Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film

Film and Culture Series

by Adam Lowenstein

In this imaginative new work, Adam Lowenstein explores the ways in which a group of groundbreaking horror films engaged the haunting social conflicts left in the wake of World War II, Hiroshima, and the Vietnam War. Lowenstein centers Shocking Representation around readings of films by Georges Franju, Michael Powell, Shindo Kaneto, Wes Craven, and David Cronenberg. He shows that through allegorical representations these directors' films confronted and challenged comforting historical narratives and notions of national identity intended to soothe public anxieties in the aftermath of national traumas.

Borrowing elements from art cinema and the horror genre, these directors disrupted the boundaries between high and low cinema. Lowenstein contrasts their works, often dismissed by contemporary critics, with the films of acclaimed "New Wave" directors in France, England, Japan, and the United States. He argues that these "New Wave" films, which were embraced as both art and national cinema, often upheld conventional ideas of nation, history, gender, and class questioned by the horror films. By fusing film studies with the emerging field of trauma studies, and drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin, Adam Lowenstein offers a bold reassessment of the modern horror film and the idea of national cinema.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Horror, History, Media Tie In, Politics

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 22, 2005

About the author

Adam Lowenstein works on issues relating to the cinema as a mode of historical, cultural, and aesthetic confrontation. His teaching and research link these issues to the relays between genre films and art films, the construction of national cinemas, and the politics of spectatorship, with particular attention to American, British, Canadian, French, and Japanese cases.

Reviews

[Zane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book of cultural studies essays on horror film. Most of the chapters are on non-US horror, but there is a chapter on 'Last House on the Left' that presents the film in relation to the Kent State shooting, Viet Nam, the decline of 60's counter-culture, and news coverage of the war for the middle class. Great essay for any horror fan looking for an in depth explanation of this film. I hadn't seen the other films it addresses, so those were less interesting to me.

[Jonas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great chapters on Peeping Tom, The Last House on the Left, and Shivers. Two neat things I learned: 1) Kent State destroyed the new left movement in 1970 and 2) Last House on the Left may be referring to the political left. I also learned a new word: jetztzeit, a German word for the moment when past and present illuminate each other.

[Caitlin]

Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film (Film and Culture Series) by Adam Lowenstein (2005)

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lowenstein does make a lot of interesting ties between horror as a genre (past and present) and horror as a reality. The book isn't for everyone, but it is a worthwhile read.

[Karen]

Bryant Park Reading Room Series