DEAD INSIDE: SUBJECTIVITY AND ALLEGORY IN THE ADDICTION

Abstract

The Addiction (1994), directed by Abel Ferrara, is a cinematic work that questions the boundary between indirect and direct modes of representation. Allegory as an indirect mode of representation appears in this film through an inseparable link with a direct, almost raw, mode of representation of the protagonist’s existential drama. Her name is Kathleen and she is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at New York University. The analysis that this article develops focuses,
first, on how Kathleen defines herself in the face of the horror of evil and then on the moral path that she walks to the end. The conclusion of this reading includes the framing of The Addiction in Ferrara’s filmography, without which the artistic richness of this film cannot be fully appreciated.