“Hill House” — a genuine house just outside London, chosen as embodying just what Jackson imagined, and then photographed as where all the outdoor scenes around it using infrared light (1963 The Haunting)
John Atkinson Grimsaw (1836-93), The Haunted House (1882)
Dear Readers, Students, Friends,
Tonight one of the great American gothic novels and psychological terror films of the 20th century: Shirley Jackson’s highly original 1959 Haunting of Hill House, and Robert Wise’s even more unusual rendition of the literary genre not as a horror film (what was mistakenly tried in 1999), but as a psychological film contextualized by
1) the domestic realism of Eleanor Lance’s character and circumstances;
2) the Citizen Kane representation of the Hugh Crain family (as back-story);
3) the quiet lesbianism of Theo (Claire Bloom);
4) and the undercutting sceptical mockery of Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn) whose contingent of characters brings into the film the ordinary American upper class who’d love to make money on the house.
The blog will also delve the gothic as such and its history. See my review (evaluation and summary) of Richard Davenport-Hines’s The Gothic: 400 (!) Years of Excess, Evil, Horror and Ruin Both Jackson and Wise’s works are in the Radcliffian mode, sometimes called the female gothic.
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Preliminaries:
Eleanor (Julie Harris) turned down by her relatives when she asks for the car (half hers) for a vacation
Eleanor resolute, with all her worldly goods (come to take the car anyway)
When I first read the book I was struck by how it begins in a very secular modern feel atmosphere. Dr Montague (the name of the doctor in Jackson’s book) wants to investigate the supposed presence of ghosts and terrors at Hill House scientifically and he goes about to find people willing to participate in the experiment of living there together for the summer. He gets up a list of names of people from psychic societies, sensational newspaper stories — people who have sighted or been willing to believe they saw or are interested in “paranormal” (the “in” word today) experiences. He doesn’t want any crackpot and there’s a distrust of unknown uncredentialled people which remind me of the distrust of experience on the Net.
He turned up two single women, Eleanor Lance (it’s an “L” in the book), one who cared for her mother all the mother’s life until she died and now lives with a selfish sister and her husband; and Theo, the other who had fought intensely with her woman lover. He also finds the present owner insists he take in a relative. So there are four of them. Then two surly servants (as I said). Now his wife and her chauffeur, Arthur have been invited.
What emerges is something I’ve seen in astute writers of the gothic before. Hell is other people; the group has begun to gang up on Eleanor because she’s susceptible to bullying. It’s a it’s a gothic that analyses the psychic source of terrorizing and why it happens. But beyond that we are beginning to experience terrifying unexplained phenomena. Theodora’s dresses are torn to bits and covered with blood so now she sleeps with Eleanor. One night Eleanor listens to moaning and groaning of a baby elsewhere. Scary things happen in the landscape; all done very slowly you see. Eleanor is suddenly being called Nell and writing appears on the walls which demands she come home.
And we begin to get threats: Mrs Montague talks of being buried alive. She brings a planchette and we have a seance like experience where again Eleanor is picked on, picked out as the one words are hurled at. Slowly I’ve noticed the others are irritated and turn away from her need of them. In the book Dr Montague doesn’t want her around lest she ruins his experiment. (The movie is softer and makes Dr Montague and Theo genuinely concerned for her, and Luke put off by her suicidal impulses on the twirling metal staircase.)
to a sudden powerful close. I was stunned by the ending and yet it was coming at me all the time. The very last words might be said to put a close to a future of endless pain: “and whatever walked there [in Hill House] walked alone.” But …
Warning I’m telling the ending:
There is a constant repeat of lines from Shakespeare’s Twelth Night, the song of the fool: “present mirth hath present laughter” and especially the line; “journey’s end in lovers’ meeting.” This line runs through what I now realize is our heroine’s head: Eleanor. The question is whether when she killed herself by smashing herself and car against the tree, she does know peace or is returned to hill house to walk with whatever walked there.” Journey’s end in lovers’s meeting; the hideous writing on the wall and cruel comments written down are invites to Eleanor (Nell) from whoever or whatever riddles and warps the house — which under assault becomes a wild tempest (making me think of the emotions at the close of Ethan Frome by Wharton, a book I hope never to read again, especially its ending).
Eleanor’s story suddenly is seen so clear as one of a miserable wretched woman: sleeps in sister’s baby’s room and only shares that car, has no right to it, for no husband, no salary. When she loses it after Mrs Montague’s (meant to be obtuse funny — think Mrs Jennings from S&S) antics over a planchette, and nearly kills herself and others by trying to jump off a crumbling bit of gothic convention masonry, they want her out. They kick her out. She’d have to go back to that sister. Theodora has already refused to take her in at summer’s end.
So what were her options? Backstory of clan has two sisters in deadly frightening rivalry.
But what really is chilling is the sudden experience. No one does gothic like Jackson. The cold, the sounds, the wild weird evocation of what can’t be and can’t be explicitly but only allusively described.
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The Gothic:
Eleanor and Theo (Claire Bloom) talking of their lives
Luke (Russ Tamblyn) thinking about the cold spot
First we need to understand the gothic. It’s been a major US popular subgenre since the 1790s — around the time of the French revolution, which can be regarded as a watershed in western culture (another is World War One).
The gothic is easily identified by some repeating central characteristics: the haunted place, usually a labyrithine house with a past where much misery had occurred. Haunted: it is a genre which uses all the realistic conventions so as to make you believe in and enter the fictional world, and then there is this disruption, this intrusion from the world of the supernatural, at first mild, but then insistent and finally overwhelming.
It evokes in us atavistic beliefs we thought we had almost discarded; the fear of something under the bed, the dark, sudden ounds. We can say almost because many people believe in God or gods, and in supernatural realms, but our beliefs usually don’t unnerve us because they come in the form of controlled doctrines from churches. The church works hard to exclude this kind of belief and include that. The gothic undermines this.
Most deeply it’s a pessimistic questioning of what’s beyond the natural; it’s serious even if popularly treated frivolously. Robert Johnson (the actor who plays Dr Markway — Montague in the novel — the anthropologist-physician) and the director Wise in their voice over commentary in the DVD feature brought up the issue of belief centrally. From one of Johnson’s commentaries: the film prompts or comes out of questions about “what happened to the dead, to one’s relations who died … does it all just end like that; it’s all those things connected to religion as well ..I wonder about these things just like everybody else … where am I going … why am I here … ”
Dr Montague (Richard Johnson) introducing himself to Nell and Theo
The gothic is also metaphysical and asks question about the nature of the universe, about God, about justice and life’s value; Kafkaesque, paranoic and death’s effects are central to the gothic too:
Some sub-genres specialize in horror (violence, the vampire story which attacks people bodily; the werewolf story — Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is ultimately a werewolf story); others in terror (spiritual undermining, psychologically traumatized) and that is the ghost story. Haunting of Hill House is a ghost story.
So first we need to define ghost and carefully. A ghost is a the spirit or soul of a living person who died and comes back to haunt those living, usually in malevolent retribution for irretrievable hurt. Very very rare is the benign ghost and it’s no coincidence since people like reassurance and optimistic stories the most famous ghost story is precisely this rare type: Charles Dickens’s The Christmas Carol, where the ghosts come back to redeem Scrooge. Most of the time the ghost are not into redemption.
They form a kind of social protest: social protest books have victims in the center who expose the injustices and cruelties of a system or social/economic/sexual arrangement. I wouldn’t lean too heavily because sometimes the person victimized at the center is actually not to blame for anything at all and makes the mistake of coming to live in this house. Most of the time if you look you find the person has been treated unfairly, is sensitive, and in need of love and comfort and help — so the ghost uses them.
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Jackson’s novel as gothic
Eleanor climbing the twisted metal staircase
Montague and others (we too) watching her climb
Eleanor Vance/Lance is the quintessential gothic heroine (it can be a hero): The gothic is about the patriarchal family, at its center is an exploration of its interior life, and the film is brilliantly inward. The house itself is alive: its past includes a number of exploited victimized women. Hugh Crain is like Citizen Kane — back story told up front in movie, brought out slowly in book.
Obviously Eleanor has been taken bad advantage of and is still being taken bad advantage of. spent the last 11 years of life caring for her mother; she is broke, has no car, no place of her own to live, no way to get an independent life; the two women in the story have lesbian orientations so they are just the kind of women our society marginalizes, will not even recognize the existence of
When it’s a woman at the center, she is imprisoned, buried alive, chased down, when it’s a man he’s made an exiles, outcasts; both experience pursuit, being hunted down, labyrinths. So the gothic critiques our society.
The fantasy element is an enabler because it sets up a false screen of frivolity.
Sex is often central — some sexual experience has been very bad — this is seen clearly in Vampire ones. But since we are not doing a vampire one let’s just stick with what we’ve got.
Films have genres and most scary films are horror films: they connect to vampire stories and are physical attacks with computer enhanced imagery today; often sadistic. Wise’s film is not a horror film. The 1999 film is a horror one and the second hour becomes ridiculous. Wise’s film is a psychological study in terror where a woman is slowly driven to lose her mind — other such films as good are The Woman in Black from Susan Hill’s novel; I’ve shown a number of hour long ones from short stories from the BBC archives (Afterward is one)
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Shirley Jackson
A young Shirley Jackson
Her life in brief:
Shirley Jackson: in his book, Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic, Darrly Hattenhauer tells her life well and concisely. The problem with most lives and the biographies is they have been slanted by her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, a leading critic, publisher-editor, adept in the kind of critical readings that convince people.
The reality is her writing supported them in their life-style and she did write a lot of junk, meaning short crude gothic fictions, to keep the income flowing in. She did all the housework, had several children; he had affairs openly. She didn’t leave. This was the 1950s and very hard to get a divorce; if you may think the discourse against women today is bad, this was pre-feminism. She became very heavy and that’s a no-no in American society.
Mostly what has happened to her books is they are interpreted
apolitically; as if she has no social protest in them but is merely reflecting her own or other people’s neurotic condition (often women’s). Paradoxically that’s partly because her husband and she were once part of the Young Communist league in the 1940s so to distance them from any politics, it’s all erased. The one good book beyond Hattenhauer is Joan Wylie Hall, Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction.
She is also forgotten and all but her “Lottery” (a startle) and Haunting of Hill House out of print. Like many women her work regarded 20 years later as biodegradable.
She was the daughter of a middle class Republican businessman who sent her to Bennington College where she met and married Hyman in 1937; he did publish her works. Driven as she was and treated the way she was, with the conventional life in the suburbs (this is before Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique exposed that), she became alcoholic; later
she used tranquillizers. She did find real comfort in her children. here’s often a sub-theme of protection of children in her books.
How does it reflect the 50s: the story of the woman is central; it’s proto-feminist before feminism became fashionable. Deep upsets in cultural rifts over religion. Like other popular sub-genres the features and characteristics of the kind often make its assertions feel more universal and about the genre.
She did what she could to avoid publicity. Like J. L. Carr (A Month in the Country) she was no networker.
Then on her work in general: What she is is a satirist within gothic, showing up human nature as the source or our unjust social arrangements. The society we live in is not some result of imposed conditions; people collude in it. What
we see at the close of The Haunting of Hill House is Eleanor is thrown out, really heartlessly. If the ghosts are after her, the others want nothing to do with her. She tries to suggest to Theo she could come and live with her, but Theo makes quick work of that. Go back to her sister?
I perfectly understand why Eleanor yields to the spirits of the house and crashes into a tree. We should regard her ending the way we do gods in Homer: the gods in Homer are projections of the inner lives of the characters and so when Venus prompts Aeneas to do something erotic, it’s because Virgil’s Aeneas wants to; but they are also there.
One of the most disturbing things I’ve discovered in the criticism of this book is the idea that it’s all in Eleanor’s mind. That is to blame her, see this neurotic woman and encourage others to despise her. The book is parallel then to The Turn of the Screw; Henry James insisted that the ghosts were malign and there but because he presented them subtlety, many readers insist he is wrong and she is this repressed angry spinster who hurts everyone around her. Can’t
take a joke you see.
It can’t be all in Eleanor’s mind. Crain’s young wife crashed into the tree. Crain’s family was blighted. Theo hears all that
Elinor does; by the end of the novel even Luke is persuaded, and in the movie he gets the last (invented line): “[this house] ought to be burned down and the ground sown with salt.”
The modern 1999 (Jan de Bont) film wants to blame the doctor: in 1999 Liam Nelson as the physician has this secret exploitative agenda to further his career; in the book, Dr Montague is a genuine researcher into psychic phenomena who is making no money on his investigations. He may be wrong to play with the spirits as many a person in gothic is, but he is not personally to blame except insofar as he doesn’t take responsibility for others he has brought here. We are our brother’s keepers. Jackson does not incline to Cain’s heresy (I refer to the Biblical Cain).
There is a semi-comic parallel plot in Jackson’s novel with the Dr wife’s Mrs Montague and her silly planchette board, but she is doing explicitly what lies behind the gothic: trying to get in touch with gods. Arthur is her absurd sidekick: there is a parody of the form, a self-reflexive feel to it.
Very refreshing is the lack of a love story. I am sorry to say the 1963 film does project an implicit thwarted love story between Eleanor and the doctor: Eleanor yearns for him. There is no sense of that in the book. If anyone, Eleanor years for the companionship of Theo is made into a closet lesbian – Wise was aware of this and tried to hint at all. Theo is briefly chased by Luke but she quickly debunks and pushes him away.
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Outline of novel, followed by how the 1963 film adaptation differs
Eleanor’s Thelma and Louise moment
The novel:
Chapter 1, p 3:
The opening paragraph with phrases that end the books: “whatever walked there, walked alone.” Introduces the characters, Dr Montague, Eleanor Vance, Theo, Luke.
