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Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film
Contributor(s): Lowenstein, Adam (Author)
ISBN: 0231132468     ISBN-13: 9780231132466
Publisher: Columbia University Press
OUR PRICE:   $108.90  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: November 2005
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Film - History & Criticism
Dewey: 791.436
LCCN: 2005049359
Series: Film and Culture
Physical Information: 272 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
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.