Cecilia Sayad

Our century has seen the proliferation of reality shows devoted to ghost hunts, documentaries on hauntings, and horror films presented as found footage. The horror genre is no longer exclusive to fiction and its narratives actively engage us in web forums, experiential viewing, videogames, and creepypasta. These participative modes of relating to the occult, alongside the impulse to seek proof of either its existence or fabrication, have transformed the production and consumption of horror stories.

The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life, arguing that the relationship between the horror genre and reality is more intimate than we like to think. Through a revisionist and transmedial approach to horror this book investigates our expectations about the ability of photography and film to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology's role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling a hoax.

Over the past decade, as digital media has expanded and print outlets have declined, pundits have bemoaned a “crisis of criticism” and mourned the “death of the critic.” Now that well-paying jobs in film criticism have largely evaporated, while blogs, message boards, and social media have given new meaning to the saying that “everyone’s a critic,” urgent questions have emerged about the status and purpose of film criticism in the twenty-first century.

In Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the start of its rebirth in a new form. Drawing from a wide variety of case studies and methodological perspectives, the book’s contributors find many signs of the film critic’s declining clout, but they also locate surprising examples of how critics—whether moonlighting bloggers or salaried writers—have been able to intervene in current popular discourse about arts and culture.

In addition to collecting a plethora of scholarly perspectives, Film Criticism in the Digital Age includes statements from key bloggers and print critics, like Armond White and Nick James. Neither an uncritical celebration of digital culture nor a jeremiad against it, this anthology offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and possibilities that the Internet brings to the evaluation, promotion, and explanation of artistic works.

In an era defined by the instability of identities and the recycling of works, Performing Authorship offers a refreshingly new take on the cinematic auteur, proposing that the challenges that once accelerated this figure's critical demise should instead pump new life into it. This book is about the drama of creative processes in essay, documentary and fiction films, with particular emphasis on the effects that the filmmaker's body exerts on our sense of an authorial presence. It is an illuminating analysis of films by Jean-Luc Godard, Woody Allen, Agnes Varda, Orson Welles, Jean Rouch, Eduardo Coutinho and Sarah Turner that shows directors shifting between opposite movements towards authorial assertion and divestiture, palpability and disappearance, exposure and masking. In making this journey, Cecilia Sayad argues, the film author is not necessarily at the work's origin, nor does it constitute the end product. What the new concept of performing authorship describes is the making and unmaking of a subject.

Charlie Kaufman, o roteirista de Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind conseguiu ultrapassar o anonimato dos créditos finais de uma sessão de cinema para se tornar tão conhecido e responsável pela autoria dos filmes quanto seus diretores. Kaufman imprimiu sobre eles sua marca, a de um universo estranho que o espectador aprendeu a procurar e reconhecer como sendo seu.

Para discutir a figura do roteirista-autor, Cecilia Sayad traça uma breve história da trajetória do autor no cinema, do mudo ao "cinema de autor" que a geração francesa surgida com a nouvelle vague apresentou ao mundo.

Quem é esse autor, reconhecido pela exposição de suas obsessões e cuja imaginação dita o conteúdo visual dos filmes, é a questão levantada nesse livro.

This article examines the presumed documentation of supernatural phenomena in ghost hunting reality television shows. It asks how we relate to these intangible images in the context of a so-called ‘post-truth era’ which challenges mainstream sources of information while offering wide access to the production of texts and images.

One aspect of the discussion considers these reality programmes, which above all aim to entertain, as part of the horror genre, revisiting the place that reality occupies in horror scholarship. Supernatural narratives are traditionally discussed as symbolic representations of the real world—monsters stand for a feared ‘other,’ and stories metaphorically evoke personal or historical trauma. In horror criticism, supernatural tales are removed from reality, and can only address it indirectly. The reality shows in question, on the contrary, bring the occult and our life experiences closer together. Not only do they present ghosts and demons as real—in addition, these shows become a part of the individual lives of viewers, inviting participatory spectatorship. Fans interact with investigators of supernatural activity via text messages in live episodes and offer comments on internet discussion forums.

