Abstract
Decapitation is a decisive and often rapid termination of human life, whilst bodies with two heads are Gothic aberrations, freaks of nature joined in a hideous union. This chapter discusses the animated decapitated head in the film Shrunken Heads (1994), and the headless figure in the film Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Washington Irving’s original story. Scanners (1981) is the focus of a study of the power of the expanded head. The Gothic nature of two-headed bodies is discussed using the exploitation films The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971) and The Thing with Two Heads (1972). Finally, the chapter explores the Gothic nature of the masked face, monstrous or deformed, addressing primarily the film Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1960).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Akbar, Arifa (2009), ‘National Portrait Gallery acquires Marc Quinn’s bloody head’, The Independent, 10 September, http://ind.pn/1INOscl, accessed 13 June 2015.
Beard, William (2001), The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Blum, Virginia (2005), Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Campbell, Mary B. (2004), ‘Biological Alchemy and the Films of David Cronenberg’, in Barry Keith Grant and Christopher Sharrett (eds), Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, revised edition, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Carnochan, W.B. (1969), ‘“The Minister’s Black Veil”: Symbol, Meaning, and the Context of Hawthorne’s Art’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 24: 2, pp. 182–192.
Clover, Carol J. (1992), Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Collins, Wilkie (2006 [1878]), The Haunted Hotel & Other Stories, Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.
Conrich, Ian (2010), ‘The Friday the 13th Films and the Cultural Function of a Modern Grand Guignol’, in Ian Conrich (ed.), Horror Zone: The Cultural Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema, London: I.B. Tauris.
Edwards, Justin D. (2005), Gothic Canada: Reading the Spectre of a National Literature, Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.
Gerould, Daniel (1992), Guillotine: Its Legend and Lore, New York: Blast Books.
Gowdy, Barbara (1993 [1992]), ‘The Two-Headed Man’, in We So Seldom Look On Love, London: Flamingo.
Griffin, Andrew (2016), ‘First human head transplant could take place in the UK next year, maverick surgeon says’, The Independent, 21 November, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/head-transplant-human-uk-2017-sergio-canavero-valery-spiridonov-when-where-a7429991.html, accessed 14 December 2016.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (2012 [1832]), ‘The Minister’s Black Veil: A Parable’, in Julia Gaunce, Suzette Mayr, Don LePan, Marjorie Mather and Bryanne Miller (eds), The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction, second edition, Ontario: Broadview Press.
Hill, Susan (2012 [1983]), The Woman in Black, London: Vintage.
Irving, Washington (1865 [1824]), ‘The Adventures of a German Student’, in Tales of a Traveller, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
Irving, Washington (2012 [1820]), ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories, New York: Dover Publications.
Larson, Frances (2014), Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found, London: Granta Books.
Marshall, Tim (1996), Murdering to Dissect: Grave-robbing, Frankenstein and the anatomy of literature, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Pepe, Michael (2012), ‘Lefties and Hippies and Yuppies, Oh My! David Cronenberg’s Scanners Revisited’, CineAction, 88, pp. 26–33.
Shaviro, Steven (1993), ‘Bodies of Fear: The films of David Cronenberg’, in Brian Massumi (ed.), The Politics of Everyday Fear, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Spooner, Catherine (2006), Contemporary Gothic, London: Reaktion Books.
Tassini, Catherine (2010), ‘Why does the cut-off head smile? Disembodied Heads in Symbolist Art’, Consortium Journal, http://bit.ly/1MPFQzl, accessed 11 April 2015.
Thacker, Eugene (2015), Tentacles Longer Than Night: Horror of Philosophy Vol. 3, Alresford, Hampshire: Zero Books.
Wilde, Oscar (1994 [1890]), The Picture of Dorian Gray, London: Penguin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Conrich, I., Sedgwick, L. (2017). Head and Face. In: Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature. Palgrave Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-30358-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-30358-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-30357-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-30358-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)