Includes bibliographical references (pages 447-452), filmography (pages 439-443) and index.
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: 19. Conclusion. The Gothic Tradition -- Freud and Motifs -- 2. Three Major Predecessors -- The Haunted House -- The Changeling (Peter Medak, Canada, 1979) -- The Malevolent Hotel -- The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, GB, 1980) -- The Avenging Ghost -- Ghost Story (John Irvin, US, 1981) -- 3. The Fallow Years: An Assortment of Ghosts -- Bringing Back the Past -- Lady in White (Frank LaLoggia, US, 1988) and Ijintachi tono natsu/The Discarnates (Nobuhiko Obayashi, Japan, 1988) -- Lady in White -- The Discarnates -- Benevolent Ghosts -- Ghost (Jerry Zucker, US, 1990) -- Always (Steven Spielberg, US, 1989) -- The Seductive Revenant -- Haunted (Lewis Gilbert, UK/US, 1995) -- Seminal Films -- 4. Ghosts in the City -- A Ghost World -- The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, US, 1999) -- Working-class Tensions -- Stir of Echoes (David Koepp, US, 1999) -- 5. Ghosts in the Machine -- Ringu/Ring (Hideo Nakata, Japan, 1998) and Ringu 2/Ring 2 (Nakata, Japan, 1999) -- Ringu 2 -- 6. Schoolgirl Angst -- Kokkuri-san/Kokkuri (Takahisa Zeze, Japan, 1997) -- Memento Mori (Kim Tae-yong & Min Kyu-dong, South Korea, 1999) -- 7. Childhood Abuse -- In Dreams (Neil Jordan, US, 1998) and The Dark (John Fawcett, UK/Germany, 2005) -- The Haunting (Jan de Bont, US, 1999) -- Evolution of the cycle -- 8. Generic Developments 1: Messages from the Dead -- A Ghost Movie Thriller -- What Lies Beneath (Robert Zemeckis, US, 2000) -- Southern Gothic -- The Gift (Sam Raimi, US, 2000) -- Bereaved Husband -- Dragonfly (Tom Shadyac, US/Germany, 2002) -- 9. Spain and History 1: Politics and War -- El espinazo del diablo/The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, Spain/Mexico, 2001) -- The Others/Los otros (Alejandro Amenabar, Spain/US, 2001) -- 10. Hollywood Reinflections -- The Ring (Gore Verbinski 2002) and The Ring Two (Hideo Nakata 2005) -- The Ring Two -- Male Melodrama -- Below (David Twohy, 2002) -- 11. Asian Variations -- Pon/Phone (Ahn Byung-ki, South Korea, 2002) -- Ju-on (Takashi Shimizu, Japan, 2002) and The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu, US, 2004) -- The Grudge -- Chakushin ari/One Missed Call (Takashi Miike, Japan, 2004) -- 12. Generic Developments 2: Ghosts in the Woman's Film -- Honogurai mizu no soko kara/Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, Japan, 2002) -- Dark Water (Walter Salles, US, 2005) -- Half Light (Craig Rosenberg, Germany/US, 2006) -- The Marsh (Jordan Barker, Canada/US, 2006) -- 13. Ghosts and Institutions 1: South Korea -- The School -- The Yeogo goedam films -- Whispering Corridors (Park Ki-hyeong 1998) -- Voice (Choi Equan 2005) -- A Blood Pledge (Lee Jong-yong 2009) -- The Department Store -- Geoul sokeru/Into the Mirror (Kim Sung-ho 2003) -- 14. Ghosts and Institutions 2: The West -- The Hospital -- Riget/The Kingdom (4-part TV series) (Lars von Trier & Morten Arnfred, Denmark, 1994) -- Fragile/Fragiles (Jaume Balaguero, Spain/UK, 2005) -- The Prison -- Gothika (Mathieu Kassovitz, US, 2003) -- 15. National Variations -- Hong Kong -- Inner Senses (Lo Chi-leung 2002) -- India -- Bhoot/Ghost (Ram Gopal Varma, 2003) -- France -- Histoire de Marie et Julien (Jacques Rivette 2003) -- Italy: Three Films -- Non ti muovere/Don't Move (Sergio Castellitto, Italy/Spain/UK, 2004) -- L'amore ritorna (Sergio Rubini 2004) -- Ovunque sei (Michele Placido 2004) -- 16. Anatomy of the Ghost Melodrama -- Themes and Motifs -- Ryeong/The Ghost/Dead Friend (Kim Tae-kyoung, South Korea, 2004) -- Narrative structure -- Sakebi/Retribution (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2006) -- 17. Spain and History 2: The Franco Legacy and the Catholic Church -- Lost Children -- El orfanato/The Orphanage (J.A. Bayona 2006) -- Unwilling Martyrs -- No-Do/The Haunting/The Beckoning (Elio Quiroga 2009) -- 18. The Return of the British Ghost Film -- The Disappeared (Johnny Kevorkian, UK, 2008) -- Genova (Michael Winterbottom, UK/Cayman Islands, 2008) -- The Awakening (Nick Murphy, UK/France, 2011) -- The Woman in Black -- The Woman in Black (Herbert Wise, TVM, 1989) -- The Woman in Black (James Watkins, UK/US/Canada/Sweden, 2011) -- The Secret of Crickley Hall (Joe Ahearne 2012, 3-part BBC TV mini-series) -- 19. Recent US developments and conclusion -- Return to Haunted-house Horror -- Broken Families and Mourning -- Conclusion.
Summary:
The popular and critical successes of films like 'The Sixth Sense' and the 'Ring' film and its sequels in the late 1990s led to an impressive international explosion of scary films dealing with ghosts. This book takes a close look at a number of those films from different countries. Making a crucial distinction between these atmospheric films and conventional horror, Michael Walker argues that they are most productively seen as ghost melodramas, which opens them up to a powerful range of analytic tools from the study of melodrama, including, crucially, psychoanalysis.
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