The second element of the discussion challenges notions about the ontology of the photographic and audiovisual images. It turns to nineteenth-century spirit photography as a point for comparison with digital technologies to question the presumably direct, indexical relationship between the image and material reality in light of our relationship to the photographic and audiovisual records of immaterial entities whose reality cannot be proved.

“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship.

This article finds in the found-footage horror cycle an alternative way of understanding the relationship between horror films and reality, which is usually discussed in terms of allegory. I propose the investigation of framing, considered both figuratively (framing the film as documentary) and stylistically (the framing in handheld cameras and in static long takes), as a device that playfully destabilizes the separation between the film and the surrounding world. The article’s main case study is the Paranormal Activity franchise, but examples are drawn from a variety of films.

Editors of Film Criticism invited a mix of established and emerging scholars to write 500-1000 words in response to the question: What is the role of film criticism today—a time of accelerated change in production, distribution, and viewing experiences? This is one of them.

ANY ASSOCIATION bETwEEN AUTEURS AND FOOLS in the cinema immediately brings to mind the clown-like figures played by Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, and Woody Allen, all of whom incarnate similar characters across a vast array of films and in addition direct all or many of the pictures in which they perform. Common to these “fools” is their recurring features and a certain foreignness that posits them as outsiders.

This essay examines the questions of authorship and national cinema through the concept of filmic presence. Drawing from Tom Gunning’s valorization of “instants” and “presentation” in the cinema of attractions and from Deleuze’s “cinema of bodies,” the essay studies self-inscription through the director’s photographic image. Key to this analysis is Barthes’s idea of authorial figuration, which privileges physical presence over self-expression.

The object of this investigation is the work of Brazilian documentarian Eduardo Coutinho, who in the past decade has revised the role of sociologist that once defined Latin American filmmakers by shunning interpretation and analysis. Coutinho stresses the encounter between camera and subject, structuring his documentaries as talking heads. In this scenario, the author functions as a catalyst inspiring specific “performances” and narratives. By the same token, Coutinho’s documentaries emphasise the subjects’ body language, syntax and accent. Narrative and self-expression are thus replaced by process and presence.

The presence of autobiographical elements in Woody Allen’s films has often inspired analogies between his screen and real personas. Further emphasizing this connection are Allen’s references to his religious, ethnic and cultural identities. It follows that, in spite of the “postmodern” dimension of the director’s citational practices, his auteur image is charged with the original sense of the term, where the author’s genius and personal experiences prevail over the sociopolitical, economic and cultural contexts that inform the making of his films.

What Cecilia Sayad explores in this essay is precisely the ways in which Allen’s characters constitute vehicles for sociocultural commentary. This sociocultural dimension, she proposes, attaches an element of historical specificity to the presumably “universal” auteur. This chapter argues that the mode of standup comedy that shapes many of Allen’s appearances allows for a self-reflexive meditation about both the director’s own image and the impact of auteurism on American cinema after the 1960s. Indeed, many of Allen’s characters embody the conflict between artistry and commercialism that has marked the controversy on the question of film authorship in the United States; a conflict detected in trends in cult and camp criticism, thus prior to the famous debate between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, as Greg Taylor discusses in Artists in the Audience. Furthermore, current affairs often constitute the very material of standup comics’ jokes, bringing to the films a sense of an immediate connection with the extrafilmic. While certainly reinforcing the autobiographical components of the parts played by the director, this connection with the outside world also extends to the realm of film theory and criticism, turning the auteur into an articulator of debates that were central to the reinvention of an American cinema deeply impacted by the consolidation of the European art film.

This essay’s filmography includes Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex… But Were Afraid to Ask (1972), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), Stardust Memories (1980), Zelig (1983), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Husbands and Wives (1992), and Anything Else (2003).

Este trabalho analisa como o cinema de Godard, e mais precisamente Duas ou três coisas que eu sei dela, atrela a política à metalinguagem, promovendo uma prática revolucionária focada não tanto em narrativas e mensagens, mas na forma do filme, por meio da subversão de sistemas dominantes de representação.

Short article in response to the question: What is the role of film criticism today—a time of accelerated change in production, distribution, and viewing experiences? The essays in this issue coincide with FC’s 40th year of continuous publication. They also mark a “reboot” for the journal as it transitioned to open access. A mix of established and emerging scholars wrote in response to the question.

