Introduction
This collaborative, trandisciplinary project seeks to explore the historical contours and textured layers of the ways in which death has been displayed through many mediums at certain points in history.  Namely, our group will try to see the ways in which displaying death has functioned in society throughout certain periods of human history and through the many mediums that are used to display death.  We are interested in how these represent, reinforce, and reconfigure the social, political, religious, ethical mores of any given culture. 
Our interest in such an un-sumptuous fare was inspired by a common interest in the popular "Bodyworlds" exhibition on display in many museums around the country. The title of this provocative exhibition reads, "Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies."  Here the very title is meant to confront the individual who comes to engage this work. The emphasis upon the exhibition of "real human bodies" reminds the viewer of what they are actually seeing: the inner anatomy of dead human beings. This exhibition, by its very definition, is about death on display in the form of plasticized human bodies.
The way in which the uber-macabre display of the interior muscular structure of the human body is juxtaposed by the mundane and frivolous situations in which the artist displays it confronts the one who views such a display in many remarkable ways. This led us to consider "death on display" as a category for transdisciplinary inquiry.
Gunther von Hagens is quite conscientious of the controversial nature of his work. Commenting on his work in an interview he states:
The anatomist alone is assigned a specific role-he is forced in his daily work to reject the taboos and convictions that people have about death and the dead. I myself am not controversial, but my exhibitions are, because I am asking viewers to transcend their fundamental beliefs and convictions about our joint and inescapable fate.[1]
von Hagens’ work, however, transcends the work normally done by anatomists in his presentation of the inner workings of the human body in both mundane and bizarre examples.  For example, within his exhibits he portrays individuals standing, sitting, stretching, walking, posing, etc.  Yet, the most vivid examples come in the form of a plasticized youth doing a hand-plant with his skateboard, an individual reigning in a plasticized horse, a plasticized pregnant women with a plasticized fetus still in her womb, a plasticized man holding his own skin, a plasticized woman in the middle of arching a bow, or a plasticized man dribbling a basketball.
In these latter examples, von Hagens is transcending and transforming his role as a mere “anatomist,” and is playing the role of the provocateur, confronting those who gaze upon death presented in such a macabre, yet human manner. In von Hagens’ own words, he is asking those who view his work to approach their own inevitable fate of death; his display of death is meant to challenge ones own preoccupations about their own mortality.  Again, he seeks to challenge his audience to “transcend their fundamental beliefs and convictions.”[2]
            It is the assumption of our group that representations of death on display all have this same goal at their core, to greater or lesser degrees. Namely, throughout history representations of death in their various mediums have reinforced the ideological interests of their creators and confronted their audience to transcend their own preconceptions. This usually is predicated upon the viewing of death as viewing the other, or, the other of oneself. Coming into contact with death forces individuals to deal with the idea of death, which is an unknown. There are no books or classes or teachers to educate society about the afterlife, which results in fear of the unknown and fear of change. This is the classic situation when people confront an image of the ‘other’, and then express bigotry. Is there bigotry in death? Yes, but in a way that is not usually recognizable, which is why von Hagens’ displays draw so much criticism, and controversy.
Upon seeing von Hagens’ work one feels at once compelled to look, unable to turn away, and yet repulsed. This is the bigotry of death; it is not to be seen, stared at, or made into artwork because the dead are not familiar and known: death and dead bodies are the unknown, the ‘other.’ Viewing death confronts individuals with their own mortality, and forces them to grapple with their own deaths, and therein their own lives. With this thesis in mind, our group will explore various representations of death through a transdisciplinary, transhistorical perspective. 
Ryan Carhart's presentation, entitled "‘Death on Display:’ Greco-Roman Literary Representations of Tours of the Underworld,” surveys the ways in which ancient authors depicted various journeys to the underworld and their vision of the Hades.  Included in this survey will be Homer’s Odyssey, Plato’s “Myth of Er,” and Virgil’s Aeneid.  This line of inquiry will help to highlight the ways in which these depictions of the underworld represent the ideological thrusts of the authors, and will add to the larger examination of the ways in which visions of death and dying on display function within different historical, cultural, and social situations, with my paper representing various ideals of classical Greco-Roman antiquity.
Rebecca Campana’s section covers a broad range of literary and dramatic examples of depictions of death. From the early Greek playwrights to Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies, the portrayal of death in dramatic literature is varied and unexpected, but the focus largely remains on the act of dying. In modern literature, the main focal point is not death or afterlife, but the grief of survivors. “Death as a part of living, breathing, and reading” is the part of the presentation that shows an overview of the depiction of death as a trend in literature throughout history.

Rebecca F. --PLEASE INSERT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR SECTION HERE!

    “Seeing Death from an Economic View: the Econometrics of Terrorism” is Yihang Zhang’s section of this project. Common images of death in today’s society are often tied into acts of terrorism. The media plays and re-plays video clips and pictures showing dead or dying individuals who have suffered at the hands of others, thus desensitizing people to the pain that has been inflicted. As terrorism has become increasingly more present in society, especially since September 11, 2001, so have images and accounts of its victims. This section of the project gives an overview of what economic contributors lead to terrorism and how this, in turn, affects the images of death that are displayed for people today.
Ian Fowles will examine “The Theatrics of Death.” Since the earliest times, humans have been fascinated with the public spectacle of death. Human sacrifices were performed in front of huge crowds in several ancient cultures. These ceremonies provided the masses with a cathartic release. Such exhibitions were eventually replaced by the theatre and most recently the motion picture. The portion of the project will look at the spectacle of death in contemporary film, along with its ancestors. The movie Harold and Maude will be dissected as a fitting example.

[More]

The Theatrics of Death

Introduction

Since the earliest of human civilizations, death has been a thing put on display. Whether it is merely an artistic rendering, the viewing of a body before burial, a living sacrifice to the gods, or a staged representation, societies all over the world have a fascination with seeing death. This section hopes to briefly look at death in modern motion pictures, examining some historical ancestors of the art form and looking in depth at the film Harold and Maude.

