CMLT 29004 - Filming the Occult

Course Credit: 1
FILMING THE OCCULT Ever since the public announcement of the invention of photography in 1839, photographic processes have been widely credited with the ability to reveal that which cannot be perceived by the human eye. This belief led to the widespread production of what were known as spirit photographs-pictures of discarnate beings and miraculous phenomena. Most of these photographs were revealed to be fakes, but the idea that film could reveal an occult world influenced the development of cinema at the end of the nineteenth century. Many of the first movies involved the production of “ghosts” (indeed one of the early “film projectors” was called a phantoscope). In this course we will examine the close relationship that film has always had to the occult. We will view such varied films as the early works of the Méliès brothers, the German Expressionism of Robert Wiene and F. W. Murnau, the Japanese adaptations of Kaidan (traditional ghost stories) and even the schlock shock of William Castle. Reading widely in both the history of cinema and the psychological underpinnings of the uncanny, our goal will be to come to some theoretical understanding of the place of the occult in cinema-a place that at once calls attention to its own invisibility and yet appeals to our irrational belief that cinema can reveal that which is unseen. Prerequisite(s): ENGL-120xx or permission of the instructor [AH]