Eleanor’s escape from her unkind exploitative relatives with her car (half hers) and we see the working class world of the US; its malls, family types; past the bullying gatekeeper, Mr Dudley
Chapter 2, p 34
Eleanor gets in, Mrs Dudley, her blue room, meeting Theo, the walk in the landscape — a difference from the film is in the film all takes place inside the house once Eleanor gets past her car ride; the idea was to be claustrophobic. In the novel the characters wander about the landscape — with hope; they hope to have a picnic even. Eleanor buoyed by her new relationship: she hopes Theo and she will be like sisters; Theo does at least say they shall be cousins.
Chapter 3, p 56
Luke, Dr Montague, the explanation. The first night’s dinner. They are to take notes (making fun — like Ashima (Namesake) shelves books as opposed to reading them). What are the good of notes if you don’t have any brains. Bits of the back story begin to emerge: p. 67: the first woman crashed against a tree even before she got to the house. Pp. 71-82: the rest of the history; the growing up of two daughters, their fierce rivalry over money (very common in US life), how the younger was married (Theo persists with invented story she cut out the older – a common happening) and envied the older for her dishes. Older loved the house, grew old, companion came to live with her: parallel with Eleanor and perhaps neglected her. The companion inherited the house and the Saundersons are the heirs and relatives of the unnamed companion. Often women are unnamed in gothics. Like Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca where we never learn the name of the narrator. We learn Theo is lesbian in orientation; Dr Montague reads Pamela; also likes Sterne, Fielding, Smollett
Chapter 4, p 93
First breakfast; investigating house; more talk introducing characters, interrelationships; first terrifying night: the knocking begins.
Chapter 5, p 136
Dr Montague’s first statement he will turn Eleanor out of the house. Histories of ghosts (o. 139ff); the writing on the wall; the cold spot in the hall (p. 150); Theo’s clothes covered in blood, she removes into Eleanor’s side of their shared space; evil spirit puts ugly thoughts in Eleanor’s mind (p. 159); where she slips backwards on the terrace and could have fallen. Eleanor talk to Dr Montague with great sincerity about how she hates to see herself slipping away; they smell in her a potential victim and they begin to circle her (p. 160). About a third of the way in central sequence; Luke finds handwriting: Help Eleanor Come Home; the night of terror where Eleanor thinks she is holding Theo’s hand and it turns out not so
Chapter 6, p 164
Eleanor learning “the pathways of the heart.” Book for daughter Sophia Craine by Demond Lester Crain found, p 168. Fearful illustrations. Theo curses Crain (p. 171) They wander in the landscape with Luke (pp. 173-80).
Chapter 7, p 179
Mrs Montague coming; again Eleanor is outside. The comic inadequacy of her insensitivity; Mrs Montague goes to live in hursery; the planchette with Arthur again produces a message about Eleanor and home. The four caught in the parlor, and terrible pounding, and cannot reach the nursery (pp. 196-205)
Chapter 8, p 206
The landscape, jokes about rabbits, Eleanor begs Theo to take her back with her, Theo harsh and unkind, Eleanor followed in landscape while Luke and Theo joining forces
Chapter 9, p 227
By this time Eleanor has lost her sanity in effect; the sequence in the hall, the statues, her climbing the stairway, but no one is sympathetic, and they seek to rid themselves of her and she smashes into tree.
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The 1963 film: it is not a horror film, but film noir: see comment: The Haunting as film noir
The last seconds of the film: all look at the wreck
All happens inside — significant change. Mrs Montague comes only in the equivalent of Chapter 9, her face at the top of the stairway used to terrify Eleanor down and again to drive her into driving the car into the tree.
The back story is simplified in the film: Hugh Grain now has only two wives, not three, and just one daughter, not two. Also, Wise gives us our history lesson immediately after the opening title sequence: An unidentified speaker (who we soon discover is Dr. John “Markway” [Richard Johnson]) provides voice-over narration to accompany what we can only assume is an objective/omniscient montage of Crain’s first wife dying in a carriage crash, of his daughter Abigail spending most of her life inside Hill House’s nursery (an extraordinary temporal ellipsis is achieved here via special effects as Abigail’s face transforms from child to adult to elderly woman without any apparent cuts), and of old Miss Crain’s female companion committing suicide in the tower. By way of contrast, Jackson’s Dr. Montague does not share his knowledge of Hill House’s dark past until much later.
Dr. Montague a slim, clean-shaven, and decidedly romantic figure in the film; Dr. Markway to take the object of Eleanor’s (Julie Harris) affection, with the result that their scenes together operate on multiple discursive levels: They converse not only as scientist-subject, teacher-pupil, and doctor-patient, but as potential lovers.
There are three additional differences: 1) Dr. Markway’s wife plays a much smaller role in Wise’s film than does Dr. Montague’s wife in the book, and the latter spouse’s hyper-masculine (though quite possibly asexual or lover-friend) Arthur does not appear in the film at all.
Theo’s relationship with Eleanor: in the book extremely ambivalent, is in the film here rendered in somewhat (though not entirely) more straightforward lesbian (if implicit) terms. On the one hand, Jackson’s Theo, although probably gay, expresses only a mild attraction toward Eleanor, and by the end of the novel seems to be hitting it off quite well with Luke. Wise’s Theo (Claire Bloom), in contrast, makes a number of fairly obvious passes at Eleanor and evinces a strong negative reaction toward Luke. Going in the other direction, Theo’s insensitivity, if not outright cruelty, toward Eleanor becomes manifest as The Haunting of Hill House proceeds (“I don’t understand. . . . Do you always go where you’re not wanted?” [2091]); in the 1963 film, Theo only becomes angry in response to Eleanor’s own expressions of jealousy and animosity.
Finally, Eleanor’s last moments alive are handled quite differently by Jackson and Wise. In The Haunting of Hill House, Eleanor’s death drive is, at least until the “unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree,” a) indisputably self-willed–perhaps even suicidal–act: “I am really doing it, she thought, turning the wheel. . . . I am really doing it, I am doing this all by myself, now, at last; this is me, I am really really really doing it by myself” (245). Gidding and Wise, almost certainly under pressure to rule out suicide as a possible motive for their protagonist’s demise, make it cle ar that Eleanor is not trying to kill herself, that the wheel of her car is being controlled by an outside force that she cannot resist, despite her strongest efforts.
Movie is less sympathetic to Eleanor’s dread of going home; makes more of the Crain presence in the house; the house becomes a chief character, a malign alive presence. In book Eleanor seems to alienate them all from her; they seem to feel she has in her the spirits of the house; in the movie they are protecting her from these spirits and thus themselves.
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
From conversation on Victoria:
For a class I’m teaching I’d like to know what Victorian gothic (either written during the Victorian period or more recently as a neo-Victorian), ghost, vampire, witch (horror or terror) types, genuinely has unnerved readers recently — or as adults. Films too. When I was 11, Stoker’s _Dracula_ so terrified me, I had to leave the front door of my parents’ apartment open, so I could run out (much upsetting my parents who went out “to work” as it was described). At 7 monster films which did not solve the mystery, but left the monster alive, terrified me (_It [came from the sea? .. and went back]).
