In the island of absolutes

A Cavellian reading of the historical, epistemological and sexual imaginations in Monte Hellman’s Iguana

Abstract

Taking the contributions of American philosopher Stanley Cavell, one of the exponents of film-philosophy, as a starting point, in particular his interpretation of modern epistemology, this paper provides a reading of the 1988 feature film Iguana, directed by Monte Hellman, by interpreting its diverse imaginations through the lens of an outstanding critique of the modern subject. In the first and introductory section, there’s a brief recapitulation of Cavellian arguments about the theory of knowledge in its Cartesian tradition, focused on the image of the problem of skepticism; in the second, the historical aspect of the film and the centrality of the idea of ​​ alterity in the period of European arrival in colonial America are analyzed; the third focuses on the film's protagonists and their various forms of political and sexual perversions; in the fourth and final section, the focus turns to the relationship at the center of the story between Oberlus and Carmen, bringing the analysis to a close with notes on the gender dynamics that permeate Iguana and modernity as a whole.