Episodes of depression: Existential feelings and embodiment in SHARP OBJECTS

Abstract

This article argues that the HBO recent limited series Sharp Objects (cr. Marti Noxon, 2018) invites spectators to share in the ‘existential feeling’ of depression. I draw on philosophers Matthew Ratcliffe and Thomas Fuchs who identify core embodied experiences of depression: corporealisation, detunement, and desynchronisation. Following accounts of screen mood and ‘existential feelings’, I analyse how the form of Sharp Objects – cinematography, textural sound, and arrhythmic editing – expresses the embodied experience of depression. This paper therefore further demonstrates how screen media can evoke ‘existential feelings’ in its audience to promote an embodied understanding of depression.