Film and the Gothic Imagination

Running alongside BFI Southbank's Gothic season, this course will chart the emergence and development of Gothic cinema, beginning with the silent features made in Germany during the 1920s, through to the Hammer Horror films of the 1970s. English Gothic will provide an interesting comparison to the American version, with the wave of Hammer Horrors (1956-75) as our case study. David Pirie in his influential book A Heritage of Horror has remarked that the Horror genre is 'the only stable cinematic myth which Britain can properly claim as its own'. Films to be examined will include, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919), Cat People (1942), The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) and The Plague of the Zombies (1965). Although the emphasis of the course is on Horror, other genres that utilise Gothic tropes will also be considered, particularly the costume melodrama. Films from the Gainsborough Studio made in Britain in the 1940s and selected films by Powell and Pressburger will be included as an antidote to the monster's bite!

15 credits at Level 4