Category:Ghosts (film subject)

Ghosts (film subject)

A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike forms.

A place that is haunted is thought to be associated by the haunting spirit with some strong emotion of the past—remorse, fear, or the terror of a violent death. Individuals who are haunted are believed to be responsible for, or associated with, the ghost’s unhappy past experience (compare possession). The traditional visual manifestations of haunting include ghostly apparitions, the displacement of objects, or the appearance of strange lights; auditory signs include disembodied laughter and screams, footsteps, ringing bells, and the spontaneous emanation of sounds from musical instruments.

Tales of specific ghosts are still common in living folklore worldwide. The telling of elaborate grisly ghost stories, often in a setting enhanced by darkness or a thunderstorm, is a popular pastime in many groups, particularly among children.

The Christian attitude

Ghosts exist but they are not "spirits of the dead" (the Enoch solution):

Martin Luther (16th cent.): "All Ghosts.. are not men's souls, but evidently devile that amuse themselves thus to deceive the people with fal claims and lies, or unnecessarily to frghten and trouble them

The Catholic doctrine of Purgatory opened the possibility to consider ghosts as the souls of Purgatory, who have not yet reached Heaven or Hell.

Literary Works

Hamlet (ca.1600)

A soul from Purgatory? - A demon? - An hallucination?

The Ghost appears four times in the play: in Act I, Scene i; in the continuum of Act I, Scenes iv and v; and Act III, Scene iv. The Ghost arrives shortly after midnight in at least two of the scenes, and in the other scenes, all that is known is that it is night.

The Ghost first appears to a duo of soldiers—Bernardo and Marcellus—and Hamlet's friend, Horatio. The men draw their swords and stand in fear, requesting that Horatio, as a scholar, address the Ghost. Horatio asks the Ghost to speak, and reveal its secret. It is about to do so when the cock crows, signalling morning, and the Ghost instead disappears. In this scene, the Ghost is clearly recognised by all present as the King, dressed in his full armour.

Horatio then persuades Prince Hamlet into staying up with the guards to see if the Ghost returns. At midnight, it appears, and beckons Hamlet to follow. Once alone, the Ghost describes his wanderings on the earth, and his harrowing life in Purgatory, since he died without receiving last rites.

"...but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy Fathers life, Now wears his crown."

He tells the young Hamlet that he was poisoned and murdered by his brother.

Prince Hamlet, fearing that the apparition may be a demon pretending to be King Hamlet, decides to put the Ghost to the test by staging a play that re-enacts the circumstances that the spirit claims led to his death. Claudius' reaction is one of guilt and horror, and Prince Hamlet is convinced that the Ghost is, in fact, his father.

In the third appearance, Hamlet is confronted by the Ghost in his mother's closet, and is rebuked for not carrying out his revenge and for disobeying his instruction by talking to Gertrude. Hamlet fearfully apologizes. Gertrude, however, cannot see the Ghost, and thinks Hamlet is mad, asking why he stares and talks to nothing. In this scene, the Ghost is described as being in his nightgown. He is never mentioned again.

Shakespeare, Macbeth

Rashomon Rashomon 51m

A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens [1] [2]

Scrooge received the visit of the ghost of his former friend and colleague, Marlow, who came to warn him to change his life. There are other three spirits in the novel; they are not spirits of the dead but spirits of Holy Times ("Christmas past," Christmas present, Christmas future), in a sort of animistic perspective.