The Theatrics of Death

            Movies were not the first visual arena to show death to the public. Perhaps cave drawings were its earliest ancestor, followed by pottery, sculpture, paintings and other fine art. While the above mentioned mediums were merely depictions, there were real theatres of death that began to emerge throughout the world. The Aztecs sacrificed human victims to appease their gods in front of the entire city. Roman gladiators fought to the death before capacity crowds inside the Coliseum. In European town squares, villagers witnessed the public execution of criminals. While these spectacles of death may seem very disparate from contemporary media experience, present day movie-goers actually share many things in common with their historic counterparts; namely a cathartic release.

            Ancient Greek and Aztec blood sacrifice rituals drew large audiences for years. The slaughtered scapegoat (whether human or animal) would often appease the gods and bring down good favor upon the community. It was a chance to be forgiven and to alleviate fears. Throngs of onlookers would be joined together to watch the ceremony which effected a communal release. Pizzato observes “Such simple catharsis may have intoxicated and relieved the ancient Greek audience, too, as a purgative interpretation of Aristotle would attest. Perhaps the Aztec audience also felt a thrill and release of sympathetic fears at the sacrifice of the ixiptla [hero].”[1]

            As time moved on, the occurrence of public executions in many European towns during the 18^th century began to become more theatrical. The guillotine in France is a prime example. Foucault notices that the “[French] Revolution had immediately endowed it [the Guillotine] with a great theatrical ritual. For years it provided a spectacle.”[2] He also observed “[t]here were even some cases of an almost theatrical reproduction of the crime in the execution of the guilty man”[3]. Eventually, though, this spectacle was hidden behind prison walls and soon abandoned altogether. Crowds were angered and disappointed when that shift occurred, which leads one to believe that these people enjoyed the cathartic release that came from observing capital punishment.

While all of the aforementioned displays of death required actual physical death of the occupant, there existed another realm of performative death in the Classical Theatre. Greek tragedies descended from religious rites and ritual, however the sacrifice involved in the theatre was not that of actual flesh and blood. “The actor gave entertainment instead of his life’s blood and gained appreciation from the communal Other. The spectators also sacrificed their individual presence (submitting to the communal act of watching together) and received both personal pleasure and social instruction.”[4] This sentiment rings true in the motion picture industry even today.

Film

            Death has always been a major component of movies. Film is merely a form of melodramatic storytelling, and because countless narratives incorporate themes of death, it is ubiquitous on the big screen. There is something more intriguing about actually viewing a death, than just reading about it on the printed page. Perhaps for this reason, movies that include death and violence abound at the box office and often times top the charts.

All types of death occur in movies, depending mainly on the genre. In dramatic films, death may happen to a lead character and be the focus of the film, treated with importance and sadness. However, in a horror or action film a life is commonly worth very little, especially if it is a villian. The body count in these films can amount to an astoundingly high number. In fact, many ‘slasher’ films or monster movies contain little else than death and violence. Comedies abound with a dead body put in a hilarious or awkward situation.

Looking at the evolution of depictions of death in movies, Vivian C. Sobchack noted a correlation between socio-cultural shifts and on-screen violence. She noticed how in the 1960’s and 1970’s death in movies became progressively bloodier and more up-close and personal than before, most likely due to the televised Vietnam war, political assassinations, and other public violence. This created a climate of fear, and one refuge was the movie theatre. Sobchack claims “Our films are trying to make us feel secure about violence and death as much as it is possible; they are allowing us to purge our fear, to find safety in what appears to be knowledge of the unknown. To know violence is to be temporarily safe from the fear of it.”[5] As society has continued to grow more and more violent into the 1990’s, so did the movies, which reflect an “increasing frustration and rage at what seems a lack of agency and effectiveness as we have become increasingly controlled by and subject to technology.”[6] So in essence, films will continue to show death, but the quantity and rationale may change in relation to the times. Throughout it all, though, there is still that cathartic release. Pizzato notes “Our own culture displays plenty of sacrificial violence onscreen, but usually in order to purge our fears and sympathies, allowing the audience an illusion of transcendence over the suffering of screen characters. We can vicariously participate in the dangerous adventure, yet leave the movie theatre or change the TV channel unscathed.”[7]

Harold & Maude

            When examining the theatrics of death, particularly that of death in film, any number of examples could be used. Harold and Maude, however, stands out as a prime specimen for examination. It doesn’t focus on the violent or bloody death, but is rather a very artistic drama that deals with fixation on death, personal loss, and living every day to the fullest. Directed by Hal Ashby and released in 1971, the motion picture was initially a flop in theatres, although it did receive nominations for two Golden Globe awards for each lead actor, Bud Cort (Harold) and Ruth Gordon (Maude). It has since become an underground cult classic, revered by many.

            The film opens with Harold preparing to hang himself. The mood of this scene, not to mention the entire film, is enhanced by the music of Cat Stevens. As the movie progresses Harold is seen to be an only child coming from a wealthy and fatherless family. He is a young man who enjoys attending funerals and staging numerous false suicide attempts to his mother’s utter horror, contempt, and disdain. When Harold meets Maude, a woman old enough to be his grandmother, she opens his eyes to the world around him, and teaches him how to really make the most out of this short life on earth. Together they share art, music, drugs, nature, and sexual intimacy. However, on her 80^th birthday Maude commits suicide as she had been planning for some time. This is devastating to Harold, but the close of the movie shows Harold as a changed person, ready to live a life no longer obsessed with death.

            Death permeates the very fiber of this film. Harold is an adolescent who is enamored with the concept, most likely due to his somewhat dry and bleak surroundings. His life is filled with authority figures that don’t understand him. When him mother attempts to fix him up with several girls, each is scared away by a faux suicide attempt. For transportation, Harold fixes up an old hearse to drive around. When his mother insists on him driving a new sports car that she buys him, he attaches the rear end of the hearse to the Jaguar, making a grim looking hybrid. There are many scenes that take place in cemeteries, and there are sweeping shots of their landscape littered with headstones. However, Harold’s life is changed through association with the young-at-heart Maude. Although she has planned to kill herself on her 80^th birthday, she lives each day to the absolute fullest. When Harold witnesses her death in the hospital he is understandably shaken. In the final scene the audience watches the hearse sports car drive off a cliff to destruction below. For a moment one could hastily assume that Harold has committed suicide as well, but the next shot is of him on the cliff skipping away playing a tune on the banjo that Maude encouraged him to learn how to play. The crashing of the hearse is Harold symbolically lying to rest his obsession with death and dying. Harold is now ready to embrace life and truly make each day count.

