Pub Date : 2015-11-12DOI: 10.5040/9781501304729.ch-004
Simone Natale
Natale’s chapter addresses a particular class of ghost movies: the type in which the ghost is ultimately refused and relegated to the realm of human imagination and trickery. It focuses on the case of Paul Leni’s The Cat and the Canary to show how this film remediates a long tradition of spectacular entertainments based on the rejection of supernaturalism, and how such rejection has important consequences for the film’s narrative framework and the audience’s response. The chapter applies the concept the “spectralisation of the mind,” proposed by literary scholar Terry Castle, to explain the narrative and conceptual role played by ghosts in this film. After establishing Cat’s connections to the cultural history of ghosts, this chapter situates the film within the tradition of spiritualist exposés. This chapter also includes a broader discussion of the ghost film subgenre made popular by Hollywood between the 1930s and 1960s that proposed interpretations that denied the ‘reality’ of the world of ghosts and spectres.
Natale的章节讲述了一类特殊的鬼电影:在这种类型的电影中，鬼最终被拒绝，并被降级到人类想象和欺骗的领域。本文以保罗·莱尼的《猫与金丝雀》为例，展示了这部电影是如何在拒绝超自然主义的基础上修复了一个悠久的壮观娱乐传统，以及这种拒绝如何对电影的叙事框架和观众的反应产生了重要影响。本章运用文学学者Terry Castle提出的“心灵幽灵化”(spectralisation of The mind)这一概念来解释鬼魂在这部电影中所扮演的叙事和概念角色。在确立了《猫》与鬼魂文化历史的联系之后，本章将电影置于招魂者暴露的传统中。本章还包括对20世纪30年代至60年代好莱坞流行的鬼片亚类型的更广泛的讨论，这些电影提出了否认鬼魂和幽灵世界“现实”的解释。
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