Film Studies Daily Log

Monday, November 10

The Politics of the Horror Film

We discussed the relationship of films like Nosferatu and Freaks to the real world. Are the films, for instance, Fascist or anti-Fascist? (We re-viewed a short excerpt from Universal Horror linking The Invisible Man and Adolf Hitler, and we looked at Prof. Kracauer's arument that Nosferatu is a Jewish caricature and that the Expressionist films in general prepared the German people for Nazism.) Are the real-world overtones supplied by the audience rather than the filmmakers? Are the films in question simply entertainment free of propaganda value?