Conclusion

            Death has always been an object of spectacle, and will most likely continue as such forever. Pizzato aptly observes “The performance of violence, from ancient ritual to screen sacrifices today, gives context and sense to the losses of life, gradual or sudden, in each spectator’s particular death drive.”[8] Through films, the viewer learns what to fear and how to act in relation to death. Film narratives become a catharsis for those involved because of the sacrificial nature of the participant. They also entertain, like the car collisions that passerby’s slow down to witness. “Through such spectatorship we experience the fear, suffering, and death of others vicariously. We identify with the struggle of the human offering or feel superior to the doomed victim. We explore the potential meanings of our own mortality.”[9] From ancient rituals, through the stage, and on to the screen, death and portrayals of death occupy a place in everyone’s life, or should, because each person will one day experience for themselves what right now they can only gaze upon.

   Bibliography

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan,

trans. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. First published in French, 1975.

Harold and Maude. DVD. Dir. Hal Ashby. Paramount Pictures, 2004. 91 min.

Pizzato, Mark. Theatres of Human Sacrifice: From Ancient Ritual to Screen

Violence. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Screening Violence. Stephen Prince, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University

Press, 2000.

  

[More]

The Theatrics of Death

Introduction

Since the earliest of human civilizations, death has been a thing put on display. Whether it is merely artistic an rendering, the viewing of a body before burial, a living sacrifice to the gods, or a staged representation, societies all over the world have a fascination with seeing death. This section hopes to briefly look at death in modern motion pictures, examining some historical ancestors of the art form and looking in depth at the film Harold and Maude.

The Theatrics of Death

            Movies were not the first visual arena to show death to the public. Perhaps cave drawings were its earliest ancestor, followed by pottery, sculpture, paintings and other fine art. While the above mentioned mediums were merely depictions, there were real theatres of death that began to emerg throughout the world. The Aztecs sacrificed human victims to appease their gods in front of the entire city. Roman gladiators fought to the death before capacity crowds inside the Coliseum. In European town squares, villagers witnessed the public execution of criminals. While these spectacles of death may seem very disparate from contemporary media experience, present day movie-goers actually share many things in common with their historic counterparts; namely a cathartic release.

            Ancient Greek and Aztec blood sacrifice rituals drew large audiences for years. The slaughtered scapegoat (whether human or animal) would often appease the gods and bring down good favor upon the community. It was a chance to be forgiven and to alleviate fears. Throngs of onlookers would be joined together to watch the ceremony which effected a communal release. Pizzato observes “Such simple catharsis may have intoxicated and relieved the ancient Greek audience, too, as a purgative interpretation of Aristotle would attest. Perhaps the Aztec audience also felt a thrill and release of sympathetic fears at the sacrifice of the ixiptla [hero].”[1]

            As time moved on, the occurrence of public executions in many European towns during the 18^th century began to become more theatrical. The guillotine in France is a prime example. Foucault notices that the “[French] Revolution had immediately endowed it [the Guillotine] with a great theatrical ritual. For years it provided a spectacle.”[2] He also observed “[t]here were even some cases of an almost theatrical reproduction of the crime in the execution of the guilty man”[3]. Eventually, though, this spectacle was hidden behind prison walls and soon abandoned altogether. Crowds were angered and disappointed when that shift occurred, which leads one to believe that these people enjoyed the cathartic release that came from observing capital punishment.

While all of the aforementioned displays of death required actual physical death of the occupant, there existed another realm of performative death in the Classical Theatre. Greek tragedies descended from religious rites and ritual, however the sacrifice involved in the theatre was not that of actual flesh and blood. “The actor gave entertainment instead of his life’s blood and gained appreciation from the communal Other. The spectators also sacrificed their individual presence (submitting to the communal act of watching together) and received both personal pleasure and social instruction.”[4] This sentiment rings true in the motion picture industry even today.

Film

            Death has always been a major component of movies. Film is merely a form of melodramatic storytelling, and because countless narratives incorporate themes of death, it is ubiquitous on the big screen. There is something more intriguing about actually viewing a death, than just reading about it on the printed page. Perhaps for this reason, movies that include death and violence abound at the box office and often times top the charts.

All types of death occur in movies, depending mainly on the genre. In dramatic films, death may happen to a lead character and be the focus of the film, treated with importance and sadness. However, in a horror or action film a life is commonly worth very little, especially if it is a villian. The body count in these films can amount to an astoundingly high number. In fact, many ‘slasher’ films or monster movies contain little else than death and violence. Comedies abound with a dead body put in a hilarious or awkward situation.

Looking at the evolution of depictions of death in movies, Vivian C. Sobchack noted a correlation between socio-cultural shifts and on-screen violence. She noticed how in the 1960’s and 1970’s death in movies became progressively bloodier and more up-close and personal than before, most likely due to the televised Vietnam war, political assassinations, and other public violence. This created a climate of fear, and one refuge was the movie theatre. Sobchack claims “Our films are trying to make us feel secure about violence and death as much as it is possible; they are allowing us to purge our fear, to find safety in what appears to be knowledge of the unknown. To know violence is to be temporarily safe from the fear of it.”[5] As society has continued to grow more and more violent into the 1990’s, so did the movies, which reflect an “increasing frustration and rage at what seems a lack of agency and effectiveness as we have become increasingly controlled by and subject to technology.”[6] So in essence, films will continue to show death, but the quantity and rationale may change in relation to the times. Throughout it al, though, there is still that cathartic release. Pizzato notes “Our own culture displays plenty of sacrificial violence onscreen, but usually in order to purge our fears and sympathies, allowing the audience an illusion of transcendence over the suffering of screen characters. We can vicariously participate in the dangerous adventure, yet leave the movie theatre or change the TV channel unscathed.”[7]

Harold & Maude

            When examining the theatrics of death, particularly that of death in film, any number of examples could be used. Harold and Maude, however, stands out as a prime specimen for examination. It doesn’t focus on the violent or bloody death, but is rather a very artistic drama that deals with fixation on death, personal loss, and living every day to the fullest. Directed by Hal Ashby and released in 1971, the motion picture was initially a flop in theatres, although it did receive nominations for two Golden Globe awards for each lead actor, Bud Cort (Harold) and Ruth Gordon (Maude). It has since become an underground cult classic, revered by many.

