Transmedial Ghosts: Paranormal Investigation from Photography to Youtube
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Transmedial Ghosts: Paranormal Investigation from Photography to YouTube by Kevin Chabot A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cinema Studies Institute University of Toronto © Copyright by Kevin Chabot 2019 Transmedial Ghosts: Paranormal Investigation from Photography to YouTube Kevin Chabot Doctor of Philosophy Cinema Studies Institute University of Toronto 2019 Abstract Paranormal investigation has been a narrative preoccupation within horror films for quite some time, yet the context of the 21st century and the rise of digitization have raised renewed questions concerning the evidentiary status of audio-visual technologies and their capacity for revelation. In exploring the ways in which paranormal investigation has figured within contemporary horror, this dissertation argues that the inherent ghostly qualities of film, television, video, and the Internet are exploited in diverse ways, figuring the medium itself as a spectral conduit. This spectrality manifests itself differently from medium to medium, highlighting unique articulations of haunting across media. As such, paranormal investigation in contemporary horror situates the ghost as a transmedial figure, one that exhibits unique medium- specific degrees of haunting depending upon its mode of visualization. In presenting differing instantiations of haunting within distinct media forms, paranormal investigation presents us with a composite image of current understandings of the ontology of the ghost as well as a reflexive analysis of the revelatory role of contemporary media. This investigative enterprise betrays a desire to visualize the imperceptible, an epistephilic drive to bring the supernatural within the bounds of knowledge. At the same time, paranormal investigation demonstrates a persistent ii investment in media as compensatory vision, in their ability to access and document that which escapes our perceptive capabilities. iii Acknowledgements This project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s doctoral Canadian Graduate Scholarship. The dissertation would not have been possible without the ongoing support of my supervisor Charlie Keil and committee members Angelica Fenner and Bart Testa. Their insights and feedback have been invaluable to the development of the project. An additional thank you to Jeffrey Sconce and James Cahill who generated a rich discussion during the defense; their thorough engagement with the dissertation and incisive questions and commentary will prove extremely helpful as I pursue this project in the future. I would like to further acknowledge individuals who have been instrumental as friends, colleagues, and institutional support throughout my time at the University of Toronto: Celine Bell, Frederick Blichert, Corinn Columpar, David Davidson, Eddie Farrell, Nick Fernandes, Amber Fundytus, Anjo-Mari Gouws, Amanda Greer, Karina Griffith, Morgan Harper, Brian Jacobson, Sean Kidnie, Daniel Laurin, Patrick Marshall, Dan McFadden, Justin Morris, Erin Nunoda, Dan Nayda, Tony Pi, Brian Price, Carrie Reese, Katie Russell, Tom Russell, Nic Sammond, Sara Saljjoughi, Meghan Sutherland, Ramtin Teymouri, Matt Thompson, Müge Tufenk, Jill Vasko, Joshua Wiebe, Blake Williams, and Magda Yuksel. Lastly, I want to thank my family for their unwavering love and support. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction: A Ghost Story ...................................................................................................................... 1 The Spectral Turn ....................................................................................................................... 8 Transmedial Ghosts ................................................................................................................... 18 1. The Ghosts of Film Theory: Remediating Celluloid in Contemporary Horror .......................... 31 Vision and Horror ..................................................................................................................... 37 Photography and the Invisible: Haunted Portraiture and Classical Film Theory .............. 45 Sinister Celluloid ........................................................................................................................ 68 Spectral Visions ......................................................................................................................... 86 2. Tele-Vision, Temporality, and the Geo-Logics of Paranormal Reality TV ................................. 93 Televisual Time ........................................................................................................................ 104 Fissured Landscapes: Residual Haunting and Aeonic Time ............................................... 121 3. Video Ruins: Found-Footage Horror and the Lure of the Tangible .......................................... 141 Into the Woods ......................................................................................................................... 150 Between Medial Specificities................................................................................................... 155 TVideo ...................................................................................................................................... 163 Magnetic Embodiment and the Erotics of Video .................................................................. 176 The Lure of the Tangible ........................................................................................................ 186 4. Haunted Networks and Digital Spectrality ................................................................................... 189 Contagion ................................................................................................................................. 199 Erasure ..................................................................................................................................... 221 Media, Renewed ....................................................................................................................... 240 Conclusion: Séance Cinema ................................................................................................................... 243 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 251 v Introduction: A Ghost Story David Lowery’s A Ghost Story (2017) follows a young unnamed couple played by Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck (the characters are identified as ‘M’ and ‘C’ respectively on the IMDb) who live in a rural bungalow. Despite M’s desire to move out of the home and search for another place to live, C feels a heretofore unexplained connection to the home and is resistant to leaving. “What is it you like about this house so much?” M asks C. “History” he replies. A musician and composer by trade, C’s melodies reverberate throughout the home’s hard-wood floors and plastered walls of muted blues, greens, and browns. One night while in bed, the couple hears a sound coming from the living room. It is the calamitous keys of the piano being struck discordantly. The familiar timbre is ordinarily comforting but is here disconcerting, given both the inexplicability of its occurrence and its atonality. The pair returns to their bedroom as C adopts a contemplative glance directed at the piano. This is familiar; he has heard this before. When C is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, his ghost remains behind to observe M’s grieving process and the fate of his beloved home. The film’s elliptical narrative structure transports the spectator through distinct periods of time, depicting the home’s deterioration and demolition before jumping ahead decades to portray a bustling metropolis in the once isolated rural town. The film then folds back upon itself as C’s ghost is shown observing his former self and M tour the home with a real estate agent before making the purchase. We then follow C’s ghost as he observes his former life with M in the house. This temporal refracture in the film’s narrative suggests that C’s attachment to the home and its history stems from an unconscious connection with his own ghost – the house was always already haunted by the ghost of C’s future. The film makes this clear when the clang of the piano keys heard at the beginning of the 1 2 film is revealed to be C’s ghost sitting with a thud upon the piano. The film’s cyclical narrative therefore reveals the present tense of the film’s discourse to be contaminated by C’s past and future, emblematized by the haunting presence of C’s ghost. The temporal heterogeneity and narrative circularity in A Ghost Story are echoed visually in the representation of C’s ghost as a billowing white sheet with eyeholes and the prismatic light formations that represent the invisible presence of his ghost. The folds of the sheet and refracture of light come to signify the ethereal ontology of the ghost, one that defies homogeneous time and temporal linearity. A Ghost Story’s narrative structure and representation of ghosts as flowing sheets foreground the fundamental liminality of the ghost as a figure, one that belies binaries of visibility and invisibility, materiality and immateriality, past and the present, and presence and absence. The presence of C’s ghost functions