Lethal repetition : serial killing in European cinema / Richard Dyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dyer, Richard, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--Europe.

Motion pictures.

Murder in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (257 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), 2023.

Place of Publication:

London : British Film Institute, 2014.

System Details:

text file HTML

Summary:

Serial killing is an extremely rare phenomenon in reality that is none-theless remarkably widespread in the cultural imagination. Moreover, despite its rarity, it is also taken to be an expression of characteristic aspects of humanity, masculinity, or our times. Richard Dyer investigates this paradox, focusing on the notion at its heart: seriality. He considers the aesthetics of the repetition of nastiness and how this relates to the perceptions and anxieties that images of serial killing highlight in the societies that produce them. Shifting the focus away from the US, which is often seen as the home of the serial killer, Lethal Repetition instead examines serial killing in European culture and cinema - ranging from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and from Britain to Romania. Spanning all brows of cinema - including avant-garde, art, mainstream and trash - Dyer provides case studies on Jack the Ripper, the equation of Nazism with serial killing, and the Italian giallo film to explore what this marginal and uncommon crime is being made to mean on European screens.

Contents:

Cover

Title

Copyright

Contents

PREFACE

ISSUES

1 THE PHANTOM MENACE

2 IS IT A SERIAL KILLER?

3 THE SAME OVER AND OVER

4 PROCURING EXTRAORDINARY SENSATIONS

5 MOTIVES LESS ADEQUATE

6 ACTION! KILL! CUT!

CASES

7 SERIAL KILLING IN EUROPEAN CINEMA

8 'JACK THE RIPPER'

9 FROM HAARMANN TO HITLER TO HANNIBAL

10 ANYTHING, AND MORE, FOR THE FAMILY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FILMOGRAPHY

INDEX.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references, filmographies and index.

ISBN:

9781838711825

1838711821

9781838716899

1838716890

9781844579266

1844579263

OCLC:

1039690063