In her discussion of Gaslight and other Gothic melodramas (notably Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941)), Molly Haskell suggests that such erotic sadism is essential to the emotional dynamics of these marriages: “Take me in your arms, Gregory! Please!” The implication in his answer is clear: “I hope to find you better in the morning.” “Gregory, please, please!” begs a tearful Bergman. Once we return to London, it is clear Boyer uses sex to intensify his control over her – withholding his favours whenever she shows signs of independent life. Her bridegroom seems capable, quite literally, of fucking her to death. We wonder, just for an instant, if she is dead. Bergman lies motionless on the bridal bed, her arms spread in a crucified pose. Boyer parts the floating gauze curtain of the room where they have spent their wedding night. Early in the film, the couple shares a brief Italian honeymoon. While Walbrook in the 1940 film shows no erotic interest in Wynyard, Boyer seems to share an intensely sexual complicity with his victim/wife. The script may pretend otherwise, of course – but only to keep the censors quiet.īoyer’s role in Gaslight is an intriguing variation on this type. He does not, by any stretch of the imagination, want to have sex with her. He may seek to possess Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth or Edana Romney as a sort of living art object – to dress her and groom her and transform her into his own aesthetic fantasy. ![]() Each of these men is implicitly gay or, at least, asexual. He can be traced back to the darker strains of Romantic literature, notably to E T A Hoffmann’s 1819 short story “Mademoiselle de Scudéry” – in which the psychotic jeweller René Cardillac stalks and murders any customer unwary enough to buy his creations. Other examples of this type are Clifton Webb in Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944), George Macready in Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) and Eric Portman in Corridor of Mirrors (Terence Young, 1948). ![]() He embodies an archetype common in films noirs of the 40s, the ‘psycho dandy.’ An immaculately groomed gentleman of refined taste and nonexistent morals, who would turn without scruple to murder to possess the object of his desire. The husband is a man whose primary erotic response is not to women (or even to other men) but to jewels – to priceless and coldly exquisite objets d’art. These diamonds belonged to her aunt, a glamorous opera diva whom Boyer strangled in that same house years before. How else could they sustain a flimsy plot for a running time of almost two hours?īoyer, it turns out, is trying to drive his wife mad so he can take control of her property and seize a fortune in diamonds that is hidden in the attic of the house. Their marital relations are not simply about pain but about pleasure, too. The playing of Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman (who won the 1944 Oscar for Best Actress) maps out the mechanics of torture and ecstasy, dominance and submission, with a clarity that the makers of The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, 1974) or The Story of O (Just Jaeckin, 1975) could only dream of. Carlos Clarens, in his book-length study of Cukor, describes it as “a relentless exercise in sado-masochism” that shows “an almost Gestalt dependency between tormentor and victim” (3). When it comes to plumbing the depths of one especially ghastly marriage, the remake of Gaslight (directed by George Cukor) is an infinitely richer and more complex piece of work. An overall sense of detachment bars our full access to this couple’s twisted emotional life. ![]() Yet it’s hampered by the dull and stagy presence of Diana Wynyard as the wife. The first film boasts sinuous and inventive camerawork (director Thorold Dickinson shows a special fondness for potted palms) and a sinister High Camp performance by the great Anton Walbrook. The original Gaslight survived – only just – and has since become a cause célèbre (“the film that was murdered” (2)) while the remake is routinely dismissed as “a vulgar travesty” (2). They also burned the negative and set out to destroy all existing prints. ‘I am afraid,’ she said, with dry eyes more tragic than if they had been filled with tears, ‘that I have not your taste for pretty things.’ – Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales (1)Ĭan the right film be famous for the wrong reason? In 1944, MGM not only remade a 1940 British thriller about a demonic Victorian husband driving his poor wife slowly and deliberately insane. She quickly took them off and handed them to him. She watched him, and was aware that his eyes were on the diamonds and not on her face.
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