Post by klep on Oct 11, 2021 15:09:34 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/11: Black Narcissus
EYE CANDY WEEK!
The directing team of Powell & Pressburger are well known for the beauty of their films. They put a great deal of effort into making their sets and backdrops as extravagant as the images in their heads, and their use of color is still a high mark in cinema - something they achieved without modern digital color tinting and correction tools. For purposes of this essay I'd like to say that Black Narcissus is perhaps their most beautiful film, except of course that they released The Red Shoes the very next year.
But though they may have surpassed this film's beauty, the starkness of its imagery is indelible. Its most famous image is that of Sister Superior Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) ringing the mission's bell at the edge of that sheer cliff. It famous, of course, because once you've seen it you can't ever shake it; it's a still so remarkable that it has a life beyond the film - one of those things most cinéastes have seen even if they haven't yet watched the movie it came from.
It's at first a little ironic to think that all this beauty so flagrantly on display is in service of a film about struggling with repressed desires. The nuns in Black Narcissus have been tasked with establishing a mission hospital and school for girls in rural India, but they discover it's easier to cleave to their vows in a dreary English abbey with its lack of temptations than it is in the rugged beauty of the Himalayan countryside - even moreso when their new home is full of murals depicting the house of hedonism it was originally constructed to be. It doesn't help that the only other Englishperson is the ruggedly handsome Mr. Dean (David Farrar), who has a habit of wearing very short shorts and a half-open shirt.
Some Sisters struggle more than others. Most troubled is Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who seems to have been dissatisfied with life in the Order before the trip, and nothing about the change in location is helping - not Sister Clodagh's sanctimony and certainly not her attraction to Mr. Dean. Even the Sister Superior isn't immune; her superior attitude is not due to her station but a shield she bears against her own doubts, aware that whatever her current commitment she joined the order impulsively.
There's an eroticism that's ever-present in Black Narcissus. The murals betraying the mission's past as home for a harem as well as the caretaker Angu Ayah's (a brownfaced May Hallatt) loving references to those days provide a constant undercurrent of lust which isn't helped by Mr. Dean's chest & gams and the addition of Kanchi (Jean Simmons, also in brownface) as a young girl who is implied to be promiscuous. It's always there, but the nuns are never allowed to deal with it openly. The only advice Sister Clodagh can give is to pray more or work harder, but repression never allows you to truly deal with an issue. It's eventually going to blow up, and you can only hope it ends less tragically than it does here.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/18: Burn After Reading
SPY WEEK!
For Spy Week we'll be talking about the Coen brothers' 2008 farce Burn After Reading, starring Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, and John Malkovich as a bunch of fucking idiots. Be sure to join us next week for our discussion of Burn After Reading, available for rent at the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 10/12: The Godfather Part II
The second entry in Francis Ford Coppola's epic kicks off a pairing on generational mobsterhood. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of The Godfather Part II, available on Paramount+ and for rent at the usual places.
EYE CANDY WEEK!
The directing team of Powell & Pressburger are well known for the beauty of their films. They put a great deal of effort into making their sets and backdrops as extravagant as the images in their heads, and their use of color is still a high mark in cinema - something they achieved without modern digital color tinting and correction tools. For purposes of this essay I'd like to say that Black Narcissus is perhaps their most beautiful film, except of course that they released The Red Shoes the very next year.
But though they may have surpassed this film's beauty, the starkness of its imagery is indelible. Its most famous image is that of Sister Superior Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) ringing the mission's bell at the edge of that sheer cliff. It famous, of course, because once you've seen it you can't ever shake it; it's a still so remarkable that it has a life beyond the film - one of those things most cinéastes have seen even if they haven't yet watched the movie it came from.
It's at first a little ironic to think that all this beauty so flagrantly on display is in service of a film about struggling with repressed desires. The nuns in Black Narcissus have been tasked with establishing a mission hospital and school for girls in rural India, but they discover it's easier to cleave to their vows in a dreary English abbey with its lack of temptations than it is in the rugged beauty of the Himalayan countryside - even moreso when their new home is full of murals depicting the house of hedonism it was originally constructed to be. It doesn't help that the only other Englishperson is the ruggedly handsome Mr. Dean (David Farrar), who has a habit of wearing very short shorts and a half-open shirt.
Some Sisters struggle more than others. Most troubled is Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who seems to have been dissatisfied with life in the Order before the trip, and nothing about the change in location is helping - not Sister Clodagh's sanctimony and certainly not her attraction to Mr. Dean. Even the Sister Superior isn't immune; her superior attitude is not due to her station but a shield she bears against her own doubts, aware that whatever her current commitment she joined the order impulsively.
There's an eroticism that's ever-present in Black Narcissus. The murals betraying the mission's past as home for a harem as well as the caretaker Angu Ayah's (a brownfaced May Hallatt) loving references to those days provide a constant undercurrent of lust which isn't helped by Mr. Dean's chest & gams and the addition of Kanchi (Jean Simmons, also in brownface) as a young girl who is implied to be promiscuous. It's always there, but the nuns are never allowed to deal with it openly. The only advice Sister Clodagh can give is to pray more or work harder, but repression never allows you to truly deal with an issue. It's eventually going to blow up, and you can only hope it ends less tragically than it does here.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/18: Burn After Reading
SPY WEEK!
For Spy Week we'll be talking about the Coen brothers' 2008 farce Burn After Reading, starring Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, and John Malkovich as a bunch of fucking idiots. Be sure to join us next week for our discussion of Burn After Reading, available for rent at the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 10/12: The Godfather Part II
The second entry in Francis Ford Coppola's epic kicks off a pairing on generational mobsterhood. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of The Godfather Part II, available on Paramount+ and for rent at the usual places.