In the 1970s two alleged hauntings received wide coverage in the media. The first was in Amityville, Long Island (New York), and the second in Enfield, a London neighborhood. These cases were narrated in best-selling books, turned into horror films (and, in the case of Enfield, also a TV mini-series), and became the subject of countless documentaries trying to find the truth behind the claims made by the victims. This chapter examines the ways in which these serialized documentaries seek to either confirm or debunk the presence of the supernatural in these cases. Seeing them as an example of the non-indexical documentary, but also of horror, the chapter considers how serialization and repetition compensate for the absence of visible evidence, making these endlessly repeated stories feel at once real and artificial.

The presence of autobiographical elements in Woody Allen’s films has often inspired analogies between his screen and real personas. Further emphasizing this connection are Allen’s references to his religious, ethnic and cultural identities. It follows that, in spite of the “postmodern” dimension of the director’s citational practices, his auteur image is charged with the original sense of the term, where the author’s genius and personal experiences prevail over the sociopolitical, economic and cultural contexts that inform the making of his films. What I explore in this essay is precisely the ways in which Allen’s characters constitute vehicles for sociocultural commentary. This sociocultural dimension, I propose, attaches an element of historical specificity to the presumably “universal” auteur. I argue that the mode of standup comedy that shapes many of Allen’s appearances allows for a self-reflexive meditation about both the director’s own image and the impact of auteurism on American cinema after the 1960s. Indeed, many of Allen’s characters embody the conflict between artistry and commercialism that has marked the controversy on the question of film authorship in the United States; a conflict detected in trends in cult and camp criticism, thus prior to the famous debate between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, as Greg Taylor discusses in Artists in the Audience. Furthermore, current affairs often constitute the very material of standup comics’ jokes, bringing to the films a sense of an immediate connection with the extrafilmic. While certainly reinforcing the autobiographical components of the parts played by the director, this connection with the outside world also extends to the realm of film theory and criticism, turning the auteur into an articulator of debates that were central to the reinvention of an American cinema deeply impacted by the consolidation of the European art film.

The emphasis on individual genius to the detriment of historical context that defined the politique des auteurs in 1950s France has traditionally emphasized the universal, transcendental qualities of film authorship. Nonetheless, auteurs have often stood for specific national cinemas along with their topical and political questions, especially in countries where a solid film industry is absent. Such has been the case for Brazil from the sixties to the present. Lacking a continuous and long-lasting generic tradition, the cinematic production of that country has largely been defined by auteur cinema. The new generation of Brazilian filmmakers that followed the 1990s retomada (or rebirth) may shun the auteur label, especially when it evokes the diagnosing of a state of affairs—something that characterized the political cinema of the sixties. Yet the so-called new Brazilian cinema is still haunted by the risk of discontinuity that has long threatened their industry. This lack of stability attaches an element of uniqueness to each of the films that survive the winding road going from pre- to post-production—together with their directors, films are individuated as survivors, as heroes carrying the burden of keeping alive a cultural patrimony on the verge of extinction. I argue that even though some of the attributes of auteurism (such as originality, self-expression, timelessness, authority and control) have been deemed outmoded, the bulk of Brazilian production is closer to an auteurist than to an industrial model. Even when sharing traits with genres such as the action film (as Jose Padilha’s Bus 174 and Elite Squad), movies are still seen as the embodiment of the worldviews of specific individuals, as attests the incessant questioning of Padilha’s politics in Elite Squad. Brazilian films are perceived as products of artistic genius, not of a faceless “system.” If the boom of new films includes an increasing number of popular comedies starred and directed by TV professionals, these genre movies are hardly mass-produced. It follows that, far from being banished from the Brazilian scenario, the auteur still holds a central position, notwithstanding the updating of its defining qualities and functions.

Twenty first century cultural production increasingly presents supernatural themes as factual: from faux found-footage horror films to ghost hunting reality shows and websites compiling documentary footage of supposedly paranormal phenomena. This talk proposes that the seeming factual presentation of the supernatural requires that we redefine the ways in which the horror genre addresses real events and, by extension, our relationship with images.

