During the era of Weimar rule in Germany, their film industry was at its strongest. Silent films meant that language barriers which would come to hinder the industry were non-existent. During this time films such as, ‘Metropolis’ By Fritz Lang (1927) gained worldwide critical acclaim and commercial success. The film’s most prominent during the Weimar era were expressionist films. Their purpose was to arouse feelings and emotions into their audience through artistic expression. There was no one better than this than Leni. Her dance and…
What makes us feel horror in contemporary culture? What are the modern traits of monstrosity? How does aesthetic horror re-define itself in political and social terrors? We shall base our seminars on the reading of academic texts from various disciplines and of two films that re-defined the horror genre: the ultimate zombie-film The Night of the Living Dead by George Romero (1968) and Funny Games US by Michael Haneke (2007) which offers a radical critique on mediated representations of horror. Through the close reading of articles and the two films, we shall explore the many facets of horror and discover the common ‘ingredients’ of the horrifying experience in art, politics, sociology and…
F.W. Murnau and Tod Browning, were two great directors who both set out to make a movie based on Bram Stoker's classic horror novel Dracula. Both of these two films, Nosferatu by Murnau and Dracula by Browning share similarities and differences. today I will comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences of the two films.…
FW Murnau’s 1921 film Nosferatu is an appropriation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Despite it being an appropriation, explicit gothic conventions remain evident, which explore societal fears and values. These fears and values differ from Dracula, due to distinct contextual influences of different time periods.…
Brophy, Philip. Horrality – ‘The Textuality of Contemporary Horror Films’, Screen; v.27 no.1, 1986, pp.2-13…
Social and Historical Effects Responsible for the Conception of the Fantastic and Supernatural in Gothic Horror…
This week’s unit title, “Japanese Horror: Other Traditions, Other Histories” seems like a most accurate description of the transition from examining familiar contemporary American horror to the new historical and cultural perspective of Japanese filmmakers. Offering historical context regarding Japanese theater, (the implied predecessor and inspiration of the Japanese New Wave), Richard J. Hand dissects the influence of early theater traditions on Japanese New Wave cinema in his essay “Aesthetics of Cruelty: Traditional Japanese Theater and the Horror Film” (Hand, 18).…
The animated film Hotel Transylvania, (2012), directed by Genndy Tartakovsky is based on the original Dracula novel published in 1897, written by Bram Stoker. This film is an animated comedy with the sub-genre of horror. The purpose of the horror in this film is to scare alongside entertain the audience. Therefore, comedy is the main genre in the film Hotel Transylvania, because the intended audience is children. Some horror conventions used in this film include setting, characters, plot and ideas.…
In the movie Edward Scissorhands, the dark and shadowy castle looks like something out of a horror movie. This is one of Tim Burton’s lighting techniques to make everything look grotesque and ominous.…
As the 1920s progressed, the “Golden Age” of Weimar cinema that was characterised by the high brow Expressionist genre slowly gave way to the appearance of ‘berg’ films as the method of the film that conquered German cinema, and it is within this arena that the powerful combination of Leni and Fanck facilitated the fast rise of the former fame. Their first endeavour, entitled ‘The Holy Mountain’ resulted in the adding of a new dimension to Fanck’s filming, given that the inclusion of Leni’s past life reinvigorated the genre by adding expressionist essentials to films that had beforehand been apparent as male star vehicles. However, the actress’ raid into film did not create completely positive results, since work on the mountains was burdened with danger and Leni sustained an injury that resulted in the potentially harmful impermanent end of production. Leni’s healing on the set provided her with the chance of learning about the editing, developing and printing of film, which would later become very useful during her career as a director, such an occurrence proved fortunate for Leni as an individual. While ‘The Holy Mountain’ was a box-office success, the same cannot be said for all the films that were produced as a result of the pairing of Fanck and Leni; in…
Gothic Horror is a term used to depict fictitious work that has incorporated a lot of horror scenes as well as elements of the unreal world, exploring the conflict between good and evil and dealing with the supernatural in some sort of way. The episodic novel Dracula written by Bram Stoker in 1897 and the movie Blade by Stephen Norrington created in 1998 bring to the fore many conventions relating to the Gothic Horror genre despite their vastly different contexts. Gothic elements of imprisonment, eccentricity and death are clearly represented through each of the texts. Stoker and Norrington present these conventions through a variety of literary and film techniques, paying particular attention to character and setting to explore the elements of the genre. Through these interactions, the audience can feel a sense of Gothic Horror in which the composers of the two texts aim to convey.…
The two texts Dracula and Nosferatu have been used to create the film shadow of the vampire. Shadow of the vampire is not a straight transformation of Dracula and Nosferatu, it is a new text representing new elements that resonate with a contemporary postmodern audience. This postmodern film has used elements from the two historical texts, in a playful and ironic fashion to appeal to a postmodern audience. One of the main aspects of the film that appeals to a postmodern audience is the idea of the emphasis on the process, which is all about making a film about the making of a film. Ironically the post modernists have used a film about the making of a film to critic the film industry, the very industry that produces their film.…
A critical response to the following question: “The gothic tradition that began with the castle of Otranto reflects our fears and insecurities and thus continues to be appropriated into a range of cultures and contexts”.…
Dracula is a timeless novel written by Bram Stoker and to this day remains a thrilling read about good vs evil in the form of Van Helsing and his companions pitted against the supernatural forces of Count Dracula, the vampire from Transylvania. Not only was this novel about good vs. evil but upon inspection found to have many themes and views relevant to the time it was written. This caused it to be a huge success of its time and in 1922 the German director Murnau seeing the success of the story put it under transformation and named it Nosferatu. This silent film was very similar to Dracula except it was more relevant to the times it was written in. Public opinion about certain aspects of society had changed and…
What we can not see but know exists. What only it seems and yet is. Where he was the innocence now inhabits the horror. The beauty, as the angels of Rilke or William Blake's poems smells murderous carnage. The pure evil, counted in the black and white of the snow and blood curdled at the foot of an injured horse or a tree in a midnight with flashlights. Evil expands contaminated. The cinema of Michael Haneke's disturbing, I tide slowly. Nothing happens in these films, everything is enclosed in a insistent rhythm, slow staves, elongated to exasperation like a diseased heart beat. And an impressively unique quality: everything happens off screen and otherwise finish. Haneke stories not just because we took them home after the word end. Let's…