European Films in the Genre of Horror - Term Paper Example

European Films in the Genre of Horror 2009 Introduction Films that provoke our shrouded fears in a scary climax while also entertaining us in a liberating experience actually depend on the barred, weird and sinister aspects of life, gripping our most primitive emotions like nightmares, weakness, isolation, revulsions, death and loss of identity, sexual or other fears. As a genre, it evolved in Europe almost from the beginning of 20th century, with the Gothic style set in spooky old manors, castles, or foggy, dark and gloomy locales. The principal characters included "unknown," human, ghostly characters or monsters like vampires, crazy madmen, devils, mad scientists, "Frankensteins," "Jekyll/Hyde" duality, zombies, fiends, Satanic villains, the "possessed," werewolves and freaks to even the invisible evil. The first horror film dates back even before the beginning of 20th century. It was only about two minutes long, made by the French filmmaker Georges Melies in 1896 and was titled Le Manor Du Diable (The Devil's Castle) with elements of later vampire films (Derry, 1977, Babbis, 1990). In the 1930s, Universal Films created the famous horror films including the most significant, Frankenstein based on Mary Shelly's novel. Horror films were also made in the beginning of the 20th century based on the legend of the Golem, a much admired figure in Jewish folklore, a manlike creature made by magical powers to carry errands out as told in the Kabbalistic lore. The golem looks like a real person, yet he is devoid of personality and. wits The word golem originated from the Hebrew word gelem, meaning raw material. The golem is outwardly a real person yet he lacks the human dimension of personality and intellect, with life inserted through a supernatural process using God's name. After his job is over, God’s name is stripped off from him making him return to the ground where he originally belonged. A 60 minute film (Der Golem) on such a legend was made in 1914 by German director and writer Henrik Galeen also playing the monster, falling in love with a woman and trying to get her. Galeen transformed the legend into film thrice and played the ogre twice. In Germany in 1914, the first adaptation of the most frequently-filmed crime novel, The Hound of Bakersville (there are at least 24 film versions till the beginning of 21st century ) by Arthur Conan Doyle was made in two 60-minute segments- - Der Hund von Baskerville, 1 and Der Hund von Baskerville, 2 (Babbis,1990, Weinstein et al, Jewish Magazine, The Oxford Sherlock Holmes,1993). The Early Horror Films: Monsters, Vamps and others The earliest vampire film was director Arthur Robison's German silent film Nachte des Grauens (1916), aka Night of Terror, with strange, vampire-like people. The Hungarian film Drakula halala (1921), aka The Death of Dracula, was the first version of Irish writer Bram Stoker's 1897 vampire novel Dracula.It was an unsanctioned film of a shadowy Count Graf Orlok (Max Schreck), a vampire, living in far-away Bremen. Owing to copyright problems, the film was named Nosferatu rather than Dracula, and the action was shifted from the novel’s setting Transylvania to Bremen. The film, shot on location, however, infuriated the Bram Stoker estate so much that all copies were destroyed by order. Although the order could not be imposed in Germany, it shocked the producers who sold most copies off and destroyed the rest. Film historians even today try to the date the original film but most copies that are available now are of much shorter length than the original. However, the film can be considered a breakthrough in the horror film genre (Dirks, Filmsite Babbis, 1990). In the beginning of the 21st century, Shadow of the Vampire (2000) retold the creation of the 1922 classic, with John Malkovich as fanatical director F.W. Murnau. The film asked :"What if Max Schreck who played Count Orlok, was indeed a vampire?” Other early memorable English horror Films Other classic horror films of the 1930s and early 1940s included the classic King Kong (1933). Willis O'Brien, the special effect expert, made many mock-ups for the film. Tod Browning, after the success with Dracula (1931), directed the atypical, gothic, Freaks (1932), one of his excellent works that narrated how a group of crazy people set their scores on a gorgeous trapeze artist turning her into a hideous semi-human, semi-bird. This film redefined the notions of beauty, love, and deviation but was so distressingly prior to its time that audiences fail to turn up in vast numbers, and was even proscribed for decades in England. British director James Whale directed the misty comedy The Old Dark House (1932. Charles Laughton was H. G. Wells' mad scientist Dr. Moreau (from the 1896 novel, a time when European society was absorbed with concerns about degeneration, a social theory presenting a gloomy view for the future of western culture, and Britain's scientific community being crushed by debates on dissecting animals for their experiments) in The Island of Lost Souls (1932) (re-made in 1977 with Burt Lancaster and in 1996 with Marlon Brando), who turned harmless animals into view humans. After Karloff declined to play the role, Claude Rains acted as The Invisible Man (1933) in James Whale's second’s success .Laughton acted the role of the dreadfully bowed bell ringer who saved Esmeralda (Maureen O'Hara) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Claude Rains also acted in the remake of Phantom of the Opera (1943) as flecked musician Erik. In the post-war years, George Sanders acted in the film based on the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray(1945)-- written by Oscar Wilde about a man whose showed aging in his portrait even while he kept his youth intact (Dirk). German Horror films: production technique and marketing method Germany took the center stage of horror films as maker of the horror films in the early 1900's producing two of the most powerful horror films ever. In 1920, director of Robert Weine made The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari), introducing weird, geometric set design. The film is usually recognized as the first important German Expressionist film, representing the visual characters of that movement as art director Hermann Warm found the sets “drawings brought to life”. It was a surreal Art director Hermann Warm called the sets “drawings brought to life”. It was a surreal setting for a terrifying story where a touring circus arrives in town with a bizarre show about a sleep walker, who aft sleeping er in a cabinet for 25 years, was about to be awoken. The keeper of the box was Dr. Caligari, awakening the sleeper, Cesare, and asking questions to the audience, asserting that Cesare could predict the future. Cesare foretold death for one of those from the audience and miraculously soon he was assassinated. Due to the evening's terrifying predictions, Dr. Caligari and his sleep-walker were now firmly caught up as suspects. This story is narrated by account of Francis, one of the witnesses of the show. The film starts in a park; Francis sits with another man as Jane, a woman he was obsessed, in a stupor -like state, walked by. Explaining her behavior, Francis related the strange events of the main story. The film ended with, Francis, who was now recuperating in asylum, his doctor was in fact, the Caligari figure. Upon hearing Francis, the doctor asserted that he had comprehended the case ( Strozykowski, 2008, White). The history of the framing device is well known. According to the study of post-World War I German cinema by Siegfried Kracauer (1966), the framing device of the film recast the rock-hard madness and sadistic as an aberration of a mad narrator, the evil doctor being re-defined as a kind and caring person who can cure the madcap. Kracauer simultaneously saw the film as a strong expression of the natural tensions of the German psyche of the period — the fear that personal freedom would end in unbridled disorder and should be restrained by dictatorship. The film started by introducing Francis as a reliable narrator losing his credibility only near the end. That way the film is more ambivalent showing more concern than even Kracauer and at once giving at least two viewpoints 1) Francis was really mad and his story really or partly hallucinated; 2) Francis was reliable, a stance that was implicit through most of the film, the director of the asylum might be thought of as a psychotic bully wanting to detain Francis. This version distracts any decisive idea of character status and descriptive weight of the film, opening to a series of interpretations (White, Das Kabinett). The film for example, could be seen from the viewpoint of a female fancy, centering on Jane as the mysterious source of the story. The film was built in such a way that it showed conflicting ways of grasping the central order of events, a technique aided by the uniform design aspects of the production. Stylized overacting, decor, and lighting were retained through the film. There were no visual hints to suggest that the story of past events was different from the scenes in the asylum, a typicality of the German Expressionist film movement. Eisner (1974) explained that the film on the whole created an insidious feeling of worry and fear, distinguished by great contrasts in light and dark, fuzzy angles, inflated dimensions within the decor, and tinted settings and shadows.—qualities that defined the characters of German Expressionist film. In a time when Germany was still going through the indirect consequences of an abortive revolution and the national economy was as unstable as the national frame of mind, the atmosphere was ripe for the experiment. The director of Caligari, Robert Weine, subsequently claimed in London to be responsible for film’s Expressionist conception (Eisner, page 17-18). Some critics have contended that German film producers deliberately took resort to this "arty" style to distinguish German film from other national cinemas (particularly American) to race in the global film market. Others have emphasized that this movement showed the distressed the German national mind after WWI that drew back to Romantic anguish. Eisner claimed that in a time when “Germany was still going through the indirect consequences of an abortive revolution and the national economy was as unstable as the national frame of mind, the atmosphere was ripe for the experiment: The director of Caligari, Robert Weine, subsequently claimed in London to be responsible for film’s Expressionist conception” (Eisner, page 18). The film's subversion of realism led to doubt about the film as an early example of spontaneity in the cinema, its vague narrative and visual exaggeration making a disquieting illusory world. Yet its place in German cinema, and in German history, made it an undeniable case for studying relations between films and their social situation. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari gave much to be extracted by film critics and historians (White, Das Kabinett). The French modern horror films According to critic James Quandt of Artforum , an international modern monthly art magazine, modern French horror films are often associated with new “French extremism” – a term coined by critics censuring the wave which is linked too much with sex and violence. Influenced greatly by the Italian horror film of Mario Bava of the mid-20th century as well as the erotic novels of Marquis de Sade of the late 18th century, this new wave, according to Quandt broke every interdict drowning in rivers of “viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with flesh, nubile or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration, mutilation, and defilement” (cited in Quandt, 2004, 2nd paragraph). Some films considered to belong to New French Extremity have elements of the horror genre. Other contemporary French horror films with a similar sensibility, including Sheitan (2008), a horror film by Kim Chapiron, Calvaire (2006), a Belgian horror film, Ils (2006), a French horror film by David Moreau, Frontier(s), a French horror film (2007) written and directed by Xavier Gens and À l'interieur (2008) directed by Alxandre Bustilo . These films are much more ferocious than their American counterparts, beached in the real possibilities “of horror on the body and mind—an approach that befits the French known more for describing sex openly and also for reflecting on philosophy” ( Augustine, 2008). So, in recent French films, the human response to horror is filled with realism adequately and the with the authenticity needed to stir a similar