Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand?
June 1, 2016 1:55 PM Subscribe
"...The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man." - The primal pull of Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter
It's a wonderful film, but Charles Laughton was one fucked up dude.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:42 PM on June 1, 2016
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:42 PM on June 1, 2016
I had the pleasure of seeing this on the medium-sized-screen at a local theater on Monday, it's a film that is still worth watching.
The relationships between the children and adults - sometimes the child trusts the wrong adult too much, and sometimes they cannot help betraying and doing the wrong thing... it's realistic in a way you just don't see in movies very often (where all too often children are either feisty little angels who know good from bad at first glance, or brats from hell played for laughs).
posted by idiopath at 3:11 PM on June 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
The relationships between the children and adults - sometimes the child trusts the wrong adult too much, and sometimes they cannot help betraying and doing the wrong thing... it's realistic in a way you just don't see in movies very often (where all too often children are either feisty little angels who know good from bad at first glance, or brats from hell played for laughs).
posted by idiopath at 3:11 PM on June 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
A favorite. The only film Laughton directed. If there is to be only one, it should be this one. I used a still as the header for my Mubi account...
posted by jim in austin at 4:00 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 4:00 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Learning that the film is based on a novel has got me all worked up; and, just to help others bathe in the glory of the Hennepin County Library system, it has two copies on hand, one of which was just returned.
posted by mr. digits at 4:05 PM on June 1, 2016
posted by mr. digits at 4:05 PM on June 1, 2016
I've only seen this once (here's the FanFare thread) and yes, the article is correct: some of these images are seriously indelible. I might watch it again for Halloween.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:08 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:08 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
I once took a long car ride with a former supervisor to look at a barn full of 16mm prints. At one point we started talking about Night of the Hunter and I said "that movie was like a documentary about my childhood."
"You shouldn't joke about shit like that," he replied, throwing a cigarette butt out the window.
"It's true," I said.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:14 PM on June 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
"You shouldn't joke about shit like that," he replied, throwing a cigarette butt out the window.
"It's true," I said.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:14 PM on June 1, 2016 [5 favorites]
Also love, love, love this movie. For me the iconic image is Lillian Gish with a shotgun in the rocking chair.
There's a lot of sexuality in the film, too, overtly so. The church woman mocking her husband's sex drive saying she just lies there and thinks of her canning. Lillian Gish forgiving one of the older girls she watches over for "finding love the only way she knows how". And the switchblade thing called out in the article. I mean I know they had sex back in the 1950s but still, the film treatment seems remarkably modern to me.
Mostly I love the movie because it is just so American. A a particularly dark form of American mythology at that, the crooked preacher and the victim children and the menacing night.
posted by Nelson at 5:25 PM on June 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
There's a lot of sexuality in the film, too, overtly so. The church woman mocking her husband's sex drive saying she just lies there and thinks of her canning. Lillian Gish forgiving one of the older girls she watches over for "finding love the only way she knows how". And the switchblade thing called out in the article. I mean I know they had sex back in the 1950s but still, the film treatment seems remarkably modern to me.
Mostly I love the movie because it is just so American. A a particularly dark form of American mythology at that, the crooked preacher and the victim children and the menacing night.
posted by Nelson at 5:25 PM on June 1, 2016 [6 favorites]
That essay has it right in the very first line -
"If we were to measure a film’s achievement purely on the basis of the depth and the indelibility with which it has engraved an image (or images) on our minds, the winner might well be Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955)."
Indeed from the very beginnings of that film the viewer is treated to something very different. Laughton tapped into something ancient and primal with its story and imagery that few other films can even muster.
Stanley Cortez, the cinematographer, had a pretty varied career - Magnificent Ambersons, the Sam Fuller classics Shock Corridor & Naked Kiss, Three Faces of Eve, the Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Navy vs. the Night Monsters, the Madmen of Mandoras parts of They Saved Hitler's Brain, among many others.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:39 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
"If we were to measure a film’s achievement purely on the basis of the depth and the indelibility with which it has engraved an image (or images) on our minds, the winner might well be Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955)."
Indeed from the very beginnings of that film the viewer is treated to something very different. Laughton tapped into something ancient and primal with its story and imagery that few other films can even muster.
Stanley Cortez, the cinematographer, had a pretty varied career - Magnificent Ambersons, the Sam Fuller classics Shock Corridor & Naked Kiss, Three Faces of Eve, the Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Navy vs. the Night Monsters, the Madmen of Mandoras parts of They Saved Hitler's Brain, among many others.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:39 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Mitchum is my all-time favourite screen presence, and Night of the Hunter (along with Out of the Past) uses his lingering menace under that bullet-proof charm so perfectly. But the child actors are all so good, too, not remotely mannered or precocious.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 11:31 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Gin and Broadband at 11:31 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by misterpatrick at 2:13 PM on June 1, 2016