The Brain

Abstract

Despite its significance, historically the brain has been an organ overlooked, perhaps because it has been considered so unfathomable. Being seen as unknown and unfamiliar has been a factor in how the brain has been received, with its exposure from beneath a detached cranium especially displeasing to behold. This chapter examines the exposure of the brain in Saw III (2006), Hannibal (1999) and its film adaptation (2001), and the novel and film The Dark Half (1989; 1993). Brain experimentation is addressed using H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and films based upon Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). The powerful brain detached from a body is considered using Donovan’s Brain (1942) and its screen adaptations, and the films Blood Diner (1987) and The Brain (1988).