Deleuze and Horror Film
March 24, 2005 DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748617470.001.0001 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that psychoanalytic approaches neglect horror's aesthetics, and that cinematic devices like mise en scène, editing, and sound drive the viewer's visceral fear. Proposes a Deleuzian framework where viewing horror is an 'altered consciousness' and 'embodied event', applied to films like Psycho and The Shining. |
Abstract
This book argues that dominant psychoanalytic approaches to horror films neglect the aesthetics of horror. Yet cinematic devices such as mise en scene, editing and sound, are central to the viewer's visceral fear and arousal. Using Deleuze's work on art and film, Anna Powell argues that film viewing is a form of 'altered consciousness' and the experience of viewing horror film an 'embodied event'. The book begins with a critical introduction to the key terms in Deleuzian philosophy and aesthetics. These include: subjectivity/becoming, the body without organs, molecularity, time/duration, affect, movement/rhythm, space, anomaly and schizoanalysis. These concepts are then applied to horror films. Themes such as insanity, sensory response to film, the subject/object, fractured time, the body and cinematography are explored in horror films such as Jacob's Ladder, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, The Fly, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien Resurrection, The Others, The Shining, Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Nosferatu.