ABSTRACT This article examines depictions of ‘deep play’ – play with outcomes substantial enough to affect life outside the game – and ‘dark play’ – play that is non-consensual – in contemporary cinema, and their relationship to the ideological trappings of late capitalism. The article analyses numerous films with such themes and notes a clear commonality in their depiction of hyper-capitalist societies or socioeconomic processes, and argues that this recurring element is a reflection of the current dominant global culture of axiomatic capitalism and the high-stakes game-like competition it creates and forces upon its citizens. The paper examines the forms of capitalism portrayed and the intersections between capitalistic and ludic competition, focusing on four themes: games as amusements for the powerful, games as agents of social control, games and the question of ‘fairness’, and forms of resistance to these capitalistic games. It concludes by summarising new understandings of our contemporary situation we might gain through a closer look at this distinctive set of cultural depictions of life under extreme capitalism, in which capitalism has shifted from metaphorically ‘playing with lives’ to doing so literally.

中文翻译：

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当代电影中的深色和深色戏剧

摘要本文探讨了当代电影中“深度游戏”（其结果足以影响游戏外生活）和“深度游戏”（这是非共识性游戏）的描绘，以及它们与后期资本主义意识形态陷阱的关系。 。这篇文章分析了许多具有此类主题的电影，并指出了它们在描述超资本主义社会或社会经济过程中具有明显的共性，并指出这种重复出现的现象反映了当前公理化的公理资本主义全球文化和高风险博弈-像竞争一样，它创造并强加于其公民。本文考察了描绘的资本主义形式以及资本主义竞争与传统竞争之间的交集，重点研究了四个主题：以游戏为强者的娱乐，以游戏为社会控制的主体，博弈和“公平”问题，以及对这些资本主义博弈的抵制形式。最后，通过总结对当代状况的新理解，我们可以通过仔细研究极端资本主义下生活的这种独特的文化描述集而获得，在这种文化描写中，资本主义已经从隐喻的“玩弄生活”转变为字面意义上的。