A History of Landmark Destruction in Film

Over at Slate.com, there is a slide show depicting the destruction of numerous landmarks in film, complete with accompanying video. There is something fetishistic about it, I have to admit, especially seeing as how so many of the objects obliterated onscreen are phallic in nature. However, I have to admit that I flipped through the show slack-jawed. Taken separately, the films in question only take down one monument or two, but put them all together and it becomes a nerve-wracking endeavor.

From Slate:

Last summer, Keith Phipps put together a video slide show, accessible below, tracing the history of the destruction of national landmarks, beginning with Deluge, released in 1933, all the way to G.I. Joe and most of Roland Emmerich's oeuvre. "Movies," Keith writes, "have depicted mass destruction almost from the beginning."

I found a Youtube video - posted above - that goes well above and beyond the call in the area of Armageddon porn, showing in great detail much of the carnage you'd find in the Slate slideshow. The video, as opposed to the slideshow, lingers on humanity's desire to see itself end, at least in a cathartic way. It's almost as thought American film-going audiences have an EndTimes obsession. Thankfully its precepts have only played out onscreen and not in real life.