Introduction : Beyond good and evil -- [Part] 1 : Nihilism, American style -- Nietzsche and democratic nihilism -- American culture and the unraveling of the enlightenment. The films of Frank Capra ; "To kill a mockingbird" ; Film noir -- Tocqueville and the final stage of liberalism -- Perpetual adolescence -- The revenge of the dark god -- Dead ends, ways out, and paths through -- [Part] 2 : The quest for evil -- The quest begins : "The exorcist" -- The aesthetics of evil. "Cape Fear" ; "Silence of the lambs" -- The recovery of film noir. "L.A. confidential" ; "Seven" -- [Part] 3 : The banality of evil -- Arendt's banality thesis -- The grandeur and wretchedness of evil. "Macbeth" ; "Paradise lost" -- The romantic revival and the banality of goodness. "Forrest Gump" ; "Natural born killers" -- The reconstruction of society. "Titanic" ; "The ice storm" -- Recovering the comic quest : "Pulp fiction" -- [Part] 4 : Normal nihilism -- Dare to say yes : "Trainspotting" -- Beyond the dysfunctional family : "Seinfeld" -- The death of man--and woman, too -- "Seinfeld's" dark god -- Prometheus as Onan -- America as a semiotic hell -- Conclusion : Children of a lesser God.
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