NIGHT OF THE DEMON/CURSE OF THE DEMON
Director: Jacques Tourneur
1957
In the mid 1800's there is a Zeitgeist or "spirit of the times" that pushes toward evoilutionary thinking. Lyell postulates evolution of the earth; Darwin of living forms and sociologist os societies. People are seen as evolving from savages (hunters and gatherers) to barbarians (horticultureO and finally to civilization which involves many things incluing agriculture, alphabetic writing and so on.Various cultural institutions were also seen to evolve. One sequense was Magic => religion => Science Magic os a belief that there is cause and effect in the universe, but it fallacious. When people realize it doesn't work they go to religion which deals with supernatural beings controlling things who must be supplicated (not manipulated as happens in magic). Finally when that fails science appears and has true cause and effect.
By the 1920's this was ignored and instead there was a division seen between two separate areas: the sacred and the profane. Magic and religion were in the sacred and science was in the profane.
As a result, the term magic came to have 2 meanings - one deals with a kind of supernatural cause and effect; the other with what we might tihnk of as stage magic or pretidigitation
Misdirection: In prestidigitation, the technique used to make the audience look one way, while the magician carries out the “sleight”
Runes: A form of alphabetic ancient writing for northern Europe (Germanic, Norse and Celtic speakers) from the 3rd to 13th Century. Often held to have “magical powers”
Sleight: deftness, a magician’s “deception” – palming etc.. Commonly used in “sleight of hand”
Stonehenge: A group of standing stones in England probably religious in nature. There are three major developments of the monument, the earliest possibly dating back to the time of the pyramids.
Shaman: a religious practitioner whose involvement with the supernatural is usually to cure people through manipulation of supernatural forces.
Trajectory: the path taken (usually by a bullet) but often by an actor in terms of the character’s development
Prestidigitation: Stage magic. Pulling rabbits out of hats. Using “sleight of hand”
Continuing with our look at Magic science and religion, this week’s film examines magic and science. Just as we have seen that religious fundamentalism is alive and well in the U.S. despite Tony Randall’s amazement, magic too is alive and well.
In many cases, magic is found in small “ritual” – don’t step on cracks, putting text books under the pillow before going to sleep to absorb the knowledge therein, and the still popular Satanic cults, covens and New Age Religions, parapsychological beliefs much magic are still with us. Science basically denies the existence of these things and popular publications by scientists such as Skeptical Inquirer go out of their way to disprove these practices.
Anthropologists distinguish between magicians who practice magic and magicians who practice prestidigitation or “sleight of hand”. (magicians who pull rabbits out of hats. The distinction is sometimes difficult since many shaman (curers using supernatural methods) practice sleight of hand as well.
As is the case with religion (the supplicative form of dealing with the supernatural), magic (the manipulative form) is justified by practitioners in many ways. One of the more popular is to point out that things scientists thought were silly and magical have turned out to have real explanations. These are things in holistic medicine and so on. These are things that Dr. Markway (from The Haunting) would have claimed were preternatural.
In the case of this film, the conflict between science and magic is presented not in a courtroom as it was in Inherit the Wind, but in an actual contest (compare with films like the Exorcist). – a kind of battle between good and evil.
Here a scientists confronts the head of a demonic cult. Karswell, the head of the cult, is modeled after the famous “magician” Alistair Crowley.
The question of the unknown and how people react to it is something which occurs over and over again in films. It may be death, it may be the “other: or it may be the supernatural. In any of these cases, people often turn against the unknown, for precisely that problem. Do scientists have that problem with the unexplainable? Are there ways that scientists have developed to dismiss the supernatural rather than having to explain it? What are these methods?
Like the people in Hillsboro, some scientists manage to hold onto both positions in this film – that is to say they believe both in science and the supernatural. Who are they? How are they depicted? The question of the disbelieving scientist having to confront the supernatural whether in magic or religion, is covered in many films (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0056279/ Night of the Eagle (Burn Witch Burn), http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0045073/ Red Planet Mars). Remember Markway’s statement about the worst thing you can have with the supernatural is a closed mind because the supernatural when it appears may tear the door off its hinges. In effect arguing that the scientist’s closed mine about the supernatural is a great barrier to understanding it.
The original idea by the director, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0869664/ Jacques Tourneur was NOT to show the supernatural element (as was the idea in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034587/Cat People whose producer http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0507932/ Val Lewton worked with Tourneur on other films http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036027/ I Walked with a Zombie and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036104/ Leopard Man)., but the studio wanted a special effect – soooo
AFTER THE FILM
Shock vs. Fear
Sudden versus growing. (Karwell describes how mental disintegration sets in, etc)."
Several scenes with sudden startling events – children jump out from behind tree, sudden loud ambulance bell, sudden appearance of trains etc.) none of these produces anything. Approach of demon quite different. First appearance – long trip in car – dark woods, lights start to appear. Second appearance. Back lighting from house in woods (branch snaps at Holden – no real threat). Sound of foot steps, ground sinking in with no figure to make step. Appearance of lights and pursuing cloud in woods). Real horror is much slower than simply shock.
