"A heroic history of modernity" - comments on Josef Früchtl's The impertinent self

The impertinent self: Romanticism, the agonal self and gangster film

Abstract

This article will first deal with the definition of the principle that moves the character gangster, named by Früchtl as agonal principle, elaborated based on the reconceituation of the tragic. The philosophical theories that support this principle refer to German Idealism and Romanticism, theories that echo, as a reference, the discussion of Früchtl with Charles Taylor and Richard Rorty. We will deal in a second moment with the reformulation of the tragic hero operated in the passage from the lone cowboy to the city gangster, including in this part some quotes related to the following films: Unforgiven, The wild bunch, High noon, Scarface and The Godfather I. The construction of the figure of the hero, in the passage from one genre to another, refers to an idea taken from the theory of Walter Benjamin in two moments: the appropriation of the idea of the hero as actor or performer and the idea of melancholy. Finally, the composition of this figure is completed with the definition of what we could call "Cool" or "Blasé" character, constituted in alliance with the ironic. The reference films in this case, in addition to those already mentioned, are: The silence of the lambs, Pulp fiction, Bonnie & Clyde.