Recently no, and now I read _Dracula_ and recognize its power, but
it’s simply a novel, more than a little misogynistic. I think to myself, if only the Count had had avaiable to him blood-transfusions, how much fuss could have been spared everyone (though the telegraph office would have lost business).
Recently the one set of texts that unnerves me is M. R. James’s ghost stories. I can be gripped by _For the Blood is the Life_, but not frightened within, with that uncanny feeling erupting. When I read “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book” I found myself on some level believing, and had to put a light on, wished my husband were awake.
It’s often asserted that the 1963 _Haunting (Robert Wise out of Shirley Jackson) is the most frightening film of gothic ever made: I did not find it so, though it was intelligently done and a intelligent take on the book. Unnerving though is the 1991 BBC film adaptation of Susan Hill’s neo-Edwardian, _Woman in Black_. It’s the image of the woman that haunts one, her face. Only I didn’t realize this until later when I began to be afraid I would see her (my students have testified to a similar reaction).
Any comments or stories. Off-list is fine too (though better on to
generate more comments).
Ellen
I got a long series of splendid informative and insightful postings under the above header yesterday and replied as follows: This is to thank everyone who responded to my query: the next time I teach what I call “Exploring the Gothic” I’d like to make the most effective impact I can. A great deal that one reads (about films especially) claiming this or that quality for a given product (what is
not a commodity today?) is simply not so or an exaggeration.
I’d like to endorse Jack Kolb’s comment too that the most powerful of the ghost stories come from the 1890s and early 20th century, at least I’ve found it so — also some unforgettable short vampire stories (I mentioned “For the Blood is the Life”). For my course I have ordered anthologies of ghost stories and assigned one to a each student in a given class: across the term each student is to make a presentation on “his or her” story several times. Once I did it for vampire stories. Twice I used anthologies of ghost stories just by women (there are several superb ones).
By dint of doing this I’ve read a lot of these stories in anthologies. The very best for a single volume I’ve ever ordered for a class in the area of ghost stories is J. A. Cuddon’s _Penguin Book of Ghost Stories_; for wider coverage and taste the best single volume is Michael Cox and R. A Gilbert’s _Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories_. One author of ghost stories I’d like to mention, relatively unknown perhaps to a wider audience is A. M. Burrage (“One who saw,” “Smee”) whose stories are self-reflexive about the genre as well as chilling, unnerving, and sometimes stay within the conventions of realism too. Edith Wharton writes superlative ones, many are now online, and she includes what I call “witch” stories, “Kerfol” (another subgenre)
Two of the best anthologies of women writers – and they are past mistresses of the ghost and witch story (the vampire story not so much as it’s rootedly misogynistic) are Richard Dalby’s Virago Book of Ghost STories and Virago Book of Victorian ghost stories. For the selection as a whole.
People might suggest a connection with the popularity of seances at the close of the Victorian age, and into this period, but I suspect the flowering is really the result of the magazine culture. There were so many places one could place a story; there was a need for stories even an, (as an article I was reading on “The Economics of Culture [in London, 1660-1740”] by Robert Hume demonstrated, “Culture cannot be consumed unless it is produced, but usually it will not be produced unless it is consumed” in other words, what is produced is produced because it’s in someone’s interest to produce (either for money, patronage, or social capital). Hume cites a book directly relevant to
the terrain of Victoria: “William St. Clair’s The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, a genuinely revolutionary quantitative investigation of how the economics of publishing and the regulation of copyright and the book trade affected public dissemination of and access to not only literature but also political, social, and philosophical ideas’
So we get these extraordinary gothics just at this time (1890s to 1930s), which include Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, Stoker’s Dracula, Oliphant’s Beleaguered City because the market is so large it will eat up nearly anything.
Ellen
We even got into talk about the meaning of the gothic as shown in the
popularity of ghost and other subgenres in the UK and US (and France
too) in the 1890s through early 20th century. I agreed with Bob that to talk of what is meant here is important and with Sheldon Goldfarb and others that an important inducing-factor for the flowering of gothic texts in the later Victorian into Edwardian period and early 20th century was a loss in or questioning of religious belief — I did mention the concurrence of the popularity of seances in this era. To believe or not to believe, how to make people (readers, viewers, listeners) believe is often embedded in these works either as a debate by the characters, or as preface by insightful critics on how the uncanny re-creation of beliefs discarded from childhood are worked up through an exquisite use of realistic techniques. Michael Cox’s introduction to the Oxford book of ghost stories includes a section on how MR James and others of his era turned to new subtler evocations; it includes the argument whether to try to show or not show a ghost or supernatural creature.
FWIW, one of the things that prompted my first question (as I wrote) was I watched Robert Wise’s _The Haunting_ and while I found it an excellent film (strongly recommended DVD), it didn’t really leave me unnerved and disquieted, though it did awaken an apprehension of something to be dreaded and it wasn’t death. The central people who made this 40 year old film (all 4 actors, the director, screenplay writer) actually came together once again to provide commentary voice-over in a feature on the DVD and several of their dialogues touched on this. For example, Russ Tamblyn played a strong sceptical character who made fun of what was happening, refused to believe it, ridiculed, but along the way changed his mind until the end he is given the final utterance of the film by the characters: “[this house] ought to be burned down and the ground sown with salt.” Robert Johnson (who played the physician) and Wise brought up the issue of belief.
From one of Johnson’s commentaries: the film prompts or comes out of questions about “what happened to the dead, to one’s relations who died … does it all just end like that; it’s all those things connected to religion as well ..I wonder about these things just like everybody else … where am I going … why am I here … ” They all agreed part of the film’s strength was never to have shown any ghosts or lurid visual creatures, but stay within the “paranormal”
The best book I know on this (discussing how these perspectives are found in the works at hand) is Jack Sullivan’s _Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to Blackwood_ where he argues a deeply pessimistic atavistic point of view is embodied in these works, a kind of Kafkaesque outlook for a wide popular audience.
But also central is the feminist point of view outlined in books like Eugenia DeLaMotte’s _Perils of the Night_, a study of the 19th century gothic (from Frankenstein and Melmoth through Jane Eyer, Villette and the later texts). It’s no coincidence there is apreponderance of women authors, that there are numerous all women text anthologies.
The central figure in _The Haunting of Hill House_ is parallel to the governess in _The Turn of the Screw_: Eleanor Lance/Vance spent the last 11 years of life caring for her mother; she is broke, has no car, no place of her own to live, no way to get an independent life; the two women in the story have lesbian orientations (Wise confirmed he meant that — Claire Bloom as Thea was dressed like Diana Rigg from The Avengers, an exact copy up to the hairdo).
