Where the Lumière brothers' Train Pulling into a Station opened the first part of the book, this one begins with reference to another early film, indeed, that which appears to be cinema's first snufffilm: Thomas Edison's Electrocuting an Elephant of 1903. Topsy, an unruly resident of Coney Island's Lunar Park, was to be put down for bad behaviour. Edison, keen to display the dangers of his competitor's rival alternating current (AC), stepped in to test said current on the elephant. A shackled Topsy is connected up, the switch is pulled and, in a matter of seconds, the hulking figure falls to the ground. Topsy topples: the alternating current is deadly indeed. The execution is declared in its title, and the film's content is ‘purely’ a taking of life. From the first, dying is rendered by film a spectacle, a cinematic spectacle, to behold. The matter-of-factness of Topsy's demise, the pain-free finality (and punitive purpose) of it merges, somehow, with the grandeur of the display. This merging or combination – of the details and duties of dying, and its entertainment value – will resonate in the chapters to follow as we explore mainstream cinema's representations of the final act and their far from simple or singular import.

In this second part of the book, then, we turn from the anticipation of death towards its experience, from its proximity to its presence, and, most importantly, to its impact upon the body.