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Fall of Gothic Cinema

by Alper Caglar

The appeal of Gothic filmmaking has recently been in a decline. Audiences have become weary of cheap and sudden strikes of terror through violent means. The genre is slowly dissipating into other mainstream movie styles and is being absorbed by the industry. This is partially due to the decreasing quality of horror movies and the excessive use of gore.

Gothic, as a general sense of the word is style of fiction that emphasizes the grotesque, mysterious, and desolate (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition). Throughout the years fiction has taken a leap towards the new popular medium; Cinema. Earliest examples of Gothic Cinema include examples which have shaped the future of how filmmakers would approach the genre. Such examples consist of the revolutionary Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Nosferatu. These films advocated style over meaning. They single-handedly brought Gothic Filmmaking into the arena of other early examples of the moving picture.

Mark Edmundson, in his 1997 book Nightmare on Main Street claims that Gothic fiction is as popular as ever in many different types of mediums. He states that throughout its history, Gothic art has only evolved, but ever present and powerful. He compares the various evolutionary aspects of the genre, from the disintegration of the Cold War to the O.J. Simpson trial. His argument is effective and in my opinion, valid. Gothic art and storytelling is indeed very much alive, yet it has stopped being a singular entity in its own right. Films have begun to drain the Gothic ideology, and have begun to eat away at its identity. No longer do we have as many tales which have an omnipresent villain such as Dracula or Caligari. In the modern age, villains are given justification in their own right. Unlike loathing or pitying the terrible force, we reason with it. Films like Fight Club, Matrix, Star Wars all have one thing in common. There is no single individual who is inherently evil, as depicted in Gothic narration. Tyler Durden is but a facet of Edward Norton's character. Neo's foreboding world is ultimately the cause of human impunity. Even the former heavyweight champion of evil, Darth Vader, is being given excuses of why he turned to the dark side with another trilogy. Humanity is in an era when it is shedding the skin of blame. Unlike the earlier centuries we are not goaded by the retribution of the villain into social compliance. We have begun questioning the larger questions in life with the arrival of the new millennium. Instead of watching a truly dark being perform acts of terror, we are trying to cope with the discovery of our own darker sides.

All of these reasons have caused the Gothic films to lose its focus, and become cheap thrillers. First we had the absurd, yet chilling imagery of Nosferatu. We did not have one scene with blood. Instead the director focused on ingenious symbolism with the vampire's shadow gliding over the sleeping form of the lady. Then the next step was the inexplicable and terrifying existence of the post-nuclear induced Swamp Thing and terror from outer space. With the arrival of purely serial murder films such as the Freddy Krueger, Jason and Chucky series, we no longer have the surreal and thought-provoking power of early 1900s Dr. Caligari. This evolution was thought to be the next advance in visual recitation, yet it has ultimately backfired upon the films themselves. Horror in the modern age consists of scantily clad women being chased around with mysterious serial murderers in funny masks. The field of Gothic filmmaking is being disintegrated by lack of original ideas.

Although many new horror films have been released in the theaters around the globe, their box office profits are in no way comparable to blockbusters of other genres. One failure after another, filmmakers are slowly being forced to consider alternative methods to attract the audiences. Several different methods are being used to achieve this goal, primarily the use of celebrity names and experimental approaches. Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath were some of the driving powers behind the 2000 hit… perhaps the only horror hit in years. Another successful venture was the unlikely Blair Witch Project which used extremely revolutionary filming techniques to temporarily rejuvenate the genre.

The inexorable degeneration of true Gothic films are being accelerated by mainstream films which choose to incorporate horror themes, but do not dominate the plot with them. Even in the films of the Gothic-Guru Tim Burton such as Edward Scissorhands and The Crow, the mystifying aspects were overshadowed by the presence of a social commentary (shunning of a strange individual/outcast), or a chronicle of vengeance (avenging the suffering of a loved one even in death)rather than being in the spotlight stylistically throughout the film such as the earlier classics. This ultimately means that Gothic filmmaking is slowly becoming merely a tool for certain scenes in films, and is degenerating towards losing their importance. The thoughts of film scholar, Chris Bolton sum up the slow but sure alteration of the genre.

Sometimes the greatest horrors are not those of the imagination, but rather of the all-too-real variety. Witness any of the astonishingly brutal tales of terror and dementia in the newspaper. Or the shockingly sordid, explicit stories reported live on CNN and accompanied by raw, vomit-inducing imagery. Or the dark, moldy tomb of modern-Gothic "secrets" passed in hushed whispers through the spine of a family. Or--worse yet--the gruesome, gory, pathetic spectacle that has become the American horror film. Stare at it closely enough and it's likely to turn your skin white and clammy, cause your hair to tumble from your scalp like autumn leaves, or stop your heart cold. Poe himself shudders in his grave. (Bolton)

There may be several reasons for this change, primarily the change in society. As Edmundson explains, there is no social need to stimulate the public with images of terror. Such things in today's world are defined as propaganda, and are summarily dismissed. The dogmatic imagery of classical Gothic filmmaking in which right and wrong are clearly defined, simply does not satisfy the audiences at this point. In intellectually successful movies of contemporary cinema, a director must challenge the viewer in shades of gray, rather than simply black and white. Successful Gothic movies do exist (Interview With the Vampire, Coppola's remake Dracula) but they are nowhere as influential their former counterparts. Most often they are remakes or just recycling of ideas used before in the past. No scholarly books have been written about the significance of the Jason series, or the philosophical meanings of Chucky the murdering doll.

There are several things the media community could do to solve this problem, or at least alleviate this problem. Assuming that this change in the society's perception of horror films is not a natural aspect of its evolution, we might opt to better the quality of which the movies are made. As a substitute for increasing the level of violence, and force-feeding the audience with a comic book, directors can choose to use the foolproof style of earlier classics. Instead of a more contemporary way of exhibiting beautiful girls being cut into shreds by a faceless villain, we could try to mystify the experience once again by summoning a more literary way of making films.

Bibliography

Edmundson, Mark
Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism and the Culture of Gothic
1997 President and Fellows of Harvard College
(Also in: toolkit.virginia.edu - ENLY 255)

Bolton, Chris Decline of the Horror Movie
http://www.24framespersecond.com/writings/writings/declinehorror.html

Classics of Gothic Horror Cinema
www.student.oulu.fi/~sairwas/frameX/horror/

1919 Decla-Bioscop Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari

The Baron's Goth Film Picks: The 20 Most Important Gothic Films
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Chateau/8780/The20gothiest.html

The Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com