A Filmmaker's Guide to: The Weird

In this chapter of ‘the filmmaker’s guide’ we’re actually going to be learning about literature and film together. I understand that many of you are sitting in university during difficult times and finding it increasingly hard to study and I understand that many of you who are not at university or not planning on it are possibly stuck of what to do, need a break or even need to catch up on learning film before you get to the next level. This guide will be brief but will also contain: new vocabulary, concepts and theories, films to watch and we will be exploring something taboo until now in the ‘filmmaker’s guide’ - academia (abyss opens). Each article will explore a different concept of film, philosophy, literature or bibliography/filmography etc. in order to give you something new to learn each time we see each other. You can use some of the words amongst family and friends to sound clever or you can get back to me (email in bio) and tell me how you’re doing. So, strap in and prepare for the filmmaker’s guide to film studies because it is going to be one wild ride.

The Weird

What is it?

As you probably remember, from my book review on the British Library "Queens of the Abyss" - the term 'weird' is difficult to define and so I am going to define it as what I am covering here. The mixture of dark fantasy and horror genres in order to depict a story with extended metaphors on dark aspects of the human condition such as: mental health and stress disorders. This normally makes the film/book widely acclaimed for its indirect imagery of these things instead of presenting us with a whole-heartedly negative story. "The Weird" can also be positive in plot, they just contain extended metaphors in form of indirection and misdirection.

In literature, this is seen mainly in the modern and post-modern era because of the fact the post-modernism focuses on the indirection and misdirection of the narrative. But, possibly Edgar Allen Poe - part of the American Dark Romanticist movement, was one of the foremost writers of 'the weird' through his depiction of mental health breakdowns in possibly some of the most negative and horrific storylines ever written.

Within the modern and post-modern eras, we can view this through the following novels and more:

1. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
2. The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
3. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
4. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
5. The Box-Man by Kōbō Abe
6. Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar
7. If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
8. Geek Love by Katharine Dunn
9. The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
10. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

What about in film?

Directors such as: Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton, Stanley Kubrick, Darren Aronofsky, Wes Anderson, David Cronenberg, M. Night Shyamalan, David Lynch, Robert Weine, Sir Alfred Hitchcock and Tobe Hooper plus many others have often been considered as some of the best directors of 'the weird' with Guillermo del Toro and David Lynch possibly fitting best to what we are looking at here today.

The main difference between literature of the weird and film of the weird is that film requires you to be immersed in the atmosphere first and foremost, whereas a book can begin anywhere in the narrative and, because of the post-modernism of the book, does not have to go in any particular order with the character [if written in first person] not recognising or acknowledging any sort of self-destructive behaviours that may be influencing the growth in atmosphere. However, it would not work so well in film because of the way in which we have to understand the atmosphere far before the 'main part of the plot' takes place. This may require a long time of development.

Here are some films you could watch in order to see films of the weird that also contain an extended metaphor of human realities:

1. Eraserhead
2. The Shape of Water
3. Black Swan
4. Pan's Labyrinth
5. Donnie Darko
6. Jacob's Ladder
7. The Fly
8. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
9. mother!
10. Naked Lunch
11. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
12. Being John Malkovich

Further Reading:

• Del Toro, G (2016). Guillermo del Toro At Home with Monsters. USA: Titan Books.
• Lynch, D (2005). Lynch on Lynch. USA: Faber and Faber
• Nathan, I (2020). Wes Anderson: The Iconic Filmmaker and his Work. USA: White Lion Publishing.