Lecture Eight
DEAD OF NIGHT
1945
Earilng Studios
Film 1 text |
Film 2 text |
Film 3 text |
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Film 1 subtext |
Film 2 subtext |
Film 3 subtext |
What are the filmic elements used in horror films? (e.g. showing parts of the creature to imply the whole, use of shadows, reflections, dark and light, odd camera angles (Dutch angle shots) close-ups blocking peripheral view allowing for the sudden appearances of things, cross cutting to lengthed time, etc.)
Certainly one of the main aspects of a horror film is th hope that it will generate a feeling of fear. Just what does that may vary dreamatically in the films. But the nature of the fear producing device can be considered "data" and different genres can approach the same "data" or "subject matter" differently. In a similar way college deartments used to be based on theoretical approaches not data per se, The result was "religion" (data or subject matter) could be approached by different departments with different theoretical approaches. One could find "The Philosophy of Religion", "The Sociology of Religion", "The Anthropology of Religion" all of which apprached the same subject matter with different theoretical approaches.Later the uiversities began to develop departments based on data (Women's Studies, Native American Studies, Queer Studies, American Studies and so on),. So a fanrasy film would approach the supernatural in a different way than a horror film might.
The implications of this are that the texts, subtexts and film technicques involved with each genre will be different. In the came of mixed genre films, some genres will be more compatable with some other genres than they might be with still other genres. Science fiction musicals are close to non existent for example.
The process of determining the subtext is through hermeneutics:
Text=>hermeneutics=> subtext
Hermeneutics (the breaking of a textual code) : symbols, metaphors (includes metonymy and synecdoche)
SERIES SEQUELS AND PORTAMNEAU (ANTHOLOGY) FILMS
Portmanteau (from a bag that splits into two compartments. Portmanteau morpheme carries many meanings (-s is singular third person active indicative) or “anthology” film. Several films like this since then include films like Black Sabbath, Creepshow, Dr. Terrors House of Terrors, The House that Dripped Blood etc. where some sort of narrator links the stories together.
Tales of Manhattan 1942 is not so much an anthology film as a film which follows the movement of a “cursed” coat.
Compare Halloween which was to be a series of films in which each film was set on Halloween (see Season of the Witch)
This film has several stories written by different writers and directed by different directors: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer.
Free floating supernatural forces are difficult to deal with on film which is so specifically a visual medium
The film contains 5 stories (race car, party, mirror, golf, ventriloquist and they are unlike most anthology films linked by a 6th story rather than a narrative.
Horror and Humor
Breaks tension. Unrelieved tension looses tension.
Is there a difference between subtext of horror and humor in supernatural films
(Don’t be afraid of anti-rational? Anti rational is funny?)
Ealing Studios is a Brttish Studio located in what was suburb of London called Ealing The studio starts about 1930. The last film with the Ealing logo was 1959 one of the major producers involved with the studio was Sir Michael Balcon (1886-1977). His first production was a thriller called The Gaunt Stranger in 1938. Alec Guiness was the actor most associated with the studio. In its 29 year period it produced some of the most famous British films: Passport to Pimlico, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Whisky Galore (Tight Little Island), The Lavender Hill Mob, Lady Killers; It Always Rains on Sunday, Scot of the Antarctic, The Cruel Sea and Dead of Night
The war was far more devastating in Britain than the US since the country was bombed regularly and through the war the theaters continued to perform and films continued to be made.
The first Ealing film after the war without a war motif was Dead of Night. It is also the first “Portmanteau” film they made in which several directors worked on different segments
Alberto Cavalcanti (Brazilian) (segments "Christmas Party" and "The Ventriloquist's Dummy") (as Cavalcanti) (also did The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby and did sound on Night Mail documentary)
Charles Crichton (segment "Golfing Story")
Basil Dearden (segments "Hearse Driver" and "Linking Narrative") (Also did Green Man and Victim)
Robert Hamer (segment "The Haunted Mirror") Similarly the different stories are by 5 different writers: H.G. Wells, E.F. Benson, John Baines, Angus MacPhail, T.E.B. Clarke
After the Film
What supernatural elements are in each story:
What can you say about the rational/ antirational approach of the film? What role does the psychiatrist play? How is his story relevant?
What boundry is crossed? Reality vs supernatural.
Race car opposite of many films where past intrudes. Here future intrudes
Ghost: living vs. dead
Mirror: body/soul - future/present
Ghost living/dead
Dummy: animate/inanimate – control/non-control
Breaking or crossing boundries is sometimes called transgressive, which is basically to put a negative spin on the boundry crossing although it need not be so.
In most anthology films no connection between each story is bounded in Dead of Night the boundries are blurred because the overriding connective story
It is possible to examine all 6 stories and arrove at some conclusion about the film itself, in the same way that a set of films from the genre can be analyzed by lookng at several films. The stories deal with possession which involve loss of control. Premonitions imply the inevitability of future events. Even in the "Christmas Party" sequence, the ghost is from a murder in the past which can not be prevented.
This certainly inicates a loss of control which is reflected in a rather fatalistic way (much as in noir) in which free will is lost to determinism. It is perhaps not unreasonable to see WWII as something which destroyed any feelings about free will. Loss of free will (and hence of control) implies the breakdown of structure and something akin to anarchy sinice there is no control on how things happen.