24 Frames: Ato 3 – Rat Krespel (The Tales of Hoffmann, Powell & Pressburger, 1951)

Hoffmann is the unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature. (…) The author has piled up too much material of the same kind. In consequence one’s grasp of the story as a whole suffers, though not the impression it makes. We must content ourselves with selecting those themes of uncanniness which are most prominent, and

24 Frames: Ato 2 – The Lost Reflection (Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1951)

Every New Year’s Eve the Devil keeps a special treat for me. He knows just the right moment to jam his claw into my heart, keeping up a fine mockery while he licks the blood that wells out. And there is always someone around to help him. Die Abenteuer der Silvester-Nacht (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann,

24 Frames: Ato 1 – The Sandman (The Tales of Hoffmann, Powell & Pressburger, 1951)

When we proceed to review things, persons, impressions, events and situations which are able to arouse in us a feeling of the uncanny in a particularly forcible and definite form, the first requirement is obviously to select a suitable example to start on. Jentsch has taken as a very good instance ‘doubts whether an apparently