In addition, (uncannily?) the debates about the later novel that have emerged are those we are familiar with from _The Turn of the Screw_, Were there really ghosts? is this a victim of social arrangements further abjected or a neurotic woman. The central figure in the film was Julie Harris as Eleanor Lance/Vance; she kept herself apart to play this very hard role. I’ve found students’ attitudes towards the film when they talk of it align with whether they empathize with Eleanor or are “turned off.” Among other brave and original things Wise did was to ignore the fashionable idea that one must not have voice-over as non cinematic (or dull, or effeminate): Julie Harris”s voice as voice-over was central to the experience except when disembodied Richard Johson’s sonorous reading of parts of the text (reminding me of Jeremy Irons in _Brideshead Revisited_) came over hers to talk of “Whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Ellen
Monday after returning from teaching: Delighted to report that not 1 student laughed. I can’t be sure some didn’t find it “corny” here or there (I realized the over-the-top melodramatic music actually occurs later in the film by dint of watching them watch). What’s more after an hour and 15 minutes (which was all we had time for) some did look shaken; in both classes I heard sounds of “oh no not again,” or “we’re not doing [having] this again!” when the second knocking sequence ensued. So this remarkable movie still works. What can be done with persistent unexplained bangs, infrared light, black & white, distorted cameras … [and great great acting by Julie Harris] is seen here. E.M.
Notes from the voice-over commentary of director, screenplay writer, four actors (as the film plays):
Haunting 1963
Film with commentary
Richard Johnson’s voice against the black sky and house and opening lines
Voice of Wise:
Wise read a review of Jackson’s book and read the book
Gidding asked Jackson about film: she said their views that the governess did not see any ghost but was herself having a nervous breakdown (the parallel is with misreadings of Turn of the Screw) were interesting but not what she had in mind; the only other title was The Haunting
They used an old manor house about 10 miles from Stratford-on-Avon; they used infrared film — marvelous things with clouds; house and out-of-doors shot with infrared film
Opening of film tells backstory
Couldn’t get more than a million from MGM, but going to London took copy of book; a million one so picture shot in England though New England remained setting
Little girl who ages into old woman: Abigail
Half mad woman making her way up twirling metal with ropes to hang herself
Then Mrs Sanderson interviewed by Dr Markway
**************************
Voice of Richard Johnson
In a film called Never So Few, signed for 7 years with MGM and found himself in this film and Operation Crossbow This film 40 years later people would still be looking at; little did one know; it’s a funny life
Markway a youthful enthusiast for his job, not quite knowig what he was getting himself into if he had not been so gung-ho, so enthusaist, it’s possible he could have saved julie Harris at the end; saved h er taken care of her but he was so determined to let it go on, the experiment wa sall; there was something ruthless abuot that
**********************
Voice of Wise:
We watch first scene with Harris begging her relatives: Wise I saw her on stage, thought she marvelous actress, just right for the role. She grows intensely angry, is so frustrated.
**********************
Voice of Harris:
Done in London, MGM, difficult shoot; fall, darkness would come over the city of London. 4-5 hours because you couldn’t see the road
Weather had something to do playing part; Eleanor a very unhappy girl; I saw her differently from Mr Wise; she had to defer to him (we see her escaping in car) so she could not bring out how she would have preferred to play the role. The other actors who poked fun at the movie .. I felt isolated and um unhappy. She would cry in the mornings, depression was right for this part .. there was a lot of it I enjoyed in a way — but note her view of the part was different, she was made unhappy by not being able to act it out nor her empathy with the story.
Harris also said; “Gifted calm gentleman was Robert Wise”
*************************
Nelson Gidding the voice speaking
The writer of movie as car drives up to enormous locked gates he was in “I want to live”; Gidding: he saw it would make a good ghost story; not a ghost story, a woman having a breakdown, none of this excited, – ten minutes before soldiers come in that fall many registered for army
I disagee emphatically: Eleanor did did see and it all happened but this curtailed presentation (with us never seeing any ghosts) is effective.
Gidding says the governess thinks to get away, escape; but does not
*************************
Wise:
I wanted to make house scary to the Julie harris character, make the house alive; house has eyes, infrared film to make white house and dark skies; tyring to make a real character of the house to have an effect on her
Voice over of Julie Harris was continual in the film — we had so much because we had to get inside of her head. He is apologizing for this unfashionable technique at the time (thought feminine). But it made the film.
So too the actress doing Mrs Dudley
**********************
Again Robert Wise:
production designer as important as cinematographer; Elliot Scott did the sets.
I now think the ornate sets and house justified by the text. Absolutely.
One must hire good actors: readability, credibility. Not much time to rehearse; you rely on them. You start shooting after read through and rehearse sequence by sequence.
And he says the movie also had marvelous score the Humphry Searle; I’d like to have the composer run; make notes for music and come to Wise; you haved to be careful of the music particularly because of the character of Julie. He used it sparingly.
Claire Bloom just seemed right to me for the role
***************************
Voice of Claire Bloom:
well it was fun …challenges… not that I had ever played the nice girl .. playing a woman attracted to other another woman … very intriguing .. and they gave her the character Thea something very different immediately when you saw her ……it was Mary Quant at her height (Mrs Dudley) it looks both very chic and a bit funny ..it was so much of its time
It was very intense .. very familial and we all got on very well except Julie wouldn’t talk to me .. “I couldnt talk to you because we [characters] hated one another so much .. so everybody approaches their work and ths was her way and it took me a while to understand it
She says she was aware she was supposed to be attracted to Julie (and be a lesbian) and this was hard to do, but she tried.
Bloom on this; “Very clever the way there were 2 texts goin on at the same time and rather it was almost … [her voice petered out. She credited the director with “pulling” this duality off.
***************************
Wise:
Here there was an implied Lesbian theme between Bloom and Harris. We are watching a scary black and white inside the greenhouse, very black and air going cold.
Originall in the screenplay we had upfront We had Clare in sequence writing on miror with lipstick “I hate you” and then she yelled out of the window: “but when we saw all the film we felt the lesbian theme was so strong this would be too heaily emphasized. (Most viewers missed it probably.)
He chose black-andwhite as more effecitive than color. He misses black and white and thinks there are certain knids of stories that are better told in black-and-white you get interesting visuals in black and white. Dr Markway is greeting Eleanor for first time here.
He rang changes on the black and white. He wanted a wide angle lens; some of the shots down the corridor he wanted to look almost crazy; tells of how hard it was to get someone to give him wider lends or differnt from 35; man insisted he sign a letter saying he knew it was distorted. Wise says he used it very effectively for hall sequences. Harder, more challenging to light. Lamenting how young audiences don’t understand since color TV. He has not made a black-and-white since The Haunting
*************************
Johnson’s voice
I think the black-and-white adds to teh atmosphere of the film — whole power of simplicity of black, white grey. Photography haunting si fascinating, depths of its shadows. Darknesses are so impressive; you couldn’t do that in color, it just wouldn’t look the same. He’s not seen the remake which they must have made in color but they didn’t succeed did it (he laughs
Character that Russ Tamblyne plays (so he is not there); 2011 said to be writing his autobiography; sending the whoel thing up; ditzy, trick of putting someone there to give another flavor to it. This kid who’s not in sympathy with Markway’s investigation, not take it seriousl. Good for film. Eleanor reluctant believer
invented a lot of business in the dinner; trouble is you are stuck with things and now you want to do close-up as you get into. Bob Wises encouraged me to do this. He didn’t want to be boring. He didnt’ want to make too many explanations, but project the character
A tremendous film fan as a boy: great acting takes place on the back of the horse — controlling horse
Physical action that’s the rael pre-occupation of the camera and makes it alive the way Humphry Bogart opened the door — body actions, the way he’s feeling; advice to study that carefully
We all got on very well — surprising thing to say that small cast hothouse atmosphere. It didn’t. We all kind of appreciated. He says it was very unusual (part of modern way of saying all get along – he does’nt remember any tension
Wise underplayed; allowed much to be unexpressed explicitly. His film a model of restraint and I long for it nowadays one doesn’t want to sound like an old buffer or something “leave it out” is a very good rule; if it’s not doing anything “leave it out”
**************************
voice of Russ Tamblyne?
