Black Narcissus
1947

Finally the war is gone from the films, and for the first time, there is no mention of the military events which dominated the first 8 films the duo worked on together.

For the first time since Spy in Black Pressburger is working from someone’s novel.

The film is set in India and is based on a 1939 story by (Margaret) Rumer Godden who, although born in England was raised in India where her father was employed by the Bengal Steamship Lines. She lived in India through much as India broke loose from British control – even to attempts made her life and those of her children. Unlike Korda’s earlier empire films like Drum or Elephant Boy, this film is in a very different mode. Remember there was some growing hostility both at home and abroad to the idea of an “empire” and colonies. While Korda’s films were almost embarrassing at the time, this one is in a different vein. Remember that Pressburger often like to take the “other side” of the story in a kind of “cultural relativistic” way. (Of course India was something of a drain on the British economy by this time).

Drew Much criticism from the Catholic Church although the sisters are not Cathollic (not clear what they are – maybe Anglican)

The story will share much with two other films Red Shoes and Gone to Earth. So prepare to make comparisons.

Like 49th Parallel, this film deals with a group in which members need to subvert their own personalities to that of the group (Nazis and Sisterhood – Compare Clodagh with Vogel)

(Mahatma-venerable) Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi (1869 – 1948) Hindu (non violent civil disobedience) Studied in London Interested first in opposing a British “salt tax” (1930) and later (1942) talking of getting rid of British RAJ (1858-1947) and establishing a religiously pluralistic society. The establishment of such a society failed when Muslims wanted their own separate homeland. The British ultimately made Indian (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim) This displaced many people and led to much violence. Ultimately in trying to be accommodating, he ws killed by a Hindu nationalist named Nathuram Godse. Godse was hanged after a year long trial despite pleas for clemency by Prime Minister Nehru and 2 of Gandhi’s sons who felt that the death sentence would dishonor the legacy of the non-violent Gandhi.

So Black Narcissus is released the same year that the British Rule in India ended

As usual contains many of the people that have worked with Powell and Pressburger before.

PERFORMERS:

Deborah Kerr (Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) (Got film NY Film Critics Circle Award for best actress for Black Narcissus and I See a Dark Stranger the same year)

Kathleen Bryon (A Matter of Life and Death) (3rd Place Best actress NY Fiim Criics Circle Award – tied with Dorothy Maguire for Gentlemen’s Agreement)

Esmond Knight (Contraband, A Canterbury Tale – Red Shoes, Gone to Earth, Peeping Tom)

David Ferrar (Small Black Room (Hour of Glory) Gone to Earth, Battle of the River Plate (Pursuit of the Graf Spee))

Sabu (appeared in Korda films Elephant Boy, Jungle Book, Drums and Thief of Bagdad)

Ley On: Eskimo 49th Parallel

PRODUCTION/CREW

Alfred Junge (production design) (ACADEMY AWARD Best Art Direction –Set Decoration (color) )

Jack Cardiff (photographed in Technicolor by) (Matter of Life and Death, Red Shoes) (ACADEMY AWARD ) (ASLO WON GOLDEN GLOBE)

CARDIFF: Big fan of Vermeer (Johannas, Jan or Johan) (1632-1675) Known for his masterly use of light in his painting. Interestingly enough, one theory about Vermeer is that he used a Camera Obscura (a kind of pin hole camera – also possible with a lens) for his paintings.

Watch for opening, set pieces:

Different kinds of codes: lighting, sartorial,

Film praised for its technical work and mise en scene. This is relevant to THEORETICAL questions about expressionism and also about concepts of formalism and realism

AFTER THE FILM

Studio shot. Everything in India is on a set or a garden in London. Scenes in Ireland were shot on location in Ireland.

Use of special effects, paintings, mattes, models

THREE STRIP TECHNICOLOR

25% to green stock 75% to red and blue

Color intense. Technicolor people on hand during shooting want changes in paint, light etc.

Called to say last day’s shooting with Kerr was ruined (turns out it is cloud filter effect – exactly what Powell wanted. Lectured Technicolor consultants on ART vs Technology

Color and clothing Coding

Nuns: oatmeal white

General and Young general Bright costumes

Typical Native dress (colorful)

Nuns: Almost black and white – Oatmeal colored habits, Black (or shiny silvery white) crucifixes (Christian) (lack of make-up (sort of) and jewelry.

Pagan (technically one who knows of “People of the Book but remains away from those religions; Heathen: one who has no knowledge of the people of the book) much more colorful and interesting.

Red: color used for intense emotion usually passion (as opposed to love) or extreme anger, danger and so on.

Clashing (contrastive) and complimentary colors

Lighting and color – use of filters. Cloud effects

Set design

Opening Shot?

Huge reddish horns (ohallic?)

Titles

Intertitle

Servants of Mary Calcutta (female deity like Clodagh)

Closing Shot: Nuns leaving India parallels British departure.

