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September 1999, Week 4

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From:
Ken Mogg <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 15:53:48 +1000
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>      I am looking for films that follow the pattern of Robert
>      Wiene's ORLAC'S
>      HANDS (1924) or Maurice Renard's original novel: Somebody is
>      influenced by
>      organs he got from a transplantation, e.g. haunted by the
>      evil spirit of the
>      donator.
[snip]
>      I am trying to work out the influence Wiene's film had on
>      the development
>      of the thriller/horror genre as well as the
>      implications/themes of this
>      particular story: why is it so popular, what basic anxieties
>      does it touch?
>
>      Any suggestions are welcome.
>
>      Klaus Bardenhagen

Further to my earlier response, re BODY PARTS (1991) and ghost-stories
and a theme of the return from the dead and 'forces we know not fully
of' ...

There is of course the 'psychoanalytic' or 'Freudian' interpretation of
all of this, which fascinated Bunuel and Bergman: e.g., the severed hand
as castration symbol, the body part that seems to have a mind of its
own, the sense of someone (or something) else dictating to us from
within or whispering its inner messages (good or evil or ambivalent) ...

S.S. Prawer, 'Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror' (1980),
pp. 74-76, has some thoughts along these lines.

- Ken Mogg.

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