Cynthia Freeland

The horizon for feminists studying horror films appears bleak. Since _Psycho_'s infamous shower scene, the big screen has treated us to Freddie's long razor-nails emerging between Nancy's legs in the bathtub (_A Nightmare on Elm Street I_), De Palma's exhibitionist heroine being power-drilled into the floor (_Body Double_), and Leather-face hanging women from meat hooks (_The Texas Chain Saw Massacre_). Even in a film with a strong heroine like _Alien_, any feminist point is qualified by the monstrousness of the alien mother, the objectification of Sigourney Weaver in her underwear, and her character Ripley's forced assumption of a maternal role. Despite all this, there has been some feminist work on horror, and I believe there is room for more. In the first part of this paper I shall survey and criticize currently dominant psychodynamic feminist approaches to horror. In the second part, I propose an alternative framework for constructing feminist interpretations of horror films by critically interrogating their gender ideologies. My proposal focuses less on the psychology of viewers than on the nature of films as artifacts with particular structures and functions. In the third part I illustrate my recommended framework by sketching readings of _Jurassic Park_ (Spielberg 1993), _The Fly_ (Cronenberg 1986), and _Repulsion_ (Polanski 1965).

From Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes to provocative dung-splattered madonnas, in today's art world many strange, even shocking, things are put on display. This often leads exasperated viewers to exclaim--is this really art? In this invaluable primer on aesthetics, Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are so highly valued in art, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many engrossing examples. Writing clearly and perceptively, she explores the cultural meanings of art in different contexts, and highlights the continuities of tradition that stretch from modern often sensational works, back to the ancient halls of the Parthenon, to the medieval cathedral of Chartres, and to African nkisi nkondi fetish statues. She explores the difficulties of interpretation, examines recent scientific research into the ways the brain perceives art, and looks to the still-emerging worlds of art on the web, video art, art museum CD-ROMS, and much more. She also guides us through the various theorists of art, from Aristotle and Kant to Baudrillard. Throughout this nuanced account of theories, artists, and works, Freeland provides us with a rich understanding of how cultural significance is captured in a physical medium, and why challenging our perceptions is, and always has been, central to the whole endeavor. It is instructive to recall that Henri Matisse himself was originally derided as a "wild beast." To horrified critics, his bold colors and distorted forms were outrageous. A century later, what was once shocking is now considered beautiful. And that, writes Freeland, is art.

This article addresses the portrait as a philosophical form of art. Portraits seek to render the subjective objectively visible. In portraiture two fundamental aims come into conflict: the revelatory aim of faithfulness to the subject, and the creative aim of artistic expression. In the first part of my paper, studying works by Rembrandt, I develop a typology of four different things that can be meant when speaking of an image’s power to show a person: accuracy, testimony of presence, emotional characterization, or revelation of the essential “air” (to use Roland Barthes’ term). In the second half of my paper this typology is applied to examples from painting and photography to explore how the two media might differ. I argue that, despite photography’s alleged ‘realism’ and ‘transparency,’ it allows for artistic portraiture and presents the same basic conflict between portraiture’s two aims, the revelatory and the expressive.

The laboratory creation scene in Branagh’s film is brilliant….Even more frenzied and overwrought than Whale’s, Branagh’s creation scene is filmed with dozens of quick cuts, each shot full of movement across the frame. Victor races along his attic hall, cape flying before he discards it to appear bare-chested and vigorous. While pulleys move, bottles clank, and blue volts of electricity rise in glass Tesla tubes, the naked body on the gurney is raised into a copper vat. Electric eels dispense their powerful shocks, a brown sac-like bellows "breathes" air or heat, and finally Victor stares close-up at the Creature’s eyes. The eyes are seen through a porthole in the vat: this, our first glimpse of the monster occurs nearly an hour into the film. "Live, live, live, live...." Victor chants, then "YES!" (much in the old Colin Clive mode) as it opens its eyes briefly. Nothing more occurs, though, and Victor walks away in despair; but, like us, he is brought suddenly to attention by a sharp and surprising snap of the monster’s fingers, which we also see close-up through a porthole (in a clear allusion to the Karloff monster’s birth scene). The next sequence drives home the fact that this is a real birth scene, as the vat is smashed open (the "water breaks") and Victor lifts out his huge new "baby," smacking its chest to clear its lungs. We watch an extended scene of birth struggle while Victor works to "deliver" his huge, naked, and hairless "baby" by lifting it out of the slime. Giving birth is not only very hard labor here; it’s messy, too.