literature
Examination of existential philosophies through the literature of the world in the last two centuries; authors include Camus, Kafka, Sartre and Dostoevsky.
The Ethics of Modern War: How the Lack of Physicality in War Loses Ties to Weight
Studying the lack of empathy for the enemy in modern war tactics. How modern missile technology creates a disconnect between the attacker and victim.
SCRIPTS
How Glorious A Vision
Feature. 108 pages: A 1920s Canadian lumberjack epic. A pulsing exploration into the power of symbols and myths.
Trojan Horse
Feature. 97 pages: What would one man sacrifice for salvation? The story of a man, his son and the suffering engrained in a religious man’s life.
The Trial
Feature. 90 pages: A man falls into a whirlwind of existential dread after he is arrested for a crime he does not remember committing. Inspired by Kafka’s novel and John William’s Stoner.
The Shadow of the Sun
Feature. 110 pages: An international espionage film set in the Middle East during the Cold War. Betrayal, secrecy and love.
Genesis
Feature. 75 pages: A philosophical sci-fi story of love between the creator and the created – nature and humanity; humanity and humanoid.
Here is Where We Rest
Short. 27 pages: A woman contemplates the relation of her dying mother’s failing brain and the stars that we have all emerged from.
Holy War
Feature. _ pages: An epic exploring themes across space and time. What makes a hero? Who births the prophecy? (unfinished)
North, Sun
Short. 12 pages: An existential search for meaning and power in a time in which chaos reigns above all.
This Mortal Coil
Short. 10 pages: A woman awakes to find herself in a purgatory reminiscent of her time spent in Paris in the 50s.
Flyhead
Short. 4 pages: A man must confess his illness to a former lover. The silence presented grants freedom to the confessor.
Eagle Country
Short. 20 pages: How can death create meaning to those who live to experience it? A young man confides in an old friend after his father’s passing.