SET PIECES

Shot of Sister Ruth in RED dress with very RED lipstick

Use of reds and greens contrast with one another

Describing his painting, The Night Café, to his brother Theo in 1888, Van Gogh wrote: "I sought to express with red and green the terrible human passions. The hall is blood red and pale yellow, with a green billiard table in the center, and four lamps of lemon yellow, with rays of orange and green. Everywhere it is a battle and antithesis of the most different reds and greens. Colors can contrast (clash) or compliment one another

EXPRESSIONIST SHOTS

Sister Ruth passing out when she goes to Mr. Dean

Flashbacks to Ireland: physical excitement of the hunt (also sexual) (I never dreamed and mere physical experience could be so stimulating. African Queen). Forms of Clodagh dissolve into her on Ireland

The entire film generates a mood of the nuns. There are many questions to be asked about “expressionism” as an art form in films. In art it generally represents and externalization of the painters internal state but in film WHOSE internal state is being expressed?

Location: Former “harem” now for nuns. Sexual implications.

To what does the title refer?

Cologne used by the young prince

Why is it significant?

Triggers sexual feelings

Natural phenomenon work on people – The Wind (see the film of the same name) Natural phenomenon like “sex” awaked by natural phenomenon like wind.

HOLY MAN? Gandhi? Something akin to the “village idiot” (A Canterbury Tale) and the young shepherd (Matter of Life and Death) Some sort of triggering device almost supernatural.

Relevence here to some sort of mysticism about India that is ineffable (incapable of being expressed in words – often because of sacredness)

Something akin to a horror story in which there is an “eruption of the repressed”.

(Genres defined by sub text?)

OPPOSITIONS

Film in which sound and image are untied. Sound may take on greater importance. Music more like painting than words. Disney’s Fantasia mentioned by Powell.

Final climactic moment scored before shot.

Independent Frame

Back and front projections (allows for more control of the frame since everything basically can be controlled). Powell was a big fan of Walt Disney (certainly total control of frame). Ruth’s run through the woods much like Snow White)

Pressburger described it as a megalomaniacs dream come true. Tried again by Scorscese in One from the Heart

Themes again

Border crossings (although starts in India they are British already there). Crossings less physical than emotional

Friendships across cultures: Dean seems capable, Sister Clodagh not so. Even has some trouble with Dean. Certainly with Young Prince, Kanchi and Holy Man

Foreigner’s side taken (odd) a sort of odd cultural relativism vs. ethnocentrism. Some feeling though that the use of exotic settings is as a projection for Western values (Orientalism) (Natives happy go lucky; Sabu is made childlike and exotic) Of course the implication is that the foreign or exotic should be brought under Western control (Taming of “nature” which includes non Western people) . “Going native” is when the reverse happens and Westerns acquire characteristics of the natives. (Dean)

Something of the question of the individual vs group. Sublimating self-interests to that of the group is problematic – it is again “the (un)common man” that is of interest. In a sense, it is Dean who can manage, not the sisters who are virtually unable to sublimate their own desires. Compare Vogel and Clodagh. There is an idea that Matter of Life and Death attacks a “heavenly bureaucracy” from which Peter is trying to flee. Powell by now had an “apolitical stance” and was hoping that writers would find more ways to tell the story than to look at social issues like wars and unions.

Form and Content aguments

There is a theoretical question about separating form from content. One of the arguments about Powell/Pressburger films is that the form (the technical part of the film making) is what we are really looking at – not so much the content which is often seen as somewhat weaker. In a sense this is an argument about reflexivity and whether all films which do technologically tricky things are really about film making. The question here is whether or not the audience is aware of the tricks or believes the image to be true. This is again parallels an old battle between formalists and realists.(whether the structure should call attention to itself or not). THERE NEEDS TO BE SOME DISCUSSION ABOUT THIS AND ALSO EXPRESSIONISM

Again a feeling of reflexivity

Sexualty

Questions of Indian sexualty

British documentary films seen as “true British Style” There was s dislike on the part of some critics about the departure from this style by the Archers although still some slight playing with it.

The impact of “Place” on characters (I Know Where I’m Going and to some degree A Canterbury Tale. Strongly in Edge of the World)

Altitude a problem; cleanliness of air; Cleanliness of water

Mysticism/Science/Rationalism

The initial outbreak of spots on skin indicative of the start of inner turmoil

Angu Ayah lives in past “good old days” and the “ghosts of the past talk to her

Symbols:

Phallic bell ringer/pencil in discussion between Clodagh and Ruth about Dean

Nature

The West, like the rich man of Kiloran cannot control nature, but often tries to. You can’t have everything you want. The wind, the mountains, the holy man all are disruptive influences on the lives of the nuns. Sister Philippa falls early – looking off when she should be praying. Clodagh’s memory’s of romance and break up return indicating her involvement with the Sisters is not one of attachment but one of escape from the world.

How Might One Relate this Story to More Current Analytical Approaches? Questions of gender relating to women after WWII and a non-return to the old days Questions of “patriarchy” (talk of guns and wars in lessons) Dean able to stay (bit not the monks). Dean’s voice before we see him is a kind of authority about the place.