A sanguinary economy and aesthetics: the pulse in horror cinema

This dissertation analyses William Castle's The Tingler (1959), George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), Lucio Fulci's L'aldila/The Beyond (1981), and Andrzej Zulawski's Possession (1981) to find the pulse in cinema. It acknowledges that the pulse is "felt" rather than "perceived," yet argues that the pulse has a wider-reaching effect in cinema than simply the physiological response of the spectator to the image. My aim is to establish the terms according to which the economy and aesthetics of the pulse can be brought to bear on our understanding of cinema and cinema spectatorship. I argue that the economy of spectatorship is better understood by Jean-Francois Lyotard's concept of the dispositif than the formulation of the cinematic apparatus of 1970s film theory, which sought to demonstrate the ideological interpellation of the viewing subject. The dispositif recognises the distribution of the pulse - the force of intensities in the body of the spectator and in the image - in terms of an energetic exchange and expenditure. The dispositif is vital for thinking about the spectator as a component in the energetic system of cinema. My conception of the pulse in cinema is characterised by the energetic relationship between the spectator and the image, and is Open. This pulse is imperceptible in the image and works to the originary sensory aesthetics of aisthesis in the viewer. Aisthesis, in this thesis, refers to the sensations that are "exposed" by the apparatus. However, what is also "exposed" is the freedom of the blood that circulates in an exposure that spills blood and, in so doing, changes aisthesis to aesthetics. I conceive the pulse as aisthetic because it is the minimal condition of sensation, whilst being the propulsion for the blood that circulates. This thesis will thus examine the pulse "exposed" through the spilling of blood in horror cinema, which exemplifies a cinema of expenditures. Such expenditures transform subjectivity into the operations of a sovereign spectatorship. It is in experiencing horror film that the pulse is most potent, for it is within such films that the affective forces of horror characterised by blood can be found.

Grantor dc:publisher

UNSW, Sydney

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Mee, Sharon

• Horror film
• Pulse
• Cinematic apparatus
• Aisthesis
• Aesthetics
• Economy
• Intensity
• Blood
• Affect
• Dispositif
• Rhythm

Statement dc:rights

• open access
• CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
• free_to_read

Licence

• https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/

Language dc:language

EN

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/3326

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/58990