shadows in a phantom eye, volume 13 (1941-1943): attractions & aberrations in the moving image 1872-1949

Since the late 19th century, film has been the ultimate medium by which to express and illuminate the darker, wilder recesses of man’s imagination. An alchemical convergence of magic lantern experiments and new photographic technology led to the production of the very first moving images, including visual captures of magic, mystery, violence, cruelty, crime, sex, nudity, devilry and death.

SHADOWS IN A PHANTOM EYE is an extensive and unprecedented 15-volume book series that reveals a flickering carnival of attractions and aberrations, from the ground-breaking motion capture experiments conceived by Eadweard Muybridge in 1872 to the shocking documentary footage of atrocity, destruction and horror which emerged from the ruins of war-torn Europe in the late 1940s. This is the ultimate multi-volume guide for those wishing to explore an alternative global history of the moving image in its inaugural decades - a history that reveals a wild, often disturbing and provocative world which includes Hollywood but also stretches far, far beyond.

SHADOWS IN A PHANTOM EYE Volume 13 reveals a flickering carnival of attractions and aberrations from the period 1941-1943, when the world was grasped by horrors which far surpassed those conjured up by Hollywood, and when every film format from features to pulp serials and cartoons was utilized to present demonized caricatures of each country’s enemies.