reaction up in the audience-- a new possibility to become aggravated and concerned, not just to feel amuse when the bulk of American horror movies, on the contrary, have become either too self-conscious , too flattering toward their ancestry, or just too sluggish to be motivated. The American horror sub-genre termed as "torture porn," as, for example, depicted by the Hostel and Saw series: also tries to force the present limits of filmic jab, but as it doesn’t include true conviction, it causes more jab more disgust. Despite America's direct encounter with "terror" on 9/11 and continual bloodshed of Iraq, American horror films show lesser will to think or study bleak reality, being content to escapist trends. Yet the French, spurned by American reluctance to resist the "war on terror" in Iraq are now showing more guts in their cinema knocking into our unease today ( Augustine, 2008). The recently made Sheitan (2008), a horror film by Kim Chapiron, is a typical example night in this context. Here, a multicultural hip group of teenagers went to the country home of a good-looking girl they meet in a disco on a noisy and wild 'BNO' in the city. The house happened to belong to her strangely awkward, family, led by a sneering, incoherent, and somewhat frightening housekeeper. As the boys apprehend the imminent danger, Sheitan (Satan) set a sense of fear counterbalanced, and made more distressing by an odd and jumpy wit. The sinister funhouse was filled with weird relics. The film plays is like a French version of The Twilight Zone, a 1983 feature film by Steven Spielberg: audience know something is awfully wicked but are not sure what it is exactly. It is a blend of satanic rite, family intrigues and unholy birth. The film ends in a strange visual gag leaving the audience completely baffled—a very French technique. Like Sheitan, without its levity, the film Calvaire (The Ordeal, 2005) by Fabrice Du Weiz tells the story of Marc, an insignificant comedian performing at an old folks’ home, where he clumsily dissuades the advances of an older woman. Back on tour weighed down, by a chary set of situations, he got stuck in a small town, ending up at a hotel with no other lodger, a bad omen! The film is a dreadful nightmare about being ensnared in a frightful plot, in a place where the world has gone mad. Marc's own concern about sex, hinted in the beginning of the film, shoes up in his surreal and intimidating situation, becoming obvious that the hotel-keeper that misses his deceased wife, has crazy plans for his guest. The whole town appears to be under the influence of some mesmerizing slowness, where covered homo-erotic cravings rankle. With horror films of such nature, the French have brought fresh energy and a sense of the obscene to violence, while maintaining a bit of philosophical weight amidst the actions (Augustine, 2008). The Italian experience Fans of Italian horror films have been pushed by situation to be devious. For years, even the most commonly seen films in the genre –Dario Argento’s Suspiria for example -- were vigilantly cleaned before reaching any foreign audiences. The DVD era, at last, has brought a flood of "uncut and uncensored" editions, full of abundantly gore effects, dazzling colors and thumping soundtracks. However, in Italian horror films, plots do not move from Point A to Point B in comfortingly American or British way (nor are they chained with rules answering all questions about cause and effect). Style, fervor and emotion take over realism. Italian films are also characterized by bad dubbing (Eddy). Italian horror films are extremely gruesome. Violence against women is the rule. Kids are often cruelly killed or are themselves vile killers. Much different from the guardedly refined American filmmakers, Italians are not at all afraid to go gloomy with theatrical effects; moldy body parts, plentiful maggots, gushing arteries and faces crushed through mirrors and windows are regular motifs. These things are abundantly found particularly in Mario Bava (1914-1980), one of the leaders of Italian horror films that started with Riccardo Freda’s The Devil's Commandment (1957). Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) features a haunting performance by Barbara Steel as both a 200-year-old witch/vampire and her righteous child. Filmed in murky black and white Bava's great talent as a cinematographer make this film essential to viewing. The successors of Bava include Giallo (“The Girl Who Knew Too Much”, “Blood and Black Lace,” both made in the early 1960’s), Dario Argento (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, 1969) et al. Argento deserves a special mention. In his Suspiria, the menacing whispers through the trees imply that mystic elements are present all over, and in fact those sounds return in his later films too (Eddy). Works Cited Augustine, Simon, “List: The 8 Most Disturbing Films of The New Wave of French Horror”, https://www.greencine.com/central/frenchhorror, 2008 Babbis, Maurice, “The True Origin of the Horror, Latent Image”, A Student Journal of Film Criticism, May, 1990, retrieved from http://pages.emerson.edu/organizations/fas/latent_image/issues/1990-05/horror.htm Derry, Charles, Dark Dreams: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film, A S Barnes & Co, 1977 Eisner, Lotte, The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt, University of California Press, 1974 Eddy, Cheryl, Italian Horror, “Green Cine”, Online Film Journal, http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/italianhorror.jsp Oxford Sherlock Holmes, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, Explanatory Notes, 1993 Quandt, James Flesh & blood: sex and violence in recent French cinema, Art Forum, February, 2004 retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_6_42/ai_113389507/ Strozykowski, Michelle, “Review, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, http://european-films.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_cabinet_of_dr_caligari Weinstein, Ellen, “Joyce and the Jewish Magazine Staff, The Golem of Prague”, Jewish Magazine, retrieved from http://www.jewishmag.com/26MAG/GOLEM/golem.htm White, M.B. “DasKabinett des Dr Caligari”, http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Jo-Ko/Das-Kabinett-des-Dr-Caligari.html Dirk, Tim, Horror Films, filmsite.org Read More

