Horror in Homeopathic Doses Franjus Eyes Without a Face

Les Yeux sans visage/Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju,  France/Italy, 1959)

More than any other image, an erased human face remains horribly eloquent. In fact, a face cannot be made to vanish completely: it stays sufficiently human to horrify by its exact lack of humanity. Hence the unnerving effect of Georges Franjus film Eyes Without a Face (1959), in which a young woman, disfigured in a car crash, is subjected to her fathers insane and murderous plan to give her a new face. We never see the daughters ravaged face, but the featureless white mask she wears for most of the film is enough to suggest her uncanny oscillation between human and inhuman.
Brian Dillon, The Revelation of Erasure, Tate Etc., Issue 8, Autumn 2006

Being a horror buff of the rather squeamish and easily frightened kind, Film Studies For Free usually likes its scary, gory movies to be Lyrical... Poetic... Beautiful. That way, it finds, it doesnt have to avert its eyes from the screen too much. 

Thus, FSFF is a particular fan of the truly horrific but extraordinarily beautiful film Les Yeux sans visage/Eyes Without a Face. Georges Franjus classic delivers its horror in homeopathic doses, as Franju himself so aptly put it. 

So, its the film FSFF just had to choose for its little homage in scholarly links this Halloween. (P.S. If you are based in the USA or Canada, you can also currently watch it for free online as part of October Halloween Festival of free films at The Auteurs website).

• Curtis Bowman, A film without politics: Georges Franjus Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1959), Kinoeye, Vol 2,  Issue 13, Sept 2002
• Elizabeth Cowie,  Anxiety, ethics and horror: Georges Franjus Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1959), Kinoeye, Vol 2,  Issue 13, Sept 2002
• Paul Cronly, Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face), Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Issue 5, December 2008
  
• Lee Hill, Skin Deep, Vertigo Magazine, No. 17, May 2008
  
• Reynold Humphries, Dr Franjus "House of Pain" and the political cutting edge of horror, Kinoeye, Vol 2, Issue 13, Sept 2002 
• Kate Ince, Reply to Michael du Plessis, Film-Philosophy, Vol. 11, 2007
• Gary Johnson, "Georges Franjus Eyes Without a Face, Images Journal, 2004 
• Katerina Loukopoulou, Review of Georges Franju by Kate Ince [Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2005], Scope, Issue 9, October 2007
• Michael du Plessis, Fantasies of the Institution: The Films of Georges Franju and Kate Ince’s Georges Franju, Film-Philosophy, Vol. 11, 2007  
• Donato Totaro, Martyrs: Evoking Frances Cinematic and Historical Past, Offscreen, Vol. 13, Issue 5, 2009
  
• Donato Totaro, Salute Alida, Offscreen, Vol. 10, Issue 5, May 31, 2006 
• Catherine Wheatley, Les Yeux sans visage, Senses of Cinema, Issue 42, 2007
  

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Horror Studies Issue 1 for free!

Image from The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)

There are [...] two significant [subliminal cuts] in The Exorcist [...] --- firstly during [Father Damien] Karras [(Jason Miller))] dream of his mother, the screen is filled for two frames with a white-painted image of Jason Millers leering face, appearing as a death mask; and during the exorcism itself, Linda Blairs tossing head is replaced momentarily with Millers similarly deathly visage.  Mark Kermode, Devilish Deceptions (From Fear Magazine, Issue 24 December 1990)

Only Father Karras, in a final, desperate act of self-sacrifice – of somatic and spiritual simpatico with the demon – comes to reconcile and transcend these extremes, thus restoring Regan to her former state of being. Larrie Dudenhoeffer , ‘"Evil against Evil": The Parabolic Structure and Thematics of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Horror Studies, 1.1, 2010, p. 11 (pdf)

Film Studies For Free is trembling with delicious terror at the news of yet another freely accessible issue of a new journal from Intellect Press - theres just too much to read already... Aaaarrggghhhh...

But seriously, Horror Studies is a peer-reviewed, biannual, academic journal devoted to the study of the aesthetics of horror in all of its cultural and historical forms, from film and literature, music and dance, to fine art, photography and beyond: "With a strong commitment to interdisciplinarity, Horror Studies seeks to foster fruitful dialogue on horror between a wide range of different critical and scholarly traditions."

The first issue contains a good number of excellent film-related articles: on The Exorcist; abjection and masculinity in Todd Solondz’s Happiness; Werewolf of London (Walker, 1935); Dracula in early cinema; the submarine myth and its relation to the shark myth, as it has been propagated in film since Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975); and a Deleuzian study of Michael Almereydas horror films.

As usual, here at FSFF, links to all contents are given below.

Horror Studies 1.1, 2010

• Contents/Editorial/Authors: View Header/Abstract   View PDF

• Karen E. Macfarlane , Mummy Knows Best: Knowledge and the Unknowable in Turn of the Century Mummy Fiction View Header/Abstract   View PDF

• Gary D Rhodes, Drakula halála (1921): The Cinema’s First Dracula, View Header/AbstractView PDF
  

• Robert Spadoni, Strange Botany in Werewolf of London View Header/Abstract   View PDF

• Larrie Dudenhoeffer , ‘"Evil against Evil": The Parabolic Structure and Thematics of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist View Header/Abstract   View PDF

• Linda Maria Koldau, Of Submarines and Sharks: Musical Settings of a Silent Menace View Header/Abstract   View PDF

• Tom O’Connor, ‘Uncontrollably Herself’: Deleuze’s Becoming-woman in the Horror Films of Michael Almereyda, View Header/Abstract   View PDF

• Adam Wadenius, The Monstrous Masculine: Abjection and Todd Solondz’s Happiness,  View Header/Abstract   View PDF

• Catherine Spooner  Dark Looks: An Interview With Valerie Steele View Header/Abstract   View PDF

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