Weber, J: "Like some damned Juggernaut"

The eponymous heroes of "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Dracula" are known to most through the medium of film. These novels were adapted early on in the history of the medium and have been revisited by film makers countless times. This book asks why they had such a lasting resonance in film. It claims that the monsters featured in these novels, which were written at the advent of cinematography, differ from previous Gothic leads: Jekyll/Hyde, Dorian Gray and Dracula were born from a sense of unease with the photographic image at a time when it began to move. They embody fears triggered by new ways of representing - and thus thinking about - the human body. Their exhibitions of deviant corporeality and its effect on others anticipate the representation of the human body in film as well as an audience's reception of a film. Through its numerous case studies, this monograph is able to show that film history can be told as a history of the representation of the human body. It features discussions of films as diverse as "Der Januskopf", "Nosferatu", "Vampyr", "Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier", "Altered States", "Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula".