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(PhD Thesis) The Anxiety of Genre. Horror tussen vakkennis, theorie en de screen idea work group.
Abstract
This PhD in the arts focuses on fiction film, specifically the horror genre. Based on two realized horror short films (“Muil” and “Souvenir”) and two full-length film scenarios (“Matriarch” and “Pan”), the core of this research entails the contrast between intellect and affect in this genre. This intellect consists on the one hand of a conscious use of the genre with all its rules, viewers expectations and conventions, as well as a desire to consciously incorporate theoretical concepts into the film text and use it as inspiration: specifically the abject of Julia Kristeva, and the archaic-mother of Barbara Creed. The affect refers to the “horror” in horror: a sense of disquiet, of transgression, of shock. John Clute's term revel best summarizes this. Horror shows me an uncomfortable, disgusting, sad and angry "truth" that repulses and fascinates at the same time.
The core question of this research is as follows: how can I, as a filmmaker, make something that deeply disturbs people within a certain genre, starting from a very conscious use of that genre with its conventions, expectations, … and a personal love for theory?
This is explored by turning to the domain of screenwriting studies, and specifically to the work of Ian Macdonald and the concepts he developed: screen idea and the screen idea work group (SIWG).
This research argues for a broadening of these terms. By seeing the SIWG even more as a virtual space, abstract concepts - like the abject - can also become members. For example, the VAF – the Flemish film fund - was a “member” in the SIWG of SOUVENIR, and the abject as an active inspirator in the SIWGs of MUIL and MATRIARCH, and as an implicit presence in SOUVENIR. Viewing the SIWG in this way makes it even more the most important place of screen idea development: the struggle with processing feedback (given by a funding body or other external party), the struggle with the internal ideological contradictions (more genre or less?), …
The concept of the screen idea is also nuanced by this research: whereas with Macdonald this is purely project-based, this can also be seen as a collection of projects around the same motifs, themes, visual motifs, and genre. This also better approaches the reality of film production with the long time it takes to realize a project.
Finally, within the domain of artistic research, this research demands attention for regular fiction film. This research is deliberately not post-media or post-disciplinary, but opts fully for an existing discipline (fiction film) linked to the commercial and mainstream horror genre.
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This chapter presents a brief history of the dominant, Anglo-American literary advice tradition from the nineteenth century to the present as well as a state of the art of the existing scholarship on literary advice. We focus on several key moments for literary advice in the USA and in the UK: Edgar Allan Poe’s “Philosophy of Composition” (1846), the debate between Sir Walter Besant and Henry James surrounding “The Art of Fiction” (1884), the era of the handbook (1880s–1930s), the “program era” (McGurl 2009) and postwar literary advice, the rise of the “advice author” in the 1980s and 1990s, and finally advice in the “digital literary sphere” (Murray 2018). The overview captures both the remarkable consistency and the transformations of advice, against the background of changes in the literary system, the rise of creative writing, changes in the publishing world, and the rise of the Internet and self-publishing. It highlights the role of some specific actors in the literary advice industry, such as moguls, women, and gurus, and draws attention to a number of subgenres (genre handbooks, self-help literary advice, and the writing memoir), as well as to counter-reactions and resistance to advice in literary works and in avant-garde manuals. Advice is regarded both in the context of the professionalization of authorship in a literary culture shaped by cultural and creative industries, and of the exponential increase of amateur creativity.
In this essay I explore the profound and specific fastening of horror to the Anthropocene by considering both scientific and philosophical responses to our contemporary moment. I then take Cormac McCarthy’s 'The Road' as a case study of the Anthropocene horror story, analysed in relation to the four stages of horror as defined by John Clute. This close reading of the 'The Road' reveals a problem with the horror of the Anthropocene: just like the road down which the man and boy travel, it takes us nowhere. I end with a critical engagement with Donna Haraway’s coinage of an alternative descriptor – the Chthulucene – arguing that it remains haunted by horror. I conclude that the challenge remains to think the affect of the horror of the Anthropocene whilst conceiving of stories that will move us beyond it.
Numerous researchers over the past 20 years have observed that military training promotes hyper-masculine qualities such as toughness, stoicism, and aggressiveness in order to prepare soldiers for combat, and inculcate values of selfless sacrifice for the group. Against the backdrop of these masculine military norms, Veterans who experience stressors such as mental health issues, injury or illness-related incapacity, or difficulties transitioning to civilian life may experience their challenges as a collapse “from hero to zero,” into the shamed or abject identity of “weak,” “unfit,” or “failed”—a fall from masculine grace. Using evidence from the literature and from a critical narrative analysis of the personal accounts of 15 veterans across 3 data sources, we tentatively suggest that the struggle against a shamed or abject identity appears as a unifying theme and possible critical driver across a variety of mental health and adjustment challenges facing military personnel and veterans. Whether in PTSD, substance use, or low treatment access, this point of convergence concentrates the complexity of masculine role pressures around a need to reaffirm status as men, with agency over self and world, and stands in negative contrast with former identification with an idealized military (or a hegemonic) masculinity. We conclude by suggesting specific strategies for culturally (gender) safe and competent practice for professionals and program designers working with this population.
It is increasingly common for scholars and journalists to make claims of horror cinema’s potential to engage with socio-political realities and, in so doing, identify grave social injustices. This article argues that, if one is to make a true assessment of the extent to which horror films might effect social change, one needs to look towards activist communities within which filmmakers are using the genre as part of a broader effort to do precisely that. In so doing, the article theorizes ‘Activist Horror Film’ in relation to a British short film, The Herd, a work cultivated as part of the vegan-feminist protest movement. The article begins by situating The Herd within the context of scholarship about socially charged horror films, before considering the film’s broader activist context and that of its production, the crowd-funding campaign that led to its completion, the film’s content, its presence at festivals and online and its afterlife within circles of vegan/animal welfare activism. This article contends that The Herd is easily distinguished from other socially aware horror films of the contemporary moment, for the activism of its makers is what drives it and is the context that birthed it and within which it continues to be shown.
Companion volumes 'Classic Readings on Monster Theory' and 'Primary Sources on Monsters' gather a wide range of readings and sources to enable us to see and understand what monsters can show us about what it means to be human. The first volume introduces important modern theorists of the monstrous and aims to provide interpretive tools and strategies for students to use to grapple with the primary sources in the second volume, which brings together some of the most influential and indicative monster narratives from the West.
From Shortbus to Shame and from Oldboy to Irreversible, film festival premieres regularly make international headlines for their shockingly graphic depictions of sex and violence. Film critics and scholars alike often regard these movies as the work of visionary auteurs, hailing directors like Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier as heirs to a tradition of transgressive art. In this provocative new book, Mattias Frey offers a very different perspective on these films, exposing how they are also calculated products, designed to achieve global notoriety in a competitive marketplace. Paying close attention to the discourses employed by film critics, distributors, and filmmakers themselves, Extreme Cinema examines the various tightropes that must be walked when selling transgressive art films to discerning audiences, distinguishing them from generic horror, pornography, and Hollywood product while simultaneously hyping their salacious content. Deftly tracing the links between the local and the global, Frey also shows how the directors and distributors of extreme art house fare from both Europe and East Asia have significant incentives to exaggerate the exotic elements that would differentiate them from Anglo-American product. Extreme Cinema also includes original interviews with the programmers of several leading international film festivals and with niche distributors and exhibitors, giving readers a revealing look at how these institutions enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the “taboo-breakers” of art house cinema. Frey also demonstrates how these apparently transgressive films actually operate within a strict set of codes and conventions, carefully calibrated to perpetuate a media industry that fuels itself on provocation.