Nowadays popular films warrant serious study because they may be inextricably bound up with “our” points of view. Among other perspectives, the horror film may mirror the chaotic “real” world. And one of the reasons why this genre is seen as distinctively American is that many of these movies have been, simply, commercially successful.

Surveying some influential theoretical works on the American horror film and the general direction of horror films themselves, we can recognize that the nature of the horror film is to visually express our contradictory selves that are tom apart by the frightening real.

The origin of the American horror film is the so-called first sound horror cycle or “Golden Horror” of 1931-1936. Despite the rule of the “Production Code” and the “Hollywood System,” horror films of that era directly expressed the uncanny of “our” lives and seemed to breathe the same atmosphere of the Depression. Mad Love (1935), directed by Karl Freund, who had created some of the masterpieces of German Expressionist cinema as a cinematographer, is one of the classic Hollywood horror films. Judging that this would be the clearest vehicle for expressing the conflict pursued by the genre, I want to attempt a textual analysis of the film and examine the visual nature of the horror genre.

This paper deals with the substance of the newsreel theater before the China Incident in 1937 and shows the actual circumstances of exhibition and its function. The newsreel theater showed not only newsreel films but also various short films. Many newsreel theaters were located in convenient places in each city, in particular beside train stations. Therefore urban inhabitants could go to and from newsreel theaters easily and spend their time. And what’s more, a lot of newsreel theaters had modem equipment: an air conditioners for example, was first-class service for spectators in those days. The convenient location and service, that the newsreel theater provided satisfied urban spectators who had begun to seek a comfortable life and casual movie-going. On the other hand, the newsreel theater collected a flat admission fee regardless of age, and also. took children into account as primary spectators from an economic perspective. The newsreel theater screened animation films such as “Mickey Mouse” which were always popular among children. Partly because the movie-going of children was regulated in those days, they came to the newsreel theater with their parents or teachers.

Photography is entirely different from other media that came before it. First, photography is the automatic method of reproducing images by the “camera” machine, not by human eyes and hands. Second, photography is a technique of reproduction which makes it possible for everyone to have the same images. So the meaning and value of these images lie in countless social exchanges.

Because of this nature to photography, the photographic portrait also began to perform a different role from the portrait in oil painting. The portrait in photography has a paradoxical status, functioning both “honorifically” and “repressively.”

Traditionally, the portrait in oil painting was both the description of an individual and the inscription of social identity. It reflects our own self-image that we hold in our mind. The portrait in photography extends, accelerates, and popularizes this traditional function. But that means that photography subverts the privileges inherent in portraiture. When we see our own photograph, it makes us perceive “the other” which hides in us. On the other hand, when we see a photograph of other people, it makes us see a real living subject as a mere surface of images.

This paper deals with this paradoxical status of the portrait in photography.