Pictures of death in movies

An Exhibition of the Filmmuseum Düsseldorf      

Since the beginning of film history over 100 years ago, society has created a new symbolic place for death, especially in the cinema. Since then, countless movies have told of the various facets of death: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's "Nosferatu" takes up the motif of the undead with the vampire figure, Alfred Hitchcock revolutionized the compact cinematic depiction of a murder in "Psycho", Peter Greenaway's "The Architect's Belly" evokes images of death through its formal design, Quentin Tarantino lets body parts whirl around in "Deathproof"...

The exhibition shows the influences that flow from the classical arts into the death images of cinema. At the same time, it becomes clear which very own images of death movies can create, and to what extent these in turn influence new media such as the Internet and computer games. Large image panoramas illustrate the extent to which the cinematic depiction of death draws on a tradition of classical artistic images of death from past centuries such as painting, "danse macabre", literature and photography. The visitors encounter life-size figures of personified death such as Dracula, Frankenstein or the vamp. Interactive stations show how the film scene also depicts death abstractly: One walks into typical places of death such as the desolate metropolis in "Batman", hears sounds or sees pictorial metaphors that announce death. "Laterna Magica" images and slot machines present pre-filmic depictions of death in moving pictures, an excursion into new media shows how film images in turn influence other media.  In addition, numerous photos and posters will be on display, as well as merchandising articles that specifically advertise films with the theme.