Willis O'Brien, the special effect expert, made many mock-ups for the film. Tod Browning, after the success with Dracula (1931), directed the atypical, gothic, Freaks (1932), one of his excellent works that narrated how a group of crazy people set their scores on a gorgeous trapeze artist turning her into a hideous semi-human, semi-bird. This film redefined the notions of beauty, love, and deviation but was so distressingly prior to its time that audiences fail to turn up in vast numbers, and was even proscribed for decades in England.

British director James Whale directed the misty comedy The Old Dark House (1932. Charles Laughton was H. G. Wells' mad scientist Dr. Moreau (from the 1896 novel, a time when European society was absorbed with concerns about degeneration, a social theory presenting a gloomy view for the future of western culture, and Britain's scientific community being crushed by debates on dissecting animals for their experiments) in The Island of Lost Souls (1932) (re-made in 1977 with Burt Lancaster and in 1996 with Marlon Brando), who turned harmless animals into view humans.

After Karloff declined to play the role, Claude Rains acted as The Invisible Man (1933) in James Whale's second’s success .Laughton acted the role of the dreadfully bowed bell ringer who saved Esmeralda (Maureen O'Hara) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Claude Rains also acted in the remake of Phantom of the Opera (1943) as flecked musician Erik. In the post-war years, George Sanders acted in the film based on the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray(1945)-- written by Oscar Wilde about a man whose showed aging in his portrait even while he kept his youth intact (Dirk).

German Horror films: production technique and marketing method Germany took the center stage of horror films as maker of the horror films in the early 1900's producing two of the most powerful horror films ever. In 1920, director of Robert Weine made The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari), introducing weird, geometric set design. The film is usually recognized as the first important German Expressionist film, representing the visual characters of that movement as art director Hermann Warm found the sets “drawings brought to life”.

It was a surreal Art director Hermann Warm called the sets “drawings brought to life”. It was a surreal setting for a terrifying story where a touring circus arrives in town with a bizarre show about a sleep walker, who aft sleeping er in a cabinet for 25 years, was about to be awoken. The keeper of the box was Dr. Caligari, awakening the sleeper, Cesare, and asking questions to the audience, asserting that Cesare could predict the future. Cesare foretold death for one of those from the audience and miraculously soon he was assassinated.

Due to the evening's terrifying predictions, Dr. Caligari and his sleep-walker were now firmly caught up as suspects. This story is narrated by account of Francis, one of the witnesses of the show. The film starts in a park; Francis sits with another man as Jane, a woman he was obsessed, in a stupor -like state, walked by. Explaining her behavior, Francis related the strange events of the main story. The film ended with, Francis, who was now recuperating in asylum, his doctor was in fact, the Caligari figure.

Upon hearing Francis, the doctor asserted that he had comprehended the case ( Strozykowski, 2008, White). The history of the framing device is well known. According to the study of post-World War I German cinema by Siegfried Kracauer (1966), the framing device of the film recast the rock-hard madness and sadistic as an aberration of a mad narrator, the evil doctor being re-defined as a kind and caring person who can cure the madcap. Kracauer simultaneously saw the film as a strong expression of the natural tensions of the German psyche of the period — the fear that personal freedom would end in unbridled disorder and should be restrained by dictatorship.

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