            The film opens with Harold preparing to hang himself. The mood of this scene, not to mention the entire film, is enhanced by the music of Cat Stevens. As the movie progresses Harold is seen to be an only child coming from a wealthy and fatherless family. He is a young man who enjoys attending funerals and staging numerous false suicide attempts to his mother’s utter horror, contempt, and disdain. When Harold meets Maude, a woman old enough to be his grandmother, she opens his eyes to the world around him, and teaches him how to really make the most out of this short life on earth. Together they share art, music, drugs, nature, and sexual intimacy. However, on her 80^th birthday Maude commits suicide as she had been planning for some time. This is devastating to Harold, but the close of the movie shows Harold as a changed person, ready to live a life no longer obsessed with death.

            Death permeates the very fiber of this film. Harold is an adolescent who is enamored with the concept, most likely due to his somewhat dry and bleak surroundings. His life is filled with authority figures that don’t understand him. When him mother attempts to fix him up with several girls, each is scared away by a faux suicide attempt. For transportation, Harold fixes up an old hearse to drive around. When his mother insists on him driving a new sports car that she buys him, he attaches the rear end of the hearse to the Jaguar, making a grim looking hybrid. There are many scenes that take place in cemeteries, and there are sweeping shots of their landscape littered with headstones. However, Harold’s life is changed through association with the young-at-heart Maude. Although she has planned to kill herself on her 80^th birthday, she lives each day to the absolute fullest. When Harold witnesses her death in the hospital he is understandably shaken. In the final scene the audience watches the hearse sports car drive off a cliff to destruction below. For a moment one could hastily assume that Harold has committed suicide as well, but the next shot is of him on the cliff skipping away playing a tune on the banjo that Maude encouraged him to learn how to play. The crashing of the hearse is Harold symbolically lying to rest his obsession with death and dying. Harold is now ready to embrace life and truly make each day count.

Conclusion

            Death has always been an object of spectacle, and will most likely continue as such forever. Pizzato aptly observes “The performance of violence, from ancient ritual to screen sacrifices today, gives context and sense to the losses of life, gradual or sudden, in each spectator’s particular death drive.”[8] Through films, the viewer learns what to fear and how to act in relation to death. Film narratives become a catharsis for those involved because of the sacrificial nature of the participant. They also entertain, like the car collisions that passerby’s slow down to witness. “Through such spectatorship we experience the fear, suffering, and death of others vicariously. We identify with the struggle of the human offering or feel superior to the doomed victim. We explore the potential meanings of our own mortality.”[9] From ancient rituals, through the stage, and on to the screen, death and portrayals of death occupy a place in everyone’s life, or should, because each person will one day experience for themselves what right now they can only gaze upon.

   Bibliography

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan,

trans. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. First published in French, 1975.

Harold and Maude. DVD. Dir. Hal Ashby. Paramount Pictures, 2004. 91 min.

Pizzato, Mark. Theatres of Human Sacrifice: From Ancient Ritual to Screen

Violence. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Screening Violence. Stephen Prince, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University

Press, 2000.

  

[More]

The Theatrics of Death

Introduction

     Since the earliest of human civilizations, death has been a thing put on display. Whether it is merely artistic an rendering, the viewing of a body before burial, a living sacrifice to the gods, or a staged representation, societies all over the world have a fascination with seeing death. This section hopes to briefly look at death in modern motion pictures, examining some historical ancestors of the art form and looking in depth at the film Harold and Maude.

The Theatrics of Death

            Movies were not the first visual arena to show death to the public. Perhaps cave drawings were its earliest ancestor, followed by pottery, sculpture, paintings and other fine art. While the above mentioned mediums were merely depictions, there were real theatres of death that began to emerg throughout the world. The Aztecs sacrificed human victims to appease their gods in front of the entire city. Roman gladiators fought to the death before capacity crowds inside the Coliseum. In European town squares, villagers witnessed the public execution of criminals. While these spectacles of death may seem very disparate from contemporary media experience, present day movie-goers actually share many things in common with their historic counterparts; namely a cathartic release.

            Ancient Greek and Aztec blood sacrifice rituals drew large audiences for years. The slaughtered scapegoat (whether human or animal) would often appease the gods and bring down good favor upon the community. It was a chance to be forgiven and to alleviate fears. Throngs of onlookers would be joined together to watch the ceremony which effected a communal release. Pizzato observes “Such simple catharsis may have intoxicated and relieved the ancient Greek audience, too, as a purgative interpretation of Aristotle would attest. Perhaps the Aztec audience also felt a thrill and release of sympathetic fears at the sacrifice of the ixiptla [hero].”[1]

            As time moved on, the occurrence of public executions in many European towns during the 18^th century began to become more theatrical. The guillotine in France is a prime example. Foucault notices that the “[French] Revolution had immediately endowed it [the Guillotine] with a great theatrical ritual. For years it provided a spectacle.”[2] He also observed “[t]here were even some cases of an almost theatrical reproduction of the crime in the execution of the guilty man”[3]. Eventually, though, this spectacle was hidden behind prison walls and soon abandoned altogether. Crowds were angered and disappointed when that shift occurred, which leads one to believe that these people enjoyed the cathartic release that came from observing capital punishment.

While all of the aforementioned displays of death required actual physical death of the occupant, there existed another realm of performative death in the Classical Theatre. Greek tragedies descended from religious rites and ritual, however the sacrifice involved in the theatre was not that of actual flesh and blood. “The actor gave entertainment instead of his life’s blood and gained appreciation from the communal Other. The spectators also sacrificed their individual presence (submitting to the communal act of watching together) and received both personal pleasure and social instruction.”[4] This sentiment rings true in the motion picture industry even today.

