Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature: The Body in Parts PDF
Preview Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature: The Body in Parts
GOTHIC DISSECTIONS IN FILM AND LITERATURE The Body in Parts Ian Conrich and Laura Sedgwick Palgrave Gothic Series Editor Clive Bloom Middlesex University London, UK “This is a wonderful book, one that fills a longstanding gap in horror and Gothic studies. A thumping good read for a dark and stormy night.” —Joan Hawkins, Indiana University Bloomington, USA “Meticulously researched and well written, Gothic Dissections is a deliberate act of dismemberment and rich combinations, offering new views of how the body is theorised and represented in Gothic texts.” —Gina Wisker, University of Brighton, UK “Gothic Dissections is as lively as it is systematic and comprehensive. The first to ana- lyse Gothic culture from the perspective of the body’s anatomical features, the book spans a splendid range of disciplinary perspectives and media and cultural forms.” —Linda Badley, Middle Tennessee State University, USA “The body under investigation here is not the monolithic and integrated ‘Gothic body’ of earlier scholarship but the torn and dismembered body of the autopsy table; the authors’ critical attention as exacting as the process of anatomical dis- section itself.” —Dale Townshend, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK “An excellent addition to the literature on Gothic physicality, and one well informed by the necessary scientific and medical knowledge.” —David Punter, University of Bristol, UK “Gothic Dissections offers a unique and captivating approach to the gothic. The essays not only uncannily mirror the gothic in their focus on body parts, they also provide a salient and seductive exploration of the abject nature of the gothic.” —Barbara Creed, University of Melbourne, Australia This series of gothic books is the first to treat the genre in its many inter-related, global and ‘extended’ cultural aspects to show how the taste for the medieval and the sublime gave rise to a perverse taste for terror and horror and how that taste became not only international (with a huge fan base in places such as South Korea and Japan) but also the sensibility of the modern age, changing our attitudes to such diverse areas as the nature of the artist, the meaning of drug abuse and the con- cept of the self. The series is accessible but scholarly, with referencing kept to a minimum and theory contextualised where possible. All the books are readable by an intelligent student or a knowledgeable general reader interested in the subject. Editorial Advisory Board Dr. Ian Conrich, University of Vienna, Austria Barry Forshaw, author/journalist, UK Prof. Gregg Kucich, University of Notre Dame, USA Prof. Gina Wisker, University of Brighton, UK Dr. Catherine Wynne, University of Hull, UK Dr. Alison Peirse, University of York, UK Dr. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK Prof. William Hughes, Bath Spa University, UK More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14698 Ian Conrich · Laura Sedgwick Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature The Body in Parts Ian Conrich Laura Sedgwick School for Cultural and Social Department of English Literature Anthropology and Linguistics University of Vienna University of Stirling Vienna, Austria Stirling, Scotland Palgrave Gothic ISBN 978-1-137-30357-8 ISBN 978-1-137-30358-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-30358-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017951537 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © FotografiaBasica/Getty Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom A cknowledgements Planning and writing this book has been an edifying experience with such a wealth of material upon which to reflect. We would like to thank Prof. Justin D. Edwards, who was there from the start and helped develop the original ideas. Bits of Justin are stitched within the pages of this book. Dr. Roy Smith, who is a mine of film and literature of the weird and wonderful, provided titles for Gothic fiction that we had over- looked and he carefully read through each chapter as they emerged from the shadows. We remain even more convinced that he is teaching in the wrong discipline. Kseniia Kalugina also read parts of the book and her feedback helped in its own way to keep the project moving forward. Series Editor, Prof. Clive Bloom, embraced the concept of the book and quickly realised its potential whilst he was a passenger in a car being driven to Croydon, for a special event on The Horror of London. Karina Jakupsdottir, Lina Aboujieb and Felicity Plester at Palgrave Macmillan have been superb in their support and patience. We have been very for- tunate to have had such an editorial team, and in particular Karina’s understanding of our desire to produce the best possible book gave a bit of breathing space whilst the deadline for completion loomed. Laura would like to thank her family for all of their enduring support during the writing of this book, especially given the wide range of Gothic texts that she inflicted upon them. She would also like to thank the Screen Demons community in Newcastle upon Tyne for their contin- ued support and promotion of horror and cult cinema. Ian would like to apologise to the man in the café at the National Gallery, in London, who v vi ACKNoWLEDGEMENTS seemed deeply unsettled by a conversation he overheard in which dif- ferent parts of the body were being divided up and shared. Little did he know that a book was being devised and he left before he could be reas- sured of our best intentions. Finally, we would like to thank each other— working as colleagues, collaborators, conspirators and friends this book would not have been possible any other way. c ontents 1 Introduction 1 2 The Brain 15 3 Head and Face 33 4 Eyes 49 5 Ears and Nose 65 6 Teeth 81 7 The Tongue, Mouth and Lips 97 8 Hair and Fingernails 111 9 Hands 131 10 Feet and Limbs 151 11 Bones 165 vii viii CoNTENTS 12 Skin 181 13 The Heart 197 14 Genitalia 211 15 The Uterus 227 16 The Stomach, Intestines and the Anus 243 17 Epilogue 261 Index 263 Films 267 Literature: Fiction and Authors 275 Art and Artists 281 General 283 l f ist of igures Fig. 2.1 The brain as a delicacy in a cooking masterclass in Hannibal (2001, directed by Ridley Scott) 20 Fig. 2.2 The all-seeing exhumed brain of a dead serial killer in Blood Diner (1987, directed by Jackie Kong) 27 Fig. 3.1 The forced union. Moss (Rosey Grier) contends with the head of Kirshner (Ray Milland) that has been surgically joined on to his body in The Thing with Two Heads (1972, directed by Lee Frost) 39 Fig. 3.2 Professor Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) attempts a face transplant in Les yeux sans visage (1960, directed by Georges Franju) 45 Fig. 4.1 The tortured eye of the captive patient in Final Destination 5 (2011, directed by Steven Quale) 55 Fig. 4.2 The displaced eyes of the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, directed by Guillermo del Toro) 62 Fig. 5.1 The severed ear as surrealist object in Blue Velvet (1986, directed by David Lynch) 70 Fig. 5.2 The patchwork face of the crazed Dr Alan Kessler (Randall William Cook) in I, Madman (1989, directed by Tibor Takács) 73 Fig. 6.1 Larry Caine inspects a forcibly extracted tooth in The Dentist 2 (1998, directed by Brian Yuzna) 85 Fig. 6.2 The Chattery Teeth ominously await their new owner in the film Quicksilver Highway (1997, directed by Mick Garris) 93 ix
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