This paper addresses the topic of ‘Screening Animals and the Inhuman’ through a discussion of the coexistence between supernatural phenomena and the documentary mode both in mock found-footage horror films and in reality television shows. Here the ‘inhuman’ relates to demonic figures, even though this investigation also includes the more arguably ‘human’ ghost. I draw from studies about the relationship between media and the spiritual world by Tom Gunning (‘Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations’), Jeffrey Sconce (Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from the Telegraph to Television) and Annette Hill (Paranormal Media) in order to investigate, within the boundaries of genre studies, new articulations of the relationship between horror and the documentation of reality, and more broadly, the ways in which the connection between supernatural themes and documentary modalities change our relationship to film. I argue that the confusion between fiction and fact within both found-footage horror and reality TV blurs the boundaries between the films and the surrounding world, removing horror narratives from the exclusive domains of the symbolic, the unconscious, and the escapist, embedding the ‘monster’ in everyday experiences. The paper’s filmography includes the Paranormal Activity and [•REC] films, as well as the Paranormal State and Ghost Hunters shows.

This paper discusses Eduardo Coutinho’s unique mode of stressing authorial presence rather than expression, and explores the essayistic Jogo the Cena (Playing, 2009) as the culmination of a separation between the author’s inner and outer selves that has been underlying the Brazilian director’s career since Santo Forte (The Mighty Spirit, 1999). If the essayistic mode usually reflects on the enunciator’s position in the world it comments upon (the conception of the literary essay by Michel de Montaigne, as Colin MacCabe reminds us, involves precisely ‘a personal perspective’ over ‘general topics’) , Coutinho records the filmed world’s response to his presence. His essayistic documentaries have always highlighted the subjects’ reactions to the director’s interest in their lives; Coutinho’s presence in the image presents him not as a self-expressing figure, but as a catalyst for the subject’s ‘performance’ to the camera. It is furthermore not what Coutinho says that characterises his authorial persona—the director’s Sao Paulo accent and raspy, cigarette-smoker’s voice are arguably more distinguishable than the questions he actually asks, which are very simple and quite repetitive (enquiring about the subject’s work and family). Coutinho’s mode of self-inscription unintentionally stresses the materiality of his body and voice—which allows for a corporeal, rather than abstract, sense of an authorial presence. Combined with the director’s refusal to openly interpret and analyse (discussed by Consuelo Lins and Ismail Xavier, among others), the transformative effect of the director’s presence on the filmed reality transfers his authorial identity from the inner to the outer self. Coutinho is a perfect example of what I have termed ‘performing authorship’, a reassessment of the film author that privileges masquerade over exposure, physical presence over inner expression, process over product, repetition over uniqueness. The focus on the director’s outer self invokes the structuralist (and in some cases poststructuralist) dissociation between subject and expressive discourse that is perfectly dramatized in Jogo de Cena. The film features actresses (some of them unknown) re-staging interviews Coutinho carried with women who responded to an advert inviting people ‘with stories to tell’ to audition for a documentary. It is never clear whether the relayed story belongs to the person who narrates it to the camera or to another who may in turn be temporarily, when not permanently, off-screen. Like Jogo de Cena’s actresses, Coutinho appropriates himself of the experiences and discourses of others; it is thus that he finds his expression—in the narratives prompted by his physical presence. Rather than the author’s world, Coutinho’s films reveal the author in the world. BIBLIOGRAPHY Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York and London : Routledge, 2008. Corrigan, Timothy. The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Lins, Consuelo. O Documentario de Eduardo Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2004. MacCabe, Colin. Godard: a Portrait of the Artist at Seventy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Rascaroli, Laura. The Personal Camera: Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film. London: Wallflower, 2009. Sayad, Cecilia. Performing Authorship: Self-Inscription and Corporeality in the Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Xavier, Ismail. ‘Indagacoes em torno de Eduardo Coutinho e seu dialogo com a tradicao moderna.’ Eduardo Coutinho: Cinema do Encontro, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 51–9. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2003.

