Abstract

This article is dev oted to one of the archetypal images in cinema which have been presented in this art from the first years of its appearance The author considers the image of a mentally inadequate scientist not only from the point of view of his dual goal-setting the search for personal immortality and the desire for total power but for the first time his different semantic content is associated with a stable visual embodiment reproduced in films over the past hundred years The author argues that despite the external historical-political and internal figurative-stylistic and technical conditions this type of media-hero preserved its semantic functions and visual characteristics According to the author this is an objective phenomenon because the image of a mad scientist is an archetypal image and acts as a reflection of collective fears that reflect the drama of human existence namely the insoluble contradiction between his desire for immortality and at the same time the fear of losing all that is the essence of man