Serial killer film
The serial killer film , also serial killer film or serial killer film , is a subgenre of the crime film and can contain elements of the thriller , the police film or the horror film . It addresses the acts of serial killers and can tell from the perpetrator's perspective as well as from the victim's point of view or the investigators' point of view.
history
The first serial killer films were based on literary models such as a Jack the Ripper story in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger (1927). The criminological phenomenon of serial murder first came into the public eye when Ed Gein was convicted of his actions. Robert Bloch was inspired by this case of a serial killer fixated on his mother for his novel Psycho , which Alfred Hitchcock filmed in 1960 . With this, Hitchcock created the prototypical psychological thriller and for the first time placed the pathological type of perpetrator at the center of cinematic observation. As a result, films were made that took up the topic and were based on Hitchcock's successful model, such as Griff aus dem Dunkel by Karel Reisz from 1964.
In the 1970s, the issue of serial murder was taken up in many films after real murders such as those of the Manson Family , the Hillside Stranglers or the Son of Sam were in the public eye. Tobe Hooper's Blood Court in Texas (1974) marks the first climax of the wave of serial killer films and combines the motif with fashionable elements from cannibal films . With the serial killer film Halloween (1978), John Carpenter shaped the subgenre of slasher film, which is still popular today . In contrast to the lurid use of violence in these films, Ulli Lommel staged the life of the boy killer Fritz Haarmann in Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (1973) in the theatrical tradition of the Fassbinder films and as a vampire film borrowed from expressionist cinema .
In the 1980s, disturbing narrative strategies dominated the serial killer film. In works such as Maniac ( William Lustig , 1980), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer ( John McNaughton , 1986) or Man Bites Dog ( Rémy Belvaux , 1992) the perspective of the perpetrator is forced upon the viewer, and the violence exercised is often more cynical Wise presented as part of daily life.
The novels of Thomas Harris and Bret Easton Ellis formed the basis for a second great wave of serial killer film in the 1990s. In particular, The Silence of the Lambs ( Jonathan Demme , 1991) redefined the character of the serial killer; he is portrayed in a charismatic way by Anthony Hopkins , the viewer loses distance from the perpetrator through visual aesthetics and dramaturgy. The film's Oscar awards ensured the ultimate entry of the serial killer genre into the Hollywood mainstream with films like Copykill ( Jon Amiel , 1995), Seven ( David Fincher , 1997) ... because they are there to kiss ( Gary Fleder , 1997) , Beyond Dreams ( Neil Jordan , 1999) or The Cell ( Tarsem Singh , 2000), Red Dragon ( Brett Ratner , 2002).
Motifs
Arno Meteling sees a defining motif in the serial killer film in the “serialization of violence” : “The aura of the unheard-of incident becomes a series product.” This never-ending spiral of violence is often set in a disturbing big city backdrop. This destructive power of city life on the individual becomes clear in Fritz Lang's M - Eine Stadt sucht eine Mörder (1931). In the more recent serial killer films, exploitively portrayed violence is often set in a context of art and high culture or is embellished philosophically or religiously, with the perpetrators being above average educated and intelligent ( The Silence of the Lambs , Seven ). In Meteling's opinion, this serves to keep the films themselves open to discourse as art products.
In his research work "Interfaces: The construction of authenticity in serial killer films", Stefan Höltgen examines the serial killer film for its authenticity aesthetics. He found that not only those films based on criminal history use the artistic means of film, but also the paratexts to convey a heightened impression of reality. Serial killer films try to evoke a physical reaction in the viewer through affect aesthetics and the appearance of authenticity, which makes what has happened "tangible" and thus helps to work off the cultural trauma that serial murder represents through repetition in art. Höltgen is therefore directed against any censorship efforts that want to “suppress” the depictions of violence in the films and discusses prominent censorship cases, including Blood Feast , Blood Court in Texas , Peeping Tom and most recently The Last Horror Movie . These prohibitions are attempts at a hegemonic reading of the films, in which the censors' affect reactions can be more or less clearly demonstrated through viewing and interpretation errors recorded in censorship reports.
See also
literature
- Stefan Höltgen: Interfaces. The construction of authenticity in the serial killer film . Dissertation as a PDF file online , pp. 48–53, 160–174, 199–208, 308–321.
- Stefan Höltgen: Interfaces. Serial murder in the movie. Marburg 2010. ISBN 978-3-89472-555-6
- Stefan Höltgen & Michael Wetzel (eds.): Killer / Culture. Serial Murder in Popular Culture. Berlin 2010. ISBN 978-3-86505-399-2
- Anette Kaufmann: blood pictures. Serial killer in the American thriller , in: Jürgen Felix (ed.): Under the skin - signatures of the self in the cinema of the body . Gardez! Verlag, Mainz 1998. ISBN 3-928624-49-0 , pp. 193-216
- Arno Meteling: Libraries of Violence. The serial killer film , in: Monster. On physicality and mediality in modern horror films. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2006. ISBN 3-89942-552-9 . Pp. 215-259.
- Marcus Stiglegger : Serial Killer Film , in: Thomas Koebner (Hrsg.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Films. 2nd Edition. Philipp Reclam jun. Stuttgart 2007. ISBN 978-3-15-010625-9 . P. 639f.