Gil Poisa, Maria (2017-05). Nuevos Monstruos en el Cine Espanol Contemporaneo. Doctoral Dissertation. Thesis uri icon

abstract

  • The figure of the monster has always been object of human curiosity. The monster, the other, is the representation of what provokes fear or rejection, sometimes for being different and sometimes, whereas, for being too close. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the figure and evolution of the monster until isolating its basic features and being able of answering one central question: What is a monster? Used as we are to the monster to be the cause or consequence, what chases or threatens a normative protagonist around whom the story moves, focus in this case the exceptionality the monster embodies can be nothing but appealing. This work consists of two introductory chapters devoted to monster studies from the works of historians, philosophers and film scholars, and three chapters of case analysis based on seven contemporary Spanish films. The selection of the cases is based in three criteria: films produced in Spain, during the democratic period and whose protagonist was a monster itself, in any of its shapes. The first chapter is a brief review of how the figure of the monster is developed in the history of Western culture, from Ancient Greece to 20th century. The second chapter proposes a definition of the concept that starts from the question of the self identity and the relativism of exceptionality. The first analyzed case deals with the concept of the monstrification of the individual through the invasion of domestic space. The next chapter addresses the analysis from a different perspective: monstrosity and its transmission through the role of the gaze. Finally, the last chapter is also built around the role of the gaze in the monstrification of the subject, but in this case from another point of view: how the action and desire of seeing can monstrify not only the character, but the spectator as well. The conclusion of this doctoral dissertation can be summarized in a protagonist monster, a figure that, far from being hidden, makes itself present, becoming the center of the narrative and dragging the spectator with it, forcing the audience to look inside themselves.

publication date

  • May 2017