Pretty much agree with this, more or less. It is tempting to see the
Universal films of the thirties as reflecting the anxieties of the
depression, and I suspect that there is something to this, but making
the case in detail is harder. That goes for a lot of the claims. It is
hard to sort out whether the atomic theme in many films -- Godzilla for
example -- is a convenient premise to get the film going or did on some
level actually connect on some level to audience feelings about the
bomb. Does anyone take seriously the ecological premise introduced at
the end of Larry Cohen's It's Alive, One? On the other hand the racial /
social implications of Night of the Living Dead is pretty explicit and
clearly intended and at least was noticed by me and my friends at the
time; but I wouldn't say that it was central to our experience of the
film. Classical horror movies often begin with a movement into a special
area (Transylvania, etc.) which places them apart from the ordinary
(modern horror often gets away from this) which may remove them from
ordinary concerns. In I Walked with a Zombie this is explicitly and
interestingly associated with slavery, but again is that what the
audience focuses on when looking at the film (in this case I think that
it enriches the experience of the film). Dealing with these questions
seem less a matter for armchair philosophizing and more a matter of
detailed empirical research about reception of specific films or subgenres.
Have some skepticism about whether there is really a single type of
horror pleasure or an essence to horror.
j
Shaw, Dan wrote:
> Let me recommend Robin Wood's Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan and its =
> discussion of horror in the late 70s and early 80s, and Camera Politica =
> by Douglas Kellner and Michael Ryan, for its many insights into such =
> political implications.
> =20
> My problem with political analyses of horror films is that they seem to =
> miss what we enjoy about horror per se, and hence don't address the =
> uniqueness of the horror genre. I don't deny that some horror films =
> have political import, but I suspect that that import is a sidelight to =
> horror-pleasure and not implicated in its essence (if you will excuse =
> the expression).
> =20
> "For beauty is the beginning of terror we are still able to bear, and =
> why we love it so is because it so serenely disdains to destroy us" =
> Rilke's First Duino Elegy
> =20
> Daniel Shaw
> Professor of Philosophy and Film
> Lock Haven University
> Managing Editor, Film and Philosophy
> website: www.lhup.edu/dshaw
> =20
>
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