What happens to our relationship to the horror film when manifestations of the supernatural are presented as reality? There is a long and persistent tradition of approaching horror films as allegorical articulations of personal and social anxieties. These approaches establish an indirect relationship between the horror genre and a socio-historical reality—in Robin Wood’s famous analogy between the popular genre and Freud’s theory of the subconscious, horror becomes the space for the return of the repressed in the form of a monster that stands for something real, but is rendered in symbolic form. Though addressing a concrete reality, the horror film thus perceived is detached from it. This paper argues that the ghost hunting reality TV show and the mock found-footage horror movie challenge traditional approaches to the relationship between fact and fiction in the horror genre. These works’ focus on modern technology’s ability to at once register what the naked eye cannot see and produce astonishing effects weakens the boundaries separating the image from the surrounding world: the tension between fact and artifice extends to the tension between the apparatus’s ability to at once reveal and fabricate a purported ‘real.’ Drawing from studies of spirit photography and ‘haunted’ electronic media by Tom Gunning and Jeffrey Sconce, respectively, this paper examines paranormal reality shows and the mock found-footage horror in light of associations between new technologies and spectral entities dating back to the 19th century. Notions of televisual temporality are also employed to examine a sense of confusion between representation and reality in these works. I propose that the convergence of science and magic characteristic of earlier practices, as well as the illusion of simultaneity and liveness granted by the contemporary works’ aesthetics of reportage, offer a new way of understanding the horror genre’s relationship to factual reality, and by extension its place in both popular culture and everyday life.

Introduction Chapter One Performance, Corporeality and the Borders of Film Chapter Two The Author and the Frame: Writing, Painting and the Essay Film Chapter Three The Author in the World: Trance, Presence and Documentary Chapter Four The Author In-Between: Fools, Standups and Fictional Narratives Conclusion Notes Bibliography Filmography Index

This chapter examines the use of audiovisual and other indexical technology to capture evidence of supernatural phenomena in ghost-hunting reality television shows like Most Haunted, Ghost Hunters, and Paranormal State, among many others. It explores these programs’ connections with early practices such as spirit photography and phantasmagoria. The chapter also examines the ways in which the shows invite interaction with viewers through web forum discussions and live broadcasts. At the basis of this investigation is the question of how photography and film are seen to reveal hidden aspects of the material world and our expectations about the evidential power of images.

This chapter discusses the ways in which horror stories and creatures invade the space of spectators and players in gimmick horror screenings, experiential cinema, and video games—including those using augmented and virtual reality technologies. It considers films and games that engage the space of viewing and playing—the augmented auditorium, which augments the experience of the horror tales by inviting active participation and providing a sensorial experience beyond seeing and hearing (involving drafts, smells, motion). Case studies include William Castle’s gimmick horror films of the 1950s and ’60s, contemporary Secret Cinema screenings, and a variety of survival horror games.

Our century has seen the proliferation of reality shows devoted to ghost hunts, documentaries on hauntings, and horror films presented as found footage. The horror genre is no longer exclusive to fiction and its narratives actively engage us in web forums, experiential viewing, videogames, and creepypasta. These participative modes of relating to the occult, alongside the impulse to seek proof of either its existence or fabrication, have transformed the production and consumption of horror stories. The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life, arguing that the relationship between the horror genre and reality is more intimate than we like to think. Through a revisionist and transmedial approach to horror this book investigates our expectations about the ability of photography and film to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology's role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling a hoax.

The filming of strange phenomena in “Paranormal Activity” is often followed by the characters’ analysis of the recorded material, suggesting that the image can contain the evil force disturbing the female protagonist’s sleep. It is as if by containing the supernatural inside the borders of a screen Micah and Katie could better understand, measure, and even control it. Ironically, the act of filming backfires, and instead invites the “monster” into the characters’ lives. This paper explores the found-footage horror film’s approach to this tension between containing and the uncontainable, which has pervaded theories of framing. Indeed, the frame becomes the element through which I investigate the implications of the found-footage horror’s documentary claim and style on our perception of the film’s connection with the surrounding real. While considerations about the real in the study of horror usually address the possibility of a causal link between a general mood and the tone of the films produced at a certain point in history, this paper proposes a different approach—one that reflects on the increasingly tenuous boundaries separating representation from real life: the popularity of reality TV being this phenomenon’s clearest illustration. It is hence that I propose that we look at what the horror film’s relationship to the real says about the movies’ desire to at once erect and erode the boundaries separating the fictional diegesis from the world that surrounds it. “Paranormal Activity” blurs the distinction between film and reality at three levels: the presentation of the story as real (collapsing fact and fiction), the diegetic status of the cameras (merging the filmic with the extrafilmic), and the style of framing (playing on the separation between on- and off-screen spaces, visually dramatizing the sense that the film and the extrafilmic are separated by a thin membrane). Though these elements overlap I will gradually move from a macro to a micro level—from the existential status of the represented events as fictional or documentary to the spatial separation between film and the extrafilmic, and finally to framing’s contribution to the resulting sense of instability at the other two levels.

