KWAIDAN:
Kwaidan is a Japanese film with subtitles directed by Masaki Kobayashi. The title comes from a collection of short Japanese tales translated by Lafcadio Hearn . The film includes four stories from the book. The photography is beautiful and the colors vibrant, and it is hard to believe the film came out in 1965. It must have been reworked to bring back the original colors.
The four tales include the following:
A woodcutter's life is spared by the Snow Woman who killed his comrade on condition that he never speak of what happened to anyone at any time. However, humans being human . . .
Hoichi is a young, blind Buddhist monk who is also talented musician and singer. One night a man comes to guiide him to the court of a noble who wishes him to sing about the last great battle his clan lost to the Genji. Since he is blind, he doesn't know who comprises his audience. His attempt at freedom, aided by his fellow monks, costs him dearly.
A samurai leaves his wife to marry a rich woman in order to escape their poverty and his insignificance. Over the years, he learns that this was a bad decision. Finally he leaves his rich wife and his comfortable position with her father and returns to his former wife. Unfortunately he learns that not only one can't go back, but that it is far better that one never even tries.
A samurai upon pouring himself a bowl of tea discovers a strange face inside the bowl staring out at him. Each time he empties the bowl without drinking it, the face becomes clearer and more ominous. Finally he drinks the tea in spite of the face--a very poor decision. Unfortunately, the reader never finds out what eventually happens to the samurai because every time a writer attempts to finish the story, he or she disappears, leaving it unfinished. What would happen if someone tried to adapt this tale for film?
If there's a moral to the stories, it is that it doesn't pay to get involved with spirits and demons.
POLAR EXPLORATIONS
The film is a collaboration, a fruitful one, between the Teaching Company and the National Geographic Society was first shown in 2015. The lecturers are obviously knowledgeable, which is what I would expect of a Teaching Company production, and the photography is stunning, again something I would expect from National Geographic.
It is a boxed set, which I got from the local library, consisting of 4 DVDs, each DVD with six 30 minute lectures. The first set of lectures focuses on the various expeditions to the North and South Poles, the men who went on them and the many who did not return. Subsequent lectures then centured on the geology, the geography, the climate, and the inhabitants of both regions, along with commentary on the present situation at the Poles, which has been declared off-limits to resource development and territorial claims by countries.
The last set detailed the changes now taking place at the Poles. In 2014, aerial photography disclosed a large crack in the Larson C ice shelf. The lecturer discussed the possibility that the shelf might actually break from from the continent. Several weeks after I viewed the DVDs, I read that the Larson C ice shelf had broken away from Antarctica.
A WALK IN THE WOODS:
A Walk in the Woods is based on the book by Bill Bryson about his walk with a friend along the Appalachian Trail, a marked trail that stretches through the Appalachian Mountains some 2200 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine.
It is really a buddy film as Bryson is joined by Stepen Katz, a longtime friend he hasn't seen or talked to in many years. The film is not a travelogue, and those viewing it for the scenery will be disappointed. While there are some shots of scenery, the real focus is on the reconnecting between the two friends, Bil Bryson played by Robert Redford and Nick Nolte as Stephen Katz. Actually that was my reason for watching the film; I wanted to see Redford and Nolte for I just couldn't picture them together in a film. It turned out to be a great pairing.
Showing posts with label ghost stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ghost stories. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House, novel and film
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is the best "haunted house" novel I have read. I realize there may be those who have their own favorites here, and I would appreciate learning of some titles.
Haunted house stories seem to come in two flavors. There are those in which the innocent victims move into a house, usually somewhat isolated. The rent or sale price is absurdly low, and they feel they have stumbled onto a bargain. And, they don't understand why the house has been empty for so long.
The second type involves those who are knowledgeable about the house's unsavory past and intend to stay only a short time. Some come there as the result of a dare or a bet, and their stay normally is for one night only. Psychic researchers comprise the other type of short term residents, and they usually plan to stay at most a week or so, if that long. They are there to prove or disprove the existence of spirits. This type consists usually of one lead psychic researcher, usually an academic, and two to four assistants, who frequently are the psychic researcher's graduate students and whose main role is to provide victims for the demons that occupy the premises.
Jackson's characters belong to the latter group. Dr Montague is determined to make a name for himself by proving the existence of the spiritual or non-material world. Hill House has a long and honorable history of being a true haunted house with ghostly appearances and tragic deaths. His assistants, though, are not typical graduate students. Over the years, Dr. Montague has collected newspaper reports of individuals who have been involved in events which involve some sort of spiritual or paranormal activity. Now that he has rented the house, he contacts these people and offers them a short term job as his assistant. He believes these people who have already been touched by the psychic activity would be more sensitive to the spiritual influences in the house.
Of the many he has contacted, only two appear. One is Eleanor Vance--the point of view character. She has come to escape her drab and restricted life. She has spent most of her life taking care of her invalid mother. The mother died several months ago, and Eleanor now lives with her sister and brother-in-law. She is bullied and abused by her sister. This is her first attempt at changing her life. She sees this as an adventure, one that will change her life. Her mantra throughout is "Journeys end in lovers meeting."