Film

            Death has always been a major component of movies. Film is merely a form of melodramatic storytelling, and because countless narratives incorporate themes of death, it is ubiquitous on the big screen. There is something more intriguing about actually viewing a death, than just reading about it on the printed page. Perhaps for this reason, movies that include death and violence abound at the box office and often times top the charts.

All types of death occur in movies, depending mainly on the genre. In dramatic films, death may happen to a lead character and be the focus of the film, treated with importance and sadness. However, in a horror or action film a life is commonly worth very little, especially if it is a villian. The body count in these films can amount to an astoundingly high number. In fact, many ‘slasher’ films or monster movies contain little else than death and violence. Comedies abound with a dead body put in a hilarious or awkward situation.

Looking at the evolution of depictions of death in movies, Vivian C. Sobchack noted a correlation between socio-cultural shifts and on-screen violence. She noticed how in the 1960’s and 1970’s death in movies became progressively bloodier and more up-close and personal than before, most likely due to the televised Vietnam war, political assassinations, and other public violence. This created a climate of fear, and one refuge was the movie theatre. Sobchack claims “Our films are trying to make us feel secure about violence and death as much as it is possible; they are allowing us to purge our fear, to find safety in what appears to be knowledge of the unknown. To know violence is to be temporarily safe from the fear of it.”[5] As society has continued to grow more and more violent into the 1990’s, so did the movies, which reflect an “increasing frustration and rage at what seems a lack of agency and effectiveness as we have become increasingly controlled by and subject to technology.”[6] So in essence, films will continue to show death, but the quantity and rationale may change in relation to the times. Throughout it al, though, there is still that cathartic release. Pizzato notes “Our own culture displays plenty of sacrificial violence onscreen, but usually in order to purge our fears and sympathies, allowing the audience an illusion of transcendence over the suffering of screen characters. We can vicariously participate in the dangerous adventure, yet leave the movie theatre or change the TV channel unscathed.”[7]

Harold & Maude

            When examining the theatrics of death, particularly that of death in film, any number of examples could be used. Harold and Maude, however, stands out as a prime specimen for examination. It doesn’t focus on the violent or bloody death, but is rather a very artistic drama that deals with fixation on death, personal loss, and living every day to the fullest. Directed by Hal Ashby and released in 1971, the motion picture was initially a flop in theatres, although it did receive nominations for two Golden Globe awards for each lead actor, Bud Cort (Harold) and Ruth Gordon (Maude). It has since become an underground cult classic, revered by many.

            The film opens with Harold preparing to hang himself. The mood of this scene, not to mention the entire film, is enhanced by the music of Cat Stevens. As the movie progresses Harold is seen to be an only child coming from a wealthy and fatherless family. He is a young man who enjoys attending funerals and staging numerous false suicide attempts to his mother’s utter horror, contempt, and disdain. When Harold meets Maude, a woman old enough to be his grandmother, she opens his eyes to the world around him, and teaches him how to really make the most out of this short life on earth. Together they share art, music, drugs, nature, and sexual intimacy. However, on her 80^th birthday Maude commits suicide as she had been planning for some time. This is devastating to Harold, but the close of the movie shows Harold as a changed person, ready to live a life no longer obsessed with death.

            Death permeates the very fiber of this film. Harold is an adolescent who is enamored with the concept, most likely due to his somewhat dry and bleak surroundings. His life is filled with authority figures that don’t understand him. When him mother attempts to fix him up with several girls, each is scared away by a faux suicide attempt. For transportation, Harold fixes up an old hearse to drive around. When his mother insists on him driving a new sports car that she buys him, he attaches the rear end of the hearse to the Jaguar, making a grim looking hybrid. There are many scenes that take place in cemeteries, and there are sweeping shots of their landscape littered with headstones. However, Harold’s life is changed through association with the young-at-heart Maude. Although she has planned to kill herself on her 80^th birthday, she lives each day to the absolute fullest. When Harold witnesses her death in the hospital he is understandably shaken. In the final scene the audience watches the hearse sports car drive off a cliff to destruction below. For a moment one could hastily assume that Harold has committed suicide as well, but the next shot is of him on the cliff skipping away playing a tune on the banjo that Maude encouraged him to learn how to play. The crashing of the hearse is Harold symbolically lying to rest his obsession with death and dying. Harold is now ready to embrace life and truly make each day count.

Conclusion

            Death has always been an object of spectacle, and will most likely continue as such forever. Pizzato aptly observes “The performance of violence, from ancient ritual to screen sacrifices today, gives context and sense to the losses of life, gradual or sudden, in each spectator’s particular death drive.”[8] Through films, the viewer learns what to fear and how to act in relation to death. Film narratives become a catharsis for those involved because of the sacrificial nature of the participant. They also entertain, like the car collisions that passerby’s slow down to witness. “Through such spectatorship we experience the fear, suffering, and death of others vicariously. We identify with the struggle of the human offering or feel superior to the doomed victim. We explore the potential meanings of our own mortality.”[9] From ancient rituals, through the stage, and on to the screen, death and portrayals of death occupy a place in everyone’s life, or should, because each person will one day experience for themselves what right now they can only gaze upon.

   Bibliography

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan,

trans. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. First published in French, 1975.

Harold and Maude. DVD. Dir. Hal Ashby. Paramount Pictures, 2004. 91 min.

Pizzato, Mark. Theatres of Human Sacrifice: From Ancient Ritual to Screen

Violence. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Screening Violence. Stephen Prince, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University

Press, 2000.

 

[More]

The Theatrics of Death

Introduction

Since the earliest of human civilizations, death has been a thing put on display. Whether it is merely artistic an rendering, the viewing of a body before burial, a living sacrifice to the gods, or a staged representation, societies all over the world have a fascination with seeing death. This section hopes to briefly look at death in modern motion pictures, examining some historical ancestors of the art form and looking in depth at the film Harold and Maude.

The Theatrics of Death

            Movies were not the first visual arena to show death to the public. Perhaps cave drawings were its earliest ancestor, followed by pottery, sculpture, paintings and other fine art. While the above mentioned mediums were merely depictions, there were real theatres of death that began to emerg throughout the world. The Aztecs sacrificed human victims to appease their gods in front of the entire city. Roman gladiators fought to the death before capacity crowds inside the Coliseum. In European town squares, villagers witnessed the public execution of criminals. While these spectacles of death may seem very disparate from contemporary media experience, present day movie-goers actually share many things in common with their historic counterparts; namely a cathartic release.

