NEGOTIATING THE NON-NARRATIVE, AESTHETIC AND EROTIC IN NEW EXTREME GORE. A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication, Culture, and Technology By Colva Weissenstein, B.A. Washington, DC April 18, 2011 Copyright 2011 by Colva Weissenstein All Rights Reserved ii NEGOTIATING THE NON-NARRATIVE, AESTHETIC AND EROTIC IN NEW EXTREME GORE. Colva O. Weissenstein, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Garrison LeMasters, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This thesis is about the economic and aesthetic elements of New Extreme Gore films produced in the 2000s. The thesis seeks to evaluate film in terms of its aesthetic project rather than a traditional reading of horror as a cathartic genre. The aesthetic project of these films manifests in terms of an erotic and visually constructed affective experience. It examines the films from a thick descriptive and scene analysis methodology in order to express the aesthetic over narrative elements of the films. The thesis is organized in terms of the economic location of the New Extreme Gore films in terms of the film industry at large. It then negotiates a move to define and analyze the aesthetic and stylistic elements of the images of bodily destruction and gore present in these productions. Finally, to consider the erotic manifestations of New Extreme Gore it explores the relationship between the real and the artificial in horror and hardcore pornography. New Extreme Gore operates in terms of a kind of aesthetic, gore-driven pornography. Further, the films in question are inherently tied to their economic circumstances as a result of the significant visual effects technology and the unstable financial success of hyper- violent films. The method of the thesis seeks to explore the relationship between language, cinema as a visual form and the elements of the inexpressible that appear in the scenes of torture iii and pain that characterize these films. Overall, the project of the thesis is one of questioning the necessity of narrative value to film studies and the potentiality of non-linguistic expression through editing, cinematography and style. iv The development and writing of this thesis has been an extraordinary and profoundly rewarding process. I am very grateful for the support and enthusiasm from everyone I’ve interacted with during the process. Particularly, I’d like to thank Garrison LeMasters, for being such a patient and brave advisor, as well as Dr. Irvine for being my reader. Also, Lydia Kelow-Bennett, and the various people I am tremendously grateful to for their time and willingness to be a part of this with me, particularly my peers in the Communication, Culture and Technology program at Georgetown. Thank you so much. COLVA WEISSENSTEIN v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction...................................................................................................................... 1 Review of Literature ...................................................................................................... 16 Chapter I......................................................................................................................... 27 Chapter II ....................................................................................................................... 50 Chapter III...................................................................................................................... 82 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 106 Works Cited ................................................................................................................. 114 vi INTRODUCTION The sound track is little more than low buzz, the screen is completely black. Suddenly a fuzzy opening appears. It appears to be a point of view shot from an unseen character, presumably with a bag over their head. You can hear his labored breathing as you begin to see around the space. It is a dark warehouse, a dingy, industrial space. The shot moves with the movements of the character's gaze, visually constructing the environment - a broken mirror, a dim, industrial light and finally a workbench covered with metal tools: pliers, wrenches, tools both medical and mechanical. Frantically the camera moves, more tools, a drill, goggles hung from a nail in the wall, a large, filthy fluorescent light. It casts a dim green glow on the dank space. The gaze moves back and forth, the breathing rattling out of the lungs. Suddenly, the sound of a heavy door moves in the darkness, the large metal door, cracks open and a figure moves into view. You can't see the figure's entire body, just his midsection and lower jaw. As the figure enters you see his entire body, clothing somewhere between a butcher and surgeon. Heavy black boots, rubber gloves, a long, butcher's leather apron, a surgeon's cap and medical mask - little more than his eyes peering from the clothing. The breathing becomes more labored as the figure approaches; his light blue eyes seem curious and excited. The sound of his boots echo in the small space. Finally, the figure, the man reaches towards the camera, pulls the bag from the other character's head. For the first time the camera angle shifts, and you are allowed to see the whose gaze you've been sharing. He is a young man, bare shouldered, disheveled, his breathing still rattling in his chest, making barely intelligible questions. Finally, amid frantic breaths, he manages to say, "Who are you?" to the man in the room. 1 Beyond the expected experience of being scared while watching a horror film and intertwined with the affective results of the horror film resides the question of how visual articulations of pain, torture and suffering operate on screen. The aesthetic construction behind scenes of incredibly violent, shocking visual content opens up a space in the horror genre where formal and visual elements are able to transcend narrative content and operate purely through visual affect. The idea that there is an element of power and purpose in the carefully constructed representations of torture attempts to examine the gore film beyond shock and instead as an aesthetic project. The image of the mangled body transcends the narrative of the media and enters a space of pure visual affect. In beginning a project that is deeply invested in extremely violent, bloody, disturbing and unusual film, there is always the question of enjoyment. Cinema has long been a thing of pleasure, positioning the viewer to the greatest advantage of a complicated, though enjoyable experience. The new wave of gore films create trouble for the notion of enjoyable cinema. They do so not through content, as the documentary genre is capable of, but instead through content carefully managed through aesthetics. The pleasure of the gore film is fundamentally generic pleasure, one which emerges when the film delivers the visual material the audience desires and expects, regardless of its graphic or gratuitous nature, as Altman defines “generic pleasure” where the film reaches the “generic crossroads” (Altman 145) and moves in the direction the audience expects. In the case of the New Extreme Gore film this is in the direction of destruction. 2 In March of 2011 news emerged that Angel Sala, the Director of the Sitges Film Festival, based in Barcelona, was charged with child pornography as a result of including A Serbian Film (2009, Srdan Spasojevic) in the selection for the festival in October 2010. The issue that led to the accusations was whether minors where involved in the production of the film, and whether minors had the potential of being exposed to the film during the screening. These issues create a space where the content of a film intersects with a wider cultural and audience response, and how these factors affect the film’s availability. When considering the motivating elements behind this project, the issue of why write about difficult, often deeply troubling films arises. The problems that arose from Sitges raise questions of why and how films such as A Serbian Film are consumed. This incident also raises the question of where the boundaries lie in how the gore film is constructed and consumed. In the weeks following the initial accusations of Salas, there was considerable outcry and attention paid to the situation by the greater film and horror community. It emerged as an issue of censorship, of whether a film should be condemned and questioned based on content that may be difficult. While the vast majority of responses to A Serbian Film have been negative, the desire to see any film screened regardless of content emerges as positive. As I began this project, many months prior to the issues surrounding Sala, my motivation was unclear. However, in light of an opportunity to think about hyper-violent media in context with greater viewing practices the motivations of the project come into focus. Films such as A Serbian Film represent a kind of media that skirts the very boundaries of social acceptability and yet can be passionately defended, regardless of content. The problems that A Serbian Film presents are those that straddle the line between offensive content and an 3 unmanageable vision. The emergence of this particular incident demonstrates a cultural moment where the stylistic content of horror, specifically in extremely violent horror becomes important and relevant. What this thesis intends to