"Charlie Kaufman, o roteirista de Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind conseguiu ultrapassar o anonimato dos créditos finais de uma sessão de cinema para se tornar tão conhecido e responsável pela autoria dos filmes quanto seus diretores. Kaufman imprimiu sobre eles sua marca, a de um universo estranho que o espectador aprendeu a procurar e reconhecer como sendo seu. Para discutir a figura do roteirista-autor, Cecilia Sayad traça uma breve história da trajetória do autor no cinema, do mudo ao "cinema de autor" que a geração francesa surgida com a nouvelle vague apresentou ao mundo. Quem é esse autor, reconhecido pela exposição de suas obsessões e cuja imaginação dita o conteúdo visual dos filmes, é a questão levantada nesse livro."

The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life by examining the horror genre in fiction, documentary, and participative modes. The book covers a variety of media: spirit photography, ghost-hunting reality shows, documentary and fiction films based on the Amityville and Enfield hauntings, found-footage horror movies, experiential cinema, survival games, and creepypasta. These works transform our interest in ghosts into an interactive form of entertainment. Through a transmedial approach to horror, this book investigates our expectations regarding the ability of photography and video to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology’s role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers, which is pertinent to the so-called post-fact scenario. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling out a hoax.

This talk explores the notion of performing authorship proposed in the homonymous book and investigates the ways in which Brazilian documentarian Eduardo Coutinho contributes to this new approach to cinematic authors. The talk opened a series of screenings related to the topic at the University of Coimbra

Our century has seen the proliferation of reality shows devoted to ghost hunts, documentaries on hauntings, and horror films presented as found footage. The horror genre is no longer exclusive to fiction and its narratives actively engage us in web forums, experiential viewing, videogames, and creepypasta. These participative modes of relating to the occult, alongside the impulse to seek proof of either its existence or fabrication, have transformed the production and consumption of horror stories. The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life, arguing that the relationship between the horror genre and reality is more intimate than we like to think. Through a revisionist and transmedial approach to horror this book investigates our expectations about the ability of photography and film to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology's role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling a hoax.

The book’s introduction revisits questions around the ontology of photographic and filmic images in order to lay out the role of technology in making supernatural entities become part of everyday life. An examination of theories about the transition from analog to digital image capture considers the potential of photography, film, and video to expand our senses, enhance our perception of the physical world, and work as evidence. The indexical link between the object placed before the camera and its image extends to a discussion about the spatial relationship between the contents of the framed image and the surrounding physical world, which informs discussions about framing techniques in found-footage horror films and participative spectatorship in experiential cinema and video games.

... Courtesy of Wayne State University Press. “For Ever Hitchcock: Psycho and Its Remakes” by Constantine Verevis appears in altered form in the “Authors” chapter of Film Remakes, by Constantine Verevis, courtesy of Edinburgh University Press (www. eup. ed. ac. uk). ...

In the 1970s two alleged hauntings received wide coverage in the media. The first was in Amityville, Long Island (New York), and the second in Enfield, a London neighborhood. These cases were narrated in best-selling books, turned into horror films (and, in the case of Enfield, also a TV mini-series), and became the subject of countless documentaries trying to find the truth behind the claims made by the victims. This chapter examines the ways in which these serialized documentaries seek to either confirm or debunk the presence of the supernatural in these cases. Seeing them as an example of the non-indexical documentary, but also of horror, the chapter considers how serialization and repetition compensate for the absence of visible evidence, making these endlessly repeated stories feel at once real and artificial.