            Ancient Greek and Aztec blood sacrifice rituals drew large audiences for years. The slaughtered scapegoat (whether human or animal) would often appease the gods and bring down good favor upon the community. It was a chance to be forgiven and to alleviate fears. Throngs of onlookers would be joined together to watch the ceremony which effected a communal release. Pizzato observes “Such simple catharsis may have intoxicated and relieved the ancient Greek audience, too, as a purgative interpretation of Aristotle would attest. Perhaps the Aztec audience also felt a thrill and release of sympathetic fears at the sacrifice of the ixiptla [hero].”[1]

            As time moved on, the occurrence of public executions in many European towns during the 18^th century began to become more theatrical. The guillotine in France is a prime example. Foucault notices that the “[French] Revolution had immediately endowed it [the Guillotine] with a great theatrical ritual. For years it provided a spectacle.”[2] He also observed “[t]here were even some cases of an almost theatrical reproduction of the crime in the execution of the guilty man”[3]. Eventually, though, this spectacle was hidden behind prison walls and soon abandoned altogether. Crowds were angered and disappointed when that shift occurred, which leads one to believe that these people enjoyed the cathartic release that came from observing capital punishment.

While all of the aforementioned displays of death required actual physical death of the occupant, there existed another realm of performative death in the Classical Theatre. Greek tragedies descended from religious rites and ritual, however the sacrifice involved in the theatre was not that of actual flesh and blood. “The actor gave entertainment instead of his life’s blood and gained appreciation from the communal Other. The spectators also sacrificed their individual presence (submitting to the communal act of watching together) and received both personal pleasure and social instruction.”[4] This sentiment rings true in the motion picture industry even today.

Film

            Death has always been a major component of movies. Film is merely a form of melodramatic storytelling, and because countless narratives incorporate themes of death, it is ubiquitous on the big screen. There is something more intriguing about actually viewing a death, than just reading about it on the printed page. Perhaps for this reason, movies that include death and violence abound at the box office and often times top the charts.

All types of death occur in movies, depending mainly on the genre. In dramatic films, death may happen to a lead character and be the focus of the film, treated with importance and sadness. However, in a horror or action film a life is commonly worth very little, especially if it is a villian. The body count in these films can amount to an astoundingly high number. In fact, many ‘slasher’ films or monster movies contain little else than death and violence. Comedies abound with a dead body put in a hilarious or awkward situation.

Looking at the evolution of depictions of death in movies, Vivian C. Sobchack noted a correlation between socio-cultural shifts and on-screen violence. She noticed how in the 1960’s and 1970’s death in movies became progressively bloodier and more up-close and personal than before, most likely due to the televised Vietnam war, political assassinations, and other public violence. This created a climate of fear, and one refuge was the movie theatre. Sobchack claims “Our films are trying to make us feel secure about violence and death as much as it is possible; they are allowing us to purge our fear, to find safety in what appears to be knowledge of the unknown. To know violence is to be temporarily safe from the fear of it.”[5] As society has continued to grow more and more violent into the 1990’s, so did the movies, which reflect an “increasing frustration and rage at what seems a lack of agency and effectiveness as we have become increasingly controlled by and subject to technology.”[6] So in essence, films will continue to show death, but the quantity and rationale may change in relation to the times. Throughout it al, though, there is still that cathartic release. Pizzato notes “Our own culture displays plenty of sacrificial violence onscreen, but usually in order to purge our fears and sympathies, allowing the audience an illusion of transcendence over the suffering of screen characters. We can vicariously participate in the dangerous adventure, yet leave the movie theatre or change the TV channel unscathed.”[7]

Harold & Maude

            When examining the theatrics of death, particularly that of death in film, any number of examples could be used. Harold and Maude, however, stands out as a prime specimen for examination. It doesn’t focus on the violent or bloody death, but is rather a very artistic drama that deals with fixation on death, personal loss, and living every day to the fullest. Directed by Hal Ashby and released in 1971, the motion picture was initially a flop in theatres, although it did receive nominations for two Golden Globe awards for each lead actor, Bud Cort (Harold) and Ruth Gordon (Maude). It has since become an underground cult classic, revered by many.

            The film opens with Harold preparing to hang himself. The mood of this scene, not to mention the entire film, is enhanced by the music of Cat Stevens. As the movie progresses Harold is seen to be an only child coming from a wealthy and fatherless family. He is a young man who enjoys attending funerals and staging numerous false suicide attempts to his mother’s utter horror, contempt, and disdain. When Harold meets Maude, a woman old enough to be his grandmother, she opens his eyes to the world around him, and teaches him how to really make the most out of this short life on earth. Together they share art, music, drugs, nature, and sexual intimacy. However, on her 80^th birthday Maude commits suicide as she had been planning for some time. This is devastating to Harold, but the close of the movie shows Harold as a changed person, ready to live a life no longer obsessed with death.

            Death permeates the very fiber of this film. Harold is an adolescent who is enamored with the concept, most likely due to his somewhat dry and bleak surroundings. His life is filled with authority figures that don’t understand him. When him mother attempts to fix him up with several girls, each is scared away by a faux suicide attempt. For transportation, Harold fixes up an old hearse to drive around. When his mother insists on him driving a new sports car that she buys him, he attaches the rear end of the hearse to the Jaguar, making a grim looking hybrid. There are many scenes that take place in cemeteries, and there are sweeping shots of their landscape littered with headstones. However, Harold’s life is changed through association with the young-at-heart Maude. Although she has planned to kill herself on her 80^th birthday, she lives each day to the absolute fullest. When Harold witnesses her death in the hospital he is understandably shaken. In the final scene the audience watches the hearse sports car drive off a cliff to destruction below. For a moment one could hastily assume that Harold has committed suicide as well, but the next shot is of him on the cliff skipping away playing a tune on the banjo that Maude encouraged him to learn how to play. The crashing of the hearse is Harold symbolically lying to rest his obsession with death and dying. Harold is now ready to embrace life and truly make each day count.