The scientist role, like any good lead has a trajectory – a path it travels from the start of the film to the end. Where is Dr. John Holden when the film starts (in terms of belief in the supernatural) and where is he at the end?
Contact with the supernatural.
The film has several places where supernatural events happen and the Dr. Holden tries to explain them:
(a) writing on card = chemical? Chemist says no way, goes to party and sees Karswell as magician (prestidigitator) and says “That is the answer to my chemistry problem” – Really? How?
(b) Wind storm – coincidence (same argument about whether Karswell followed him)
(c) Parchment jumps into flame (draft 0 scientific explanation)
(d) Séance: First Indian, then Scot, then child, then Prof. Harrington. Daughter says it is her uncle. Dr. says voice impersonation. Why these people appear before Harrington? They are marginal groups associated with supernatural American Indians. Gaels (Scots and Irish) – don’t forget O'Brian and Kumar as the scientists who believe). These are also people associated with British colonialism a topic which often surfaces in some British films (see especially Quatermass and the Pit (a.k.a. Five Million Years to Earth) . In addition, the seance is kind of funny - in efffect the film looks down on people who are involved with Karswell, but here it allows for some humor which makes the sudden shoft to Prof. Harrington's voice all the more frightening. By the end of the film, however, one wonders if they haven't been right all along. The film tends to see things from the Holden's side, and it is his trajectory from non-believer to sceptic the film follows, and so in a sense at the end of the film one is left wondering whether Holden is not the strange one who doesn't believe (or tries to dismiss the evidence he has seen) So the people who look the oddest (The Hobarts and the Meeks) may in fact turn out to be right, while the people who look the more normal turn out to be perhaps the ones with the least understanding. DO you see how this migth relate to a colonial structural subtext?.
(e) The cat =>panther. It wasn’t the cat (denial)
(f) The appearance of the demon (psychological – hallucinatory)
(g) Rand Hobart – believer?????
Each of the normal scientific approaches has been dealt with and dismissed. What are we left with???
Believers are often outsiders; but is it reasonable to believe? Who is connected to supernaturaL Karswell, Mrs. Karswell, O’Brian, Kumar, Harrington, Mr. Meeks, Mrs. Meeks, Joanna Harrington, Hobarts.
All have some outsider bit about them. Karswell was magician – interested in witchcraft. Hobarts are rural unsophisticated, O’Brian, Kumar, Mr. MacGregor, are ethnically non-English, Mrs. Karswell, Mrs. Meeks, and Joanna are all women, the child at the séance (and her doll Frederica) are also female and children – pure. Mr. Meeks is certainly strange.
The question of the reality of the demon is complex. Only the victim sees it. Could it have just been the electrical poles that killed Harrington? There are after all animals in the woods that could have torn the body?
Could Karwell actually been hit and thrown by the train?
Is it better not to know?
To know the world is rules by demons is unbearable, but to know that things are just random may be worse!
The text does not link to the answer – the film visually gives us the demon – but is it real? Or are we seeing what the person imagines to be there. Compare with Young Sherlock Holmes a film in which hallucination are seen by the camera (and hence the audience) but are not real. In effect "Can we trust what the camera is showing us?".
FILMIC
What is the first scene – almost always important?
Stonehenge – mystical magical, with a voice over about demons.
Sets the magical tone of the film. Other similar things will appear: Runic wiritng
Sigal on door.
Story actually starts with car driving on dark road. Where are the headlights pointing?
At the trees not the road. In these opening scenes does anything happen there?
Is this a kind of misdirection? Later things do happen in the tress so on the one hand it is a kind of forewarning, and on the other it is a kind of misdirection.
The Séance:
Starts silly, singing of “Cherry ripe” Mrs. Karswell looking under the table for the lost dolls. Humor before horror- sudden appearance of Harrington’s voice – film shifts gears. Holden starts to believe???
Indian, Scot, child
Dark vs. light “I know the cold light of reason and the dark shadows that light can throw”. How does this miage of dark and light run through the film? Problems sleeping on plane because of the light. "Scientific crew (at least by training) usually in light - hotel room , library (lights on tables) (except for dark passage into which Karswell goes). Joanna's house tends to be darker - she may be trained but is not scientists like the others but a kindergarten teacher. The dinner is by candlelight (lights have gonee out); lights are turned out for the seance; turning them on jolts Mr. Meeks. and so on
lights show the way to Karwell's with all the implications of the demon in the trees.
Supernatural elements (demon)
Woods, hallway, woods, by train
Scenes in wood
Special Effects
Appearance of the demon. Just how far Toureur wanted to go is not clear. The actual demon was seen as rather horrifying when the film came out. There is a great attempt made to hide the demon in darkness, put hand between camera and face.
What are the problems of showing a special effect as to its reality. (Dreams, hallucinations etc) relative to whose gaze the camera represents. How much of what is on the film are we to believe?
Ties to Lewton and Cat People