Imagining the End of Late Capitalism in Shane Carruth’s Primer and Upstream Color

This paper analyzes Shane Carruth’s  Primer  and  Upstream Color , focusing on themes of language, haptics, affect, and the virtual end of late capitalism. This article’s underlying claim is that Carruth’s films are unique in their imaginative scale and narrative outcome, offering novel interventions in what he terms ‘film language,’ film-philosophy, and non-individualized modes of subjective articulation. Where the aesthetic dimensions of Carruth’s films overlap with its socio-economic realities, Carruth mobilizes film as a mode of philosophical thinking, representing subjects who attempt to transcend the limits of capital, individualized subjectivity, and individualized concepts of the body.