It was a film I passed on at the beginning because I didn’t particularly like my part; the others were into the ghost thing and mine was jerky; I didn’t realize until I saw the movie how powerful my character was. .. I was non-believer, I had all these jokes about it and wanted to turn it into dancing bar and had all these jokes about it. I was against but when my character dropped that bottle I think that was a great moment in the film and I had no idea “it was going to be that powrful”and my line at the end that “the house should be burnt down and the ground sown with salt I had come around. and it was almost like the punchline to the movie” — the four walking up stairs after she hears something “late on I only said to myself I remember after he was in Paris and passed and went home to the US, but MGM said you are under contract, this is an MGM movie and you had better take another look at that script
I reread and said well it’s not as bad as I thoguht and I had a couple of ideas and approached Bob Wise in London, I didn’t want to go on suspension and I gave Bob Wise the idea of me going up those stairs; my idea to talk about dancing girls and jump
Julie Harris she did seem a little depressed I think that she was just really trying to get into the character but she seemed to distance herself; I hung out with Johnson and Clare; you never saw Julie, she was very aloof and very alone; she wanted to stay in character and get into it which she did
Claire Bloom was not real happy with her, she didn’t think Julie was friendly
My daughter saw it the other nigth at the Egyptian theater my daughter Amber also an actress now; she asked me a question; did Wise give us sound effects to listen to; and he did have some sound effect s not a lot; we listened so we all got to listen to what we were going to be hearing: it was very very helpful
Scary sounds, one of teh very few movies that was a horror movie but you didn’t see blood .. it was all based strictly on fe ar… you never even saw the ghost .. the actual ghost was the house … … it was a brilliant concept
then the house infrared and then the banging starts
two women clinging, terrified, over voice of Julie, it’s not mother, terribly terribly cold, the banging gets louder and then softer ..
***********************
Wise:
playback of sounds very effective; it was at this point I became terrified the first time — at 44.02
***********************
Johnson:
Robert Wise handled all those things with very great skill — knob
robert Wise came to directing from editing; he was the editor of Orson Welles geast films at the very beginning of Wells’s career; he did not waste time trying out; he knew every shot he was going to have; the result is plain to see in the tightness .. the haunting doesn’t waste time
Then the laughing a child
I liked Robert Wise; I admired him very much .. he does not seem to carry around a great deal of ego like some directors I could name .. he’s a craftsman and he knows what he can do and stretch … the thing about the film and why it’s still maintains its spooky power is because you think you see more than you really do
This dark story takes over and one feels it’s frighteneing; it’s like fear of the dark
next morning markway looking at map with magnifying glass
Wise knows a great deal about acting; I asked him as I said I was working in the theater .. new at film only had been in _Never so few_ : Wise: don’t blink too much; .. if you’re in close up; don’t look from eye to eye .. keep your eye on one of the eyes of someone interacting with. Timing going to be decided by director
theater actor completely in charge when you are finally on teh stage .. Markway a kind of icon someone they cuold look up to ..not altogether a harmless relationship he had with them he was a scientist … if it causes pain .. well then sobeit i order to establish the truth
By end of film he discovers how little we know and how little he knows: that discovery is not a bad one to make I don’t know very much and one’s arrogance .. sooner or later you discover you can’t become an expert on anything
Now they see the handwriting: Help Eleanor come home
*********************
Russ Tamblyn:
One night when we were filming in front of the house — it was not mown, manicured: broken fence, weeds, cemtery near by; some gravestones commemorating deaths that went way way back (14th century
We see an arguing scene where again the tense excitable Eleanor getting upset resentful
Tamblyn tells of how he went walking around the house as if were to find the ghost; felt a brick of ice on his head; fel tlike ice; it froze me
They come into conservatory and see statue
He became fightened and headed back towards house and never turned round and never saw it and I was almost embarrassed .. ghostly experience fear sets in …
whether the fright was built up because of the situation, or the house, or the noise or working on the movie
We see Tamblyn try to make up to Bloom and her turn away form him
*******************
Johnson’s voice:
I remember doing the voice and having to remembe that I was Americna voice; we created America in the study; we were doing an American film in Britain on location
British people were so proud of technical excellence; the skills behind the camera; we are stll pretty good at it
British films have to be more parsimonious because a smaller audience; Haunting had a bigger budget
*******************
Wise:
I was never much concerned with budgets; I’d done west side story a big budget for those days; it was thematerial; the foundation of any movie is the script; the material; the important thing is not the budget but the material; he talks about how he works closely with script writer and as thing have to be changed, the writer goes back .. third and more times
We see Julie lookin gup at house from terrace and leaning back and then terror and darkness
Gidding:
bob would say righ there I think this could be better .. he doesn’t touch the screen
[Johnson saving Harris from falling backwards]
With Bob it doesn’t take that long because he makes up his mind — mentions someone who just
goes away and doesn’t talk —
Wise
Just go ahead and do his screenplay; Nelson likes to do what we call a treatment a one liner of how it’s gonig to go and we comment and I ilke to work with screenwriter in the method
Gidding
I like long hand at the beginning; then they’d be typed; I also put shots in .. if it helps it helps …
You see it in your mind and you put “long shot in … medium close … it was very strongly implied in the screenplay (in those days you could not just come out with it) you have these two wonen together and always hugging that kind of thing …
[We see Nell putting nail polish on feet, Bloom gives her a drink]
Johnson:
Bloom and myself went on to make another film together pretty welll
We did another movie Bloom and I 80 thousands suspects about a plague outbreak extraordniary luminous kind of beauty oppositoin to Julie Harris, comopetely differen types
[Julie lying abuot her apartment]
Quiet close set; no one came, no one hanging aroudn, nowadasy you get delegations .. maybe that works for the film .. that feeling of concentration …that feelilng of silence for films like this …
Reacting to something that isn’t there is constantly part of actor’s trade … I’ve done films … you see it in your mind’s eye … many things we didn’t see .. the famous cold spot … well there wasn’t a cold spot … brought in dry ice to produce breath …
Feeling of apprehension what is going to happen to the characters which is conveyed by the actors themselves
millions of people are fascinated by this subject of the paranormal
[we see two women in bed and then squabbling]
supernatural: fear of what’s gonig to happen to me; what happened to the dead, to one’s relations who died … does it all just end like that it’s all those things connected to religion as well ..I wonder about these things just like everybody else … where am I going … why am I here …
paranormal offers some form of reassurance or explanation
***************
Wise
In a way it was a return to my roots because I started out making these low budget horror films … director (X) he had a theory greatest fear peopl have is fear of unknown (Val Lewton?)
[we hear this male voice garbled and Julie whispers to Claire Theo you’re breaking my hand …
*******************
Gidding:
Val Lewton is one of his idols; he had learned a lot working with him; there’s nothing that you see; it’s all in your mind; you can look at the script .. it’s very nosy
[whose hand was I holding?]
********************
Johnson:
Staircase was a set; rooms were heavy ornate, dark red and brown, gothic kind of set; you could feel the atmosphere ven though filled with technicans; because in black and white didn’t have garish colors; everything very somber; atmospheric even on the set .. one of the attractive things of working in the studio which nowadays you don’t get most films are pretty well shot on location . geting into studio a relief from beging at the mercy of the wind and rain ,,,
a controlled atmosphere … a kind of silence which you don’t meet .. in that pindrop silence some of the best performances I’ve ever seen on film were made because of teh kind of concentration that it leads to … channellnig towards audience .. flesh and metal come together .. I reather enjoyed being in the studio
Frank Sinatra: (I wa sin big classical theater) I was playing a colonel fighting in war in Burma in Never so Few … Sinatra thoght Iw as a proper actor; he was skilful “Dickie boy I can’t go on doing these rehearsals because I forget what I would do” I thoght about what he (my character would do) not what I would do. The difference between film and theater … whatg we would do as people is often very disguised and the camera has to come and search out
theater actor has 1500 people to reach; has to think of voice; things film actor doesn’t have to think of at all
[next morning and they are looking at nursery book from 1873. Julie curses Hugh Craine and Bloom finds this a bore]
Skillfully doe keeping it moving; skilfully done; the set … set design an absolute integral part of it, very great care taken by designer … film exists in its setting could not exist part form it, very much a part of the action … brilliant in the way it was planned and then executed (I do not speak for myself)
Now drives up Mrs Markwick (Lois Maxwell) eventually became Miss Moneypenny in the James bond Series; Johnson says he was asked to be Bond and COnnery bruoght roughness, all the thigns that he wasn’t; Sean not from private school and he made role popular because not of this elite set
*********************
Wise
Cinematographer was a man named Davis Boulton;he’d been a still man and they gave him this opportunity; he did a fine job for me; suaully cinematographer chosen for previous work; what mood he is best at
Very difficult for me to see what it’s gong to look like on the film; I still can’t I have to wait to see the rushes the next day; you see the set; you see what it’s going to look like, but what it’s going to look like
[door to nursery open]
I like to see my rushes on teh big screen and they didn’t want to spend the money for it and I went up to Canada to do … that he offers to pay for it himself … you need to see this to see if something is working … you do a retake; you say maybe I could have used another angle … directors who come from being editors shoot from many more angles
**********************
Johnson:
I don’t remember any big changes or things sprung on you on the last moment; we’re doing to do it in a different way; it was well planned and the script was established and we knew what we were going to be doing
which was just as well because there was a lot of dialogue involved in it and you wanted to know it before you started it
*********************
Wise:
She liked it, Shirley Jackson.
If you notice the novel there are all kinds of scenes that are outside; the movie is self-contained; amost everything inside.
In the novel the hope for a picnic
I took all that stuff out and kept it claustrophobic
[we see Johnson sleeping and then Russ come with flashlight and then take bottle from mantelpiece
******************
Johnson:
Russ was a lot of fun; he was well-cast in that respect; he was a prankster, he was always chattering and talking and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being with him
[as he drinsk the door shuts, the woman are awakened from couch]
I never like to do too much research into the original material because I feel one’s not actually making a book … you’re making the script so really what you are going to be working on is what’s in the script you may wish some things in the book were in the script but it will never be so. I read it and it was a very intriguing book and the fiml was different [in some respects].. so I didn’t go back to it again
Banging stars and Markway says Grace; Luke stops him opening door, two women watch; Luke: it’s no one in the nursery; it’s down here Claire: we’ve been on this kick before Julie: next vacation I must really go somewhere else …” Luke is really experiencing this for the first time. Now Eleanor: it’s knows my name (and voice over too), Claire: it’s going to start everything all over again .. oh god it knows I’m here
****************
Wise:
Door bending: “I love this effect” .. whole laminated wood there. Luke drops bottle
*******************
Johnson:
By today’s standards of course the effecs were produced by very simple means (pushing with a 2X4 steel against a door from the other side, a groaning door “on and on until it finds me …” Claire seen but I never managed to get a snap; Dr Markway wants to go to nursery
[Then last sequence: she says i’ll come and whatever it wants of me it can have; she flees to that twisted stairway and there the final moments are played out (before the morning after) she runs throgh distorted hallways
Statues around her; she says it’s in the nursery when she sees the open doors to it]
Eleanor’s apprehension is apparent right from tjhe very beginning of the story that she’s frightened afraid and we are afraid for her and wth her as to what might be going to happen to her — [Grace not in nursery] then nothing happens and yet we are afraid for next time … Eleanor is the driving force fo the film in many ways
[She is mad saying to statues we killed her you and I Hugh Craine]
The scene in the conservatory with the two statues the music nd the dancing is … other three wandering through house; Doctor looking for wife; Luke it’s some kind of joke; Theo: I’m taking Nell and I’m clearin gout of here
She is still dancing through and overvoice: I want to stay here I want to stay here always I wil not be frightened or alone any more
They are chasing her and she comes into library and climbs twirling stairs ::”Here I am Here I am inside and it’s not cold at all and the smell is gone [overvoice]”
*****************
Gidding (or Tamblyn):
the spiral staircase it looked like it was extremely dangerous in the way it was shaking and everything. It had a strong pipe in the center and was safe; but it was wobbly and that made it looks scary. The railings the first time in a movie they attached camera to railings; one of the marvelous efefcts of followign Julie Harris up; you could get close ups of her face; I thought it was a really brilliant idea
Johnson:
The spiral staircase was a pretty nasty piece of set making I must say … it gave one a feeling of insecurity wehn it was shakig and waving all round; he mentions more recent film but says this older one frightening ust the movement of it you know
An expression in movie circles: NAR: no acting requiredl; he gets hold of her; he is terrified himself; he rescues her and it looks as if she’s safe but then the face of Grace shows; she screams black screen
Next morning she is being packed for; the four are insisting she go]
It has an audience who studies frame by frame and an audience who regards it as a scary TV experience that he gets peculiar letters from peopel who spend lives on these types of films
It isn’t a horror film in a way ; it’s a psychological paranormal supernatural film as opposed to a shlock hrror with corpses coming frmo graves; haunting based on people in it and their reaction to one another It’s a story about them (the characters) as well as supernatural; that’s its grip I reckon; enjouyment was it was us, our little group
Now her begging them to let her stay, he I should have sent yu hme the first night
Ettingham park is now a hotel
Financially it did quite well a sort of respectable success, turned a profit for MGM; reviews favorable, not 100%”
Doctor goodbye; Luke in car, Thea rushes over to bid adieu
It was not taken on as a great film at all; it’s time which has given it to us; arguably it dosen’t date; only 40 years later recognzied
*******************
Gidding:
The reception wasn’t particularly good nor Pauline Kael; she drives off “not if Hill house” means me to stay Tragic close of her smashed against tree. Out comes Kael. They chase after house; but it’s dead of night.
