understanding, surrealism for those like Breton is the current existence of dream and reality in an absolute existence. What is termed as ‘conscious hallucination’. A.Kyrou talks of it as a contamination of reality by the imaginaion. Surrealist Andre Breton on the other hand argues,“surrealism is based on the belief on the superior reality of certain forms of associations, hereto for neglected in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought..”Surrealism is mobile in ideas and images. The experimentation of the cinematic screen. Being allowed space outside of that reality. Surrealist movement emerged from sybolism. Odilon Redon are famous symbolist painters of the mid 18th century. It is a movement that expressed the free association of images without having to have meaning and coherent connection. A lot of horror films use surrealism because it is based on realism. They are preoccupied in exploring the unconscious in the conscious. They disrupt and distort the film experience.When we talk of dreams and nightmares in film we are frequently preoccupied with the experience of the audience. When we are in the cinema as spectators we suspend ourselves into the world of the story space. According to Robin Hood, (An Introduction to the American Horror Film: In the Planks of Reaon),“the spectator sits in darkness, and the sort of involvement the entertainment film invites neceesitates a certain switichig-off of consciousness, a losing oneself in a fantasy experience…..Dreams…..the embodiment of repressed desires, tentions, fears that our conscious mind rejects.” (ibid: pg173).We can see the influence of symbolism in eraserhead. The film is presented as a delirious dream, and “supported by the sumptuous visual conception: the swirling composition of the sets and the camera movement, the often heady transition of shots.” (pg:396: vera Dika ‘From Dracula-W...
