Possession by A S Byatt

Possession by A S Byatt

Premiering at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, Andrzej: Zulawski's Possession remains a distinct phenomenon. Though in competition for the illustrious Palme d'Or, its art cinema context did not rescue it from being banned as part of the United Kingdom's 'video nasties' campaign, alongside unashamedly lowbrow titles such as Faces of Death and Zombie Flesh Eaters. Skirting the boundary between art and exploitation, body horror and cerebral reverie, relationship drama and political statement, Possession is a truly astonishing film. Part visceral horror, part surreal experiment, part gothic romance dressed in the iconography of a spy thriller: there is no doubt that the polarity evinced by Possession's initial release was in part a product of its resistance to clear categorisation.

With a production history almost as bizarre as the film itself, a cult following gained with its VHS release, and being re-appreciated in the decades since as a valuable work of auteur cinema, the story of how this film came to be is as fascinating as it is unfathomable. Alison Taylor's Devil's Advocate considers Possession's history, stylistic achievement, and legacy as an enduring and unique work of horror cinema. Beginning with a marital breakdown and ending with an apocalypse, the film's strangeness has not dissipated over time; its transgressive imagery, histrionic performances, and spiral staircase logic remain affective and confounding to critics and fans alike. Respecting the film's wilfully enigmatic nature, this book helps to unpack its key threads, including the collision between the banal and the horrific, the socio-historical context of its divided Berlin setting, and the significance of its legacy, particularly with regard to the contemporary trend for extreme art horror on the festival circuit.

Premiering at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, Andrzej: Zulawski's Possession remains a distinct phenomenon. Though in competition for the illustrious Palme d'Or, its art cinema context did not rescue it from being banned as part of the United Kingdom's 'video nasties' campaign, alongside unashamedly lowbrow titles such as Faces of Death and Zombie Flesh Eaters. Skirting the boundary between art and exploitation, body horror and cerebral reverie, relationship drama and political statement, Possession is a truly astonishing film. Part visceral horror, part surreal experiment, part gothic romance dressed in the iconography of a spy thriller: there is no doubt that the polarity evinced by Possession's initial release was in part a product of its resistance to clear categorisation.

With a production history almost as bizarre as the film itself, a cult following gained with its VHS release, and being re-appreciated in the decades since as a valuable work of auteur cinema, the story of how this film came to be is as fascinating as it is unfathomable. Alison Taylor's Devil's Advocate considers Possession's history, stylistic achievement, and legacy as an enduring and unique work of horror cinema. Beginning with a marital breakdown and ending with an apocalypse, the film's strangeness has not dissipated over time; its transgressive imagery, histrionic performances, and spiral staircase logic remain affective and confounding to critics and fans alike. Respecting the film's wilfully enigmatic nature, this book helps to unpack its key threads, including the collision between the banal and the horrific, the socio-historical context of its divided Berlin setting, and the significance of its legacy, particularly with regard to the contemporary trend for extreme art horror on the festival circuit.

Lewis Carroll, creator of the brilliantly witty Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was a pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a shy Oxford don with a stammer.

He was born at Daresbury, Cheshire on January 27, 1832, son of a vicar. As the eldest boy among eleven children, he learned early to amuse his siblings by writing and editing family magazines. He was educated at Christ Church College, Oxford, where he lectured in mathematics from1855 to 1881. In 1861 he was ordained as a deacon.

Dodgson's entry into the world of fiction was accidental. It happened one golden afternoon as he escorted his colleague's three daughters on a trip up the river Isis. There he invented the story that might have been forgotten if not for the persistence of the youngest girl, Alice Liddell. Thanks to her, and to her encouraging friends, Alice was published in 1865, with drawings by the political cartoonist, John Tenniel. After Alice, Dodgson wrote Phantasmagoria and Other Poems (1869), Through the Looking-Glass (1871), The Hunting of Shark (1876, and Rhyme? and Reason? (1883).

As a mathematician Dodgson is best known for Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879). He was also a superb children's photographer, who captured the delicate, sensuous beauty of such little girls as Alice Liddell and Ellen Terry, the future actress. W.H. Auden called him one of the best portrait photographer of the century. Dodgson was also an inventor; his projects included a game of arithmetic croquet, a substitute for glue, and an apparatus for making notes in the dark. Though he sought publication for his light verse, he never dreamed his true gift-telling stories to children-merited publication or lasting fame, and he avoided publicity scrupulously Charles Dodgson died in 1898 of influenza.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780679735908
ISBN 10	0679735909
Title	Possession
Author	A S Byatt
Series	Vintage International
Condition	Unavailable
Binding type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	1991-10-01
Number of pages	576
Prizes	Winner of Booker Prize 1990
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable