*May contain spoilers* The first time I saw this movie was in 1965 when I was 8 years old. It was shown on TV, and I remember watching it with my siblings absolutely spellbound, glued to the tube. For many years afterwards, I would not fall asleep with a hand outside the covers, thanks to Eleanor's terrifying experience.
Seeing it again recently was a vivid reminder of just how scary this movie is -- it is deeply and satisfyingly creepy. And of course, it's a brilliant testimonial to the fact that one needs no (or few) special effects to create very real terror.
There are two things I want to talk about: 1) Robert Wise's direction and 2) Eleanor's character and Julie Harris' Oscar-worthy performance of her.
1. Everybody loves Robert Wise cuz of The Sound of Music and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Not to take away anything from those movies, but if I was teaching a film class, I'd make my students do a shot-by-shot, scene-by-scene deconstruction of this film to teach them how to make every shot count. There is not one single frame of this movie that's careless. You can dress up the best sets, you can prop up the best actors with a nifty story, but that won't guarantee diddly. Silly shooting diffuses energy. Deliberate direction can, step-by-step, stretch and strain the viewer's nerves with careful precision. Wise made this movie with all the care of a mosaic artist. The camera conspires with the music to push in, pull out, tilt, back off, show us the house gloating in the moonlight, bring us inside poor Eleanor's head, til we don't know what's real and what's not.
I can't say enough, too, about the wonderfully effective music in this movie by a guy named Humphrey Searle.
2. The scariest part of the show isn't the house, it's the character of Eleanor Lance. She is a plain woman who has been taking care of her invalid mother all her adult life. She has no friends and nowhere to go when her mother dies, no money, no means of supporting herself. She lives with her snotty sister, sleeping on their couch, feeling in the way, being condescended to, treated as a fifth wheel. She's overjoyed when she is invited to participate in the study at Hill House. Someone *wants* her.
Eleanor's need to be liked and to be included is heartbreaking. She warms and purrs under Dr. Markway's praise. She blooms as her new pal Theo teases her into little girly bonding rituals like toenail-painting or a new hair-doo. You can see her thinking as she sits at the dinner table, making witty remarks, included in the lighthearted banter, "Look at me, I have friends, I can do this. I am included."
Eleanor may not be the brightest or shiniest, but she has the benefit of self-knowledge. She's not afraid of a haunted house, she tells us; she's always been more afraid of things like being left alone or left out. How chilling. She sleeps on her left side because she read somewhere it weakens the heart. For some reason, this line stayed with me as much as any of the others in this movie in the years to come. The haunting image of a woman who deliberately chooses to shorten her own life. Why?
Julie Harris' face is a mirror of all the naked emotion inside Eleanor. Her trembling desire for romance with Markway, her disdain for Luke's roughness, her attraction to Theo... She is little by little seduced by the house as it singles her out. This is what makes me special, then. I am wanted by the house. How quickly she seizes on this: I am needed. Someone or something wants me. When Markway's wife arrives, we share her anguish as her little romantic fantasy evaporates -- but it's not just that. Mrs. Markway usurps her place not only as the focus of the doctor's attention, but also that of the house.
We never know whether the house kills Eleanor or not. The stubborn ambiguities remain. Is it a murderous house intent on adding to the roll call of the dead? Or is is an unhappy place that preys upon susceptible minds, drives them past reason with isolation, doubt, fear? As I grew up, I can see now, I carried Eleanor Lance inside me. I recognized her. I too was afraid of being left out, of being abandoned, far more than I feared the dark corner behind the furnace. This was what I feared most: being insignificant, invisible, having no one, no connections, nothing to tie me to others. Being plain, the object of scorn, pity. Nameless regrets. Being dull, having nothing of value to offer.
Eleanor's desperate loneliness is far more terrifying than the haunting of Hill House.
Seeing it again recently was a vivid reminder of just how scary this movie is -- it is deeply and satisfyingly creepy. And of course, it's a brilliant testimonial to the fact that one needs no (or few) special effects to create very real terror.
There are two things I want to talk about: 1) Robert Wise's direction and 2) Eleanor's character and Julie Harris' Oscar-worthy performance of her.
1. Everybody loves Robert Wise cuz of The Sound of Music and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Not to take away anything from those movies, but if I was teaching a film class, I'd make my students do a shot-by-shot, scene-by-scene deconstruction of this film to teach them how to make every shot count. There is not one single frame of this movie that's careless. You can dress up the best sets, you can prop up the best actors with a nifty story, but that won't guarantee diddly. Silly shooting diffuses energy. Deliberate direction can, step-by-step, stretch and strain the viewer's nerves with careful precision. Wise made this movie with all the care of a mosaic artist. The camera conspires with the music to push in, pull out, tilt, back off, show us the house gloating in the moonlight, bring us inside poor Eleanor's head, til we don't know what's real and what's not.
I can't say enough, too, about the wonderfully effective music in this movie by a guy named Humphrey Searle.
2. The scariest part of the show isn't the house, it's the character of Eleanor Lance. She is a plain woman who has been taking care of her invalid mother all her adult life. She has no friends and nowhere to go when her mother dies, no money, no means of supporting herself. She lives with her snotty sister, sleeping on their couch, feeling in the way, being condescended to, treated as a fifth wheel. She's overjoyed when she is invited to participate in the study at Hill House. Someone *wants* her.
Eleanor's need to be liked and to be included is heartbreaking. She warms and purrs under Dr. Markway's praise. She blooms as her new pal Theo teases her into little girly bonding rituals like toenail-painting or a new hair-doo. You can see her thinking as she sits at the dinner table, making witty remarks, included in the lighthearted banter, "Look at me, I have friends, I can do this. I am included."
Eleanor may not be the brightest or shiniest, but she has the benefit of self-knowledge. She's not afraid of a haunted house, she tells us; she's always been more afraid of things like being left alone or left out. How chilling. She sleeps on her left side because she read somewhere it weakens the heart. For some reason, this line stayed with me as much as any of the others in this movie in the years to come. The haunting image of a woman who deliberately chooses to shorten her own life. Why?
Julie Harris' face is a mirror of all the naked emotion inside Eleanor. Her trembling desire for romance with Markway, her disdain for Luke's roughness, her attraction to Theo... She is little by little seduced by the house as it singles her out. This is what makes me special, then. I am wanted by the house. How quickly she seizes on this: I am needed. Someone or something wants me. When Markway's wife arrives, we share her anguish as her little romantic fantasy evaporates -- but it's not just that. Mrs. Markway usurps her place not only as the focus of the doctor's attention, but also that of the house.
We never know whether the house kills Eleanor or not. The stubborn ambiguities remain. Is it a murderous house intent on adding to the roll call of the dead? Or is is an unhappy place that preys upon susceptible minds, drives them past reason with isolation, doubt, fear? As I grew up, I can see now, I carried Eleanor Lance inside me. I recognized her. I too was afraid of being left out, of being abandoned, far more than I feared the dark corner behind the furnace. This was what I feared most: being insignificant, invisible, having no one, no connections, nothing to tie me to others. Being plain, the object of scorn, pity. Nameless regrets. Being dull, having nothing of value to offer.
Eleanor's desperate loneliness is far more terrifying than the haunting of Hill House.