The Modern Supernatural and the Beginnings of Cinema

This study sees the nineteenth century supernatural as a significant context for cinemas first years. The book takes up the familiar notion of cinema as a ghostly, spectral or haunted medium and asks what made such association possible. Examining the history of the projected image and supernatural displays, psychical research and telepathy, spirit photography and X-rays, the skeletons of the danse macabre and the ghostly spaces of the mind, it uncovers many lost and fascinating connections. The Modern Supernatural and the Beginnings of Cinema locates films spectral affinities within a history stretching back to the beginning of screen practice and forward to the digital era. In addition to examining the use of supernatural themes by pioneering filmmakers like Georges Mlis and George Albert Smith, it also engages with the representations of cinemas ghostly past in Guy Maddins recent online project Seances (2016). It is ideal for those interested in the history of cinema, the study of the supernatural and the pre-history of the horror film.