1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910158965803321

Autore

Leeder Murray

Titolo

The Modern Supernatural and the Beginnings of Cinema / / by Murray Leeder

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2017

ISBN

1-137-58371-1

Edizione

[1st ed. 2017.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XII, 209 p. 21 illus., 1 illus. in color.)

Disciplina

791.4309

Soggetti

Motion pictures—History

Film genres

Motion pictures

Stage management

Motion picture acting

Film History

Genre

Film Theory

Technology and Stagecraft

Screen Performance

Film/TV Technology

History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

1.Introduction -- 2. The Haunting of Film Theory -- 3. Light and Lies: Screen Practice and (Super-) Natural Magic -- 4. The Strange Case of George Albert Smith: Mesmerism, Psychical Research and Cinema -- 5. Aesthetics of Co-Registration: Spirit Photography, X-Rays and Cinema -- 6. Méliès’s Skeleton: Gender, Cinema’s Danse Macabre and the Erotics of Bone -- 7. Living Pictures at Will: Projecting Haunted Minds -- 8. Conclusion: Lost Worlds, Ghost Worlds. .

Sommario/riassunto

This study sees the nineteenth century supernatural as a significant context for cinema’s first years. The book takes up the familiar notion of cinema as a “ghostly,” “spectral” or “haunted” medium and asks what



made such association possible. Examining the history of the projected image and supernatural displays, psychical research and telepathy, spirit photography and X-rays, the skeletons of the danse macabre and the ghostly spaces of the mind, it uncovers many lost and fascinating connections. The Modern Supernatural and the Beginnings of Cinema locates film’s spectral affinities within a history stretching back to the beginning of screen practice and forward to the digital era. In addition to examining the use of supernatural themes by pioneering filmmakers like Georges Méliès and George Albert Smith, it also engages with the representations of cinema’s ghostly past in Guy Maddin’s recent online project Seances (2016). It is ideal for those interested in the history of cinema, the study of the supernatural and the pre-history of the horror film.