Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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language) is inescapably literal. Images confront the viewer directly,
without mediation. What we see is what we see; the figures that unroll
before us cannot be regarded merely as arbitrary representations or
conventional signs. We respond viscerally to visual forms, before having
the leisure to read or interpret them as symbols. (1993; 26) [parenthesis in
the original]
Shaviro later writes that the visceral impact of film viewing “disrupts the traditional,
historically sedimented habits and expectations of vision...” (32) Philip Brophy
similarly addresses the visceral impact in the aesthetic design of contemporary
horror. Brophy suggests that “Perhaps what has been an even more prolific trend is
the destruction of the Body. The contemporary horror film tends to play not so
much on the broad fear of Death, but more precisely on the fear of one’s own body,
of how one controls and relates to it.” (2000, 280) It reasonably follows that the
visceral experience of watching through a character’s eyes in cinema – watching as
an immediate participant watching – compounds the visceral impact.
With this proximity fear in mind, each director exploits this device to
expectationally subversive effect. Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood (1971) is a
stripped-down, bare bones giallo film that takes place in an elaborate estate on a
desolate lake. The opening sequence shows the event that incites the narrative,
which is the murder of an old lady in a wheelchair. The camera not only stalks her,
but moves towards and away from her at unusual speed and from strange angles. We
see the killer’s hands in black gloves so we are aware that he/she is human, and the
familiar shaky handheld camera is used, and despite the unusual angles and speed,
the audience distinctly interprets the images as eye/camera shots. Argento exploits