Myths & Ghosts: The Supernatural in Auteur Cinema is a study on the potential of cinema as a medium to summon ghosts. Departing from Roland Barthes Camera Lucida, through viewings, readings and group discussion, this course aims to explore the idea of ‘film as a spirit’. We will concentrate on feature length works that focus on reflexive approaches to cinema using the supernatural as a framework that encompasses notions such as: transcendence, sacredness, magic, myth and consciousness, as well as the numerous spectres, spirits and ghosts that haunt their characters and landscapes. These ideas will be investigated through films that explicitly address them in their diegesis, as well as through cinematic approaches that are grounded in a naturalistic perception of reality, and nonetheless allude to these ideas in allegorical or metaphorical ways.

Each class will present a film for study of its visual and aural style in relation to one of the ideas around the supernatural, backed by readings on photography, media and cinema studies and, wherever possible, the filmmakers’ own writings.