Conclusion

            Death has always been an object of spectacle, and will most likely continue as such forever. Pizzato aptly observes “The performance of violence, from ancient ritual to screen sacrifices today, gives context and sense to the losses of life, gradual or sudden, in each spectator’s particular death drive.”[8] Through films, the viewer learns what to fear and how to act in relation to death. Film narratives become a catharsis for those involved because of the sacrificial nature of the participant. They also entertain, like the car collisions that passerby’s slow down to witness. “Through such spectatorship we experience the fear, suffering, and death of others vicariously. We identify with the struggle of the human offering or feel superior to the doomed victim. We explore the potential meanings of our own mortality.”[9] From ancient rituals, through the stage, and on to the screen, death and portrayals of death occupy a place in everyone’s life, or should, because each person will one day experience for themselves what right now they can only gaze upon.

   Bibliography

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan,

trans. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. First published in French, 1975.

Harold and Maude. DVD. Dir. Hal Ashby. Paramount Pictures, 2004. 91 min.

Pizzato, Mark. Theatres of Human Sacrifice: From Ancient Ritual to Screen

Violence. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Screening Violence. Stephen Prince, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University

Press, 2000.

 

[More]

The Theatrics of DeathIntroduction

Since the earliest of human civilizations, death has been a thing put on display. Whether it is merely artistic an rendering, the viewing of a body before burial, a living sacrifice to the gods, or a staged representation, societies all over the world have a fascination with seeing death. This section hopes to briefly look at death in modern motion pictures, examining some historical ancestors of the art form and looking in depth at the film Harold and Maude.

The Theatrics of Death

            Movies were not the first visual arena to show death to the public. Perhaps cave drawings were its earliest ancestor, followed by pottery, sculpture, paintings and other fine art. While the above mentioned mediums were merely depictions, there were real theatres of death that began to emerg throughout the world. The Aztecs sacrificed human victims to appease their gods in front of the entire city. Roman gladiators fought to the death before capacity crowds inside the Coliseum. In European town squares, villagers witnessed the public execution of criminals. While these spectacles of death may seem very disparate from contemporary media experience, present day movie-goers actually share many things in common with their historic counterparts; namely a cathartic release.

            Ancient Greek and Aztec blood sacrifice rituals drew large audiences for years. The slaughtered scapegoat (whether human or animal) would often appease the gods and bring down good favor upon the community. It was a chance to be forgiven and to alleviate fears. Throngs of onlookers would be joined together to watch the ceremony which effected a communal release. Pizzato observes “Such simple catharsis may have intoxicated and relieved the ancient Greek audience, too, as a purgative interpretation of Aristotle would attest. Perhaps the Aztec audience also felt a thrill and release of sympathetic fears at the sacrifice of the ixiptla [hero].”[1]

            As time moved on, the occurrence of public executions in many European towns during the 18^th century began to become more theatrical. The guillotine in France is a prime example. Foucault notices that the “[French] Revolution had immediately endowed it [the Guillotine] with a great theatrical ritual. For years it provided a spectacle.”[2] He also observed “[t]here were even some cases of an almost theatrical reproduction of the crime in the execution of the guilty man”[3]. Eventually, though, this spectacle was hidden behind prison walls and soon abandoned altogether. Crowds were angered and disappointed when that shift occurred, which leads one to believe that these people enjoyed the cathartic release that came from observing capital punishment.

While all of the aforementioned displays of death required actual physical death of the occupant, there existed another realm of performative death in the Classical Theatre. Greek tragedies descended from religious rites and ritual, however the sacrifice involved in the theatre was not that of actual flesh and blood. “The actor gave entertainment instead of his life’s blood and gained appreciation from the communal Other. The spectators also sacrificed their individual presence (submitting to the communal act of watching together) and received both personal pleasure and social instruction.”[4] This sentiment rings true in the motion picture industry even today.

Film

            Death has always been a major component of movies. Film is merely a form of melodramatic storytelling, and because countless narratives incorporate themes of death, it is ubiquitous on the big screen. There is something more intriguing about actually viewing a death, than just reading about it on the printed page. Perhaps for this reason, movies that include death and violence abound at the box office and often times top the charts.

All types of death occur in movies, depending mainly on the genre. In dramatic films, death may happen to a lead character and be the focus of the film, treated with importance and sadness. However, in a horror or action film a life is commonly worth very little, especially if it is a villian. The body count in these films can amount to an astoundingly high number. In fact, many ‘slasher’ films or monster movies contain little else than death and violence. Comedies abound with a dead body put in a hilarious or awkward situation.

Looking at the evolution of depictions of death in movies, Vivian C. Sobchack noted a correlation between socio-cultural shifts and on-screen violence. She noticed how in the 1960’s and 1970’s death in movies became progressively bloodier and more up-close and personal than before, most likely due to the televised Vietnam war, political assassinations, and other public violence. This created a climate of fear, and one refuge was the movie theatre. Sobchack claims “Our films are trying to make us feel secure about violence and death as much as it is possible; they are allowing us to purge our fear, to find safety in what appears to be knowledge of the unknown. To know violence is to be temporarily safe from the fear of it.”[5] As society has continued to grow more and more violent into the 1990’s, so did the movies, which reflect an “increasing frustration and rage at what seems a lack of agency and effectiveness as we have become increasingly controlled by and subject to technology.”[6] So in essence, films will continue to show death, but the quantity and rationale may change in relation to the times. Throughout it al, though, there is still that cathartic release. Pizzato notes “Our own culture displays plenty of sacrificial violence onscreen, but usually in order to purge our fears and sympathies, allowing the audience an illusion of transcendence over the suffering of screen characters. We can vicariously participate in the dangerous adventure, yet leave the movie theatre or change the TV channel unscathed.”[7]

Harold & Maude

            When examining the theatrics of death, particularly that of death in film, any number of examples could be used. Harold and Maude, however, stands out as a prime specimen for examination. It doesn’t focus on the violent or bloody death, but is rather a very artistic drama that deals with fixation on death, personal loss, and living every day to the fullest. Directed by Hal Ashby and released in 1971, the motion picture was initially a flop in theatres, although it did receive nominations for two Golden Globe awards for each lead actor, Bud Cort (Harold) and Ruth Gordon (Maude). It has since become an underground cult classic, revered by many.

            The film opens with Harold preparing to hang himself. The mood of this scene, not to mention the entire film, is enhanced by the music of Cat Stevens. As the movie progresses Harold is seen to be an only child coming from a wealthy and fatherless family. He is a young man who enjoys attending funerals and staging numerous false suicide attempts to his mother’s utter horror, contempt, and disdain. When Harold meets Maude, a woman old enough to be his grandmother, she opens his eyes to the world around him, and teaches him how to really make the most out of this short life on earth. Together they share art, music, drugs, nature, and sexual intimacy. However, on her 80^th birthday Maude commits suicide as she had been planning for some time. This is devastating to Harold, but the close of the movie shows Harold as a changed person, ready to live a life no longer obsessed with death.

            Death permeates the very fiber of this film. Harold is an adolescent who is enamored with the concept, most likely due to his somewhat dry and bleak surroundings. His life is filled with authority figures that don’t understand him. When him mother attempts to fix him up with several girls, each is scared away by a faux suicide attempt. For transportation, Harold fixes up an old hearse to drive around. When his mother insists on him driving a new sports car that she buys him, he attaches the rear end of the hearse to the Jaguar, making a grim looking hybrid. There are many scenes that take place in cemeteries, and there are sweeping shots of their landscape littered with headstones. However, Harold’s life is changed through association with the young-at-heart Maude. Although she has planned to kill herself on her 80^th birthday, she lives each day to the absolute fullest. When Harold witnesses her death in the hospital he is understandably shaken. In the final scene the audience watches the hearse sports car drive off a cliff to destruction below. For a moment one could hastily assume that Harold has committed suicide as well, but the next shot is of him on the cliff skipping away playing a tune on the banjo that Maude encouraged him to learn how to play. The crashing of the hearse is Harold symbolically lying to rest his obsession with death and dying. Harold is now ready to embrace life and truly make each day count.

Conclusion

            Death has always been an object of spectacle, and will most likely continue as such forever. Pizzato aptly observes “The performance of violence, from ancient ritual to screen sacrifices today, gives context and sense to the losses of life, gradual or sudden, in each spectator’s particular death drive.”[8] Through films, the viewer learns what to fear and how to act in relation to death. Film narratives become a catharsis for those involved because of the sacrificial nature of the participant. They also entertain, like the car collisions that passerby’s slow down to witness. “Through such spectatorship we experience the fear, suffering, and death of others vicariously. We identify with the struggle of the human offering or feel superior to the doomed victim. We explore the potential meanings of our own mortality.”[9] From ancient rituals, through the stage, and on to the screen, death and portrayals of death occupy a place in everyone’s life, or should, because each person will one day experience for themselves what right now they can only gaze upon.

   Bibliography

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan,

trans. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. First published in French, 1975.

Harold and Maude. DVD. Dir. Hal Ashby. Paramount Pictures, 2004. 91 min.

Pizzato, Mark. Theatres of Human Sacrifice: From Ancient Ritual to Screen

Violence. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Screening Violence. Stephen Prince, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University

Press, 2000.

 

[More]

maybe we could do something really dramatic and soft, like that song "Love on a Real Train" from the movie Risky Business -- that would be funny!  Or maybe just throw a little "Brickhouse" into the mix - always a crowd favorite.

[More]

i have a slide show in the works, it would be cool to set it to music, which i can do if you want, but i do agree that it may take away from the speaker

[More]

Group, 

Here is a list of things to do:

(1) Get Becky your section ASAP.

(2) Insert a synopsis of your section in the introduction on the WIKI page. Becky put your name in block letters where you need to input your info

(3) Prepare your presentation.  Tom said we each have 6 minutes to present.  Since there are five of us, lets try to keep our presentations within that time frame.  Do a trial presentation and time yourself.  A good rule of thumb is to allow about two minutes for every page read (double spaced), so no more than three pages to be read.

(4)  Try to put together a four to five sentence statement of your conclusion that explicitly incorporates your section with our larger topic.  This is for our group conclusion (3 Pages). See the intro on the WIKI if you need to revisit what our thesis is.

(5)  Ian - were you still planning on putting together that 3 minute slide show of the "BodyWorlds" still photos.  It would be neat to have music (like Oingo-Boingo's "Wierd Science", but I suppose that would take away from the oral presentation).  I'm kidding about the music, but it would be most excellent to have the slide show.

(6) Faubus volunteered to read the intro section.  Does anybody want to volunteer to read the conclusion?

Don't forget that we are meeting at 2 PM on Wednesday to put the finishing touches on our conclusion, intro, and entire project.  Please make sure that you have everything done that you are responsible for by that point.  Big thanks to Becky for editing our project.  Till then.......

[More]

Group, 

Here is a list of things to do:

(1) Get Becky your section ASAP.

(2) Insert a synopsis of your section in the introduction on the WIKI page. Becky put your name in block letters where you need to input your info

(3) Prepare your presentation.  Tom said we each have 6 minutes to present.  Since there are five of us, lets try to keep our presentations within that time frame.  Do a trial presentation and time yourself.  A good rule of thumb is to allow about two minutes for every page read (double spaced), so no more than three pages to be read.

(4)  Try to put together a four to five sentence statement of your conclusion that explicitly incorporates your section with our larger topic.  This is for our group conclusion (3 Pages). See the intro on the WIKI if you need to revisit what our thesis is.

(5)  Ian - were you still planning on putting together that 3 minute slide show of the "BodyWorlds" still photos.  It would be neat to have music (like Oingo-Boingo's "Wierd Science", but I suppose that would take away from the oral presentation).  I'm kidding about the music, but it would be most excellent to have the slide show.

(6) Faubus volunteered to read the intro section.  Does anybody want to volunteer to read the conclusion?

Don't forget that we are meeting at 2 PM on Wednesday to put the finishing touches on our conclusion, intro, and entire project.  Please make sure that you have everything done that you are responsible for by that point.  Big thanks to Becky for editing our project.  Till then.......

[More]