Her smashing in tree: Hill house doesn’t want us to go …
figure of women lures her to death; others reach and we find Grace
************************
Johnson:
they never thought of it in the way that it was one of the great horror movies and judged it as horror or terror; its longevityh due to film maker Robert Wise; you don’t get stuck in an era or period.
it moved the genre forward and it was better than its antecedents.; innovative, moving forward
“I think it as good a film as Robert Wise ever made actually” This one has a sort of completeness and uniqueness work unique and peculiar to Wise
*************
Wise
I’ve had so many people say to me over the years Mr Wise you made the scariest picure I’ve ever seen and you didn’t show anything ..it’s mainly by suggestion; names the things we sa
[Luke: it ought to be burned down and the ground sown with salt
now night an dwe hear Julie Harris (with music, infrared): Hil house has stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more within walls continue upright bricks meet floors are firm and doors are sensibly shut]
I think the haunting that kind of picture is probably more fun for a director than any other genre because you can do so much with the lighting angles sound effects and music and it’s fun to conjure up — as ghost letters form The End one of my best directorial jobs
Notes taken by E.M.
I’ve been reading in Jerrold E. Hogle’s _The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction_, an excellent volume. One of the essays is on the “Victorian Gothic in
English Novels and Stories, 1830-80,” by Alison Milbank; my questions are addressed in two others, one of “The rise of the American Gothic” by Eric Savoy (the title ubiquitous, “The rise of …”) and “The Gothic on Screen” by Misha Kayva. None of the essays tries to pinpoint a particular narrow era (like the later Victorian/Edwardian or early 20th century) but there are plenty of perspectives offered as explanations for what the gothic projects, examines, dramatizes. Millbank does focus her discussion on the gothic heroine, and shows a transition (this is a really rough summary of a complicated gist) beginning with Radcliffe’s Whig (liberal, progressive politics) gothic where (all will instantly recall) her heroine wins out in the end. Millbank moves to a Tory conservative gothic depending on the way the heroine is treated — think of Esther Summerson in _Bleak House_ say.
I’m attracted also to the idea that a primordial violence and “empty
spaces” (due to a lack of single central community, no mixing pot of
types of people here) in American culture as reflected in its gothic
texts (18th-20th century). The gothic on screen has the problem of
covering too much and really goes into one sub-genre, “The monstrous.”
E.M.
Dear Ellen,
I did not read every post that addressed your question, so I apologize if some of the following have already been mentioned, but in your post this morning you implied that you were looking for texts that address late-Victorian Gothic specifically. Here are a few I’ve found that address this period specifically, and some others that touch on cinematic adaptations etc.:
Glennis Byron, “Gothic in the 1890s” in A Companion to the Gothic ed. by David Punter (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) 132-42. This volume contains several additional essays relevant to your query, including two separate chapters on Gothic/horror film.
Roger Luckhurst, “Trance Gothic, 1882-97” in Victorian Gothic: Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth Century ed. by Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000) 148-67. Also a great all-around collection.
The Routledge Companion to Gothic ed. by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy has an entire section on “Gothic media,” including a chapter by Benjamin Hervey on “Contemporary horror cinema.”
Lastly, Gothic Literature 1825-1914, the second volume in The History of the Gothic series (4 vols) published by the University of Cardiff Press, may be of interest.
Best,
John Knox
Thank you for the citations — gratefully received. Yes I was originally in my first query reaching out to just this period – which I think important. I have one of the colletions (Punter) and will make a note about the others.
Ellen
Thanks for lead on the Robert Wise movie, which I’ve added to my Netflix queue. I know Wise as one of the Val Lewton team, He directed *The Body Snatcher*, with Henry Daniell, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. and the exquisite *Curse of the Cat People*.
*Curse of the Cat People* is a grossly misleading title for a sensitive film of child psychology. It has an intelligent script, fine performances, and beautiful photography. One never forgets Elizabeth Russell’s hands at the climatic moment — but no spoiler here.
John Lauritsen, Independent Scholar.
You’re welcome. Wise mentions Val Lewton in the DVD voice-over
commentary and Wise’s previous work with him. The new DVD includes a
replay of the film with commentary provided mostly by Robert Wise and
Richard Johnson (40+ years later), but Russ Tamblyn, Claire Bloom and
Julie Harris also talk of their memories and roles as they watch
themselves. The screenplay writer, Gidding, is included too. All came
back to comment, sometimes there is dialogue between them too.
Ellen
Wise’s Haunting of a film noir gothic:
A. Film noir born in France and developed at length in the US. It really does reflect aspects of our culture we otherwise try to shut out
B. Speaking generally:
1. From 1946 Dark Corner: “I feel as if I’m being backed up in a dark corner. Someone is punching me, but i don’t know who.’ The basic experience of characters in film noir: most of the time metaphorically.
2. Situation the characters are in fill them with angst, despair: they reflect a world gone wrong
3. “There’s an element in film noir, the way light and shadow are used in such extreme contrast, thal is almost religious or spiritual or philosophic, if ‘you will. You know, the age-old notion, or the Manichaeist dialectic of light ag’ainst dark. Good against evil. And when ‘you look at the film noir, ‘you’re dealing’ almost with a very simple, fundamental notion of morality, of what is good
and evil. I mean, there’s really no gray scale of behavior; things stand in very bold relief”
4. A good example is Kenneth Branaugh’s Dead Again 1991
5. But instead of femme fatale or lone wolf hero: place is suspect: uses foreboding, intimidation; emphasis on threatening architecture
6. The visual style is what identifies and links such film: a malaise in life
7. Female noir often uses over-voice of women as narrator (Emma Thompson in Dead Again):
a. Her psyche is the structural basis of the film; there is usually a backstory and flashback
b. The psyche of people becomes an agent of evil: that is what happens in Ox Bow Incident: human nature lends itself to lynching: it cannot be trusted to enact justice or law; we must have a court system (breaking down again ni the US, seen most recently in the murder of Trayvon Martin whose murderer is still at large becasue there is still a population of American who want the right to violence
Thank you for putting all this great information together. I’d like to suggest Algernon Blackwood’s story “The Damned” as a possible influence on Shirley Jackson. She uses the name Merricat Blackwood in a well known story; also the occult researcher Montague Summers might be the source of the name for Dr. Montague