We never learn much about the other two assistants--Theodora, except for some hints that she has led a somewhat adventurous life, and Luke, who really isn't an assistant but the nephew of the woman who owns Hill House. Accepting Luke as part of his team was necessary if Dr. Montague was to rent the house.
In addition to the four researchers are the Dudleys. They are the caretakers, he mostly outdoors and she indoors. They don't stay the night, but leave as soon as it begins to get dark. They are a strange pair, well fit for Hill House.
Approximately a week after Dr. Montague and his team move in, they are joined by two unwelcome visitors--Dr Montague's wife and her friend Arthur. At best one might call them comic relief. She is the bossy, take-charge type who knows everything and knows how to do everything better than anybody else. She has come to take charge of the study. She is a complete believer in everything, from astrology to the use of the planchette, a type of Ouija board. She firmly believes that all spirits are benign as long as one treats them with "infinite compassion," something only she is best qualified to do. While I generally am on the side of the humans, I will gladly make an exception in her case and nominate her as First Victim.
If one is looking for buckets of gore and body parts scattered about, one will be disappointed here. The terror and fright are generated more by not knowing who or what occupies Hill House. The tension and suspense slowly build as we see Eleanor become increasingly influenced and changed as the days pass. Moreover, in spite of the terrifying manifestations that take place during the night, Eleanor finds herself more and more attracted to the house. At one point she thinks, "Odd, she thought sleepily, that the house should be so dreadful and yet in many respects so physically comfortable--the soft bed, the pleasant lawn, the good fire, the cooking of Mrs Dudley."
One of those manifestations that seems most chilling is the following: it is night and Eleanor and Theadora are in sharing a bedroom and "From the room next door, the room which until that morning had been Theadora's , came the steady low sound of a voice babbling, too low for words to be understood, too steady for disbelief. . .Eleanor and Theadora listened, and the low, steady sound went on and on, the voice lifting sometimes for an emphasis on a mumbled word, falling sometimes to a breath, going on and on. Then, without warning, there was a little laugh, the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling, and rose as it laughed, on up and up the scale, and then broke off suddenly in a little painful gasp, and the voice went on."
I find that small gurgling laugh, amidst that mumbling voice, most chilling, especially since it seems to accompany the horrendous blows struck at the intervening door, the blows that almost but not quite break down the door. Who or what is beyond the door?
Two films were made of The Haunting of Hill House, one in 1963 with Julie Harris as Eleanor and Claire Bloom as Theadora, and a remake in 1999, with digital special effects and gore, from what I have read. I have seen the 1963 version and found it a very good adaptation. The most significant difference was in the portrayal of Dr. Montague's wife. In the film she is portrayed as a complete skeptic and insists on sleeping in the nursery, the heart or source of the ghostly manifestations. I haven't seen the remake yet, but if I find it I will take a look at it.
Overall Reaction: a great novel and a very good film version--the 1963 version anyway. Highly recommended. It being Halloween, tonight would be a good night for either the novel or the film.
Haunted house stories seem to come in two flavors. There are those in which the innocent victims move into a house, usually somewhat isolated. The rent or sale price is absurdly low, and they feel they have stumbled onto a bargain. And, they don't understand why the house has been empty for so long.
The second type involves those who are knowledgeable about the house's unsavory past and intend to stay only a short time. Some come there as the result of a dare or a bet, and their stay normally is for one night only. Psychic researchers comprise the other type of short term residents, and they usually plan to stay at most a week or so, if that long. They are there to prove or disprove the existence of spirits. This type consists usually of one lead psychic researcher, usually an academic, and two to four assistants, who frequently are the psychic researcher's graduate students and whose main role is to provide victims for the demons that occupy the premises.
Jackson's characters belong to the latter group. Dr Montague is determined to make a name for himself by proving the existence of the spiritual or non-material world. Hill House has a long and honorable history of being a true haunted house with ghostly appearances and tragic deaths. His assistants, though, are not typical graduate students. Over the years, Dr. Montague has collected newspaper reports of individuals who have been involved in events which involve some sort of spiritual or paranormal activity. Now that he has rented the house, he contacts these people and offers them a short term job as his assistant. He believes these people who have already been touched by the psychic activity would be more sensitive to the spiritual influences in the house.
Of the many he has contacted, only two appear. One is Eleanor Vance--the point of view character. She has come to escape her drab and restricted life. She has spent most of her life taking care of her invalid mother. The mother died several months ago, and Eleanor now lives with her sister and brother-in-law. She is bullied and abused by her sister. This is her first attempt at changing her life. She sees this as an adventure, one that will change her life. Her mantra throughout is "Journeys end in lovers meeting."
We never learn much about the other two assistants--Theodora, except for some hints that she has led a somewhat adventurous life, and Luke, who really isn't an assistant but the nephew of the woman who owns Hill House. Accepting Luke as part of his team was necessary if Dr. Montague was to rent the house.
In addition to the four researchers are the Dudleys. They are the caretakers, he mostly outdoors and she indoors. They don't stay the night, but leave as soon as it begins to get dark. They are a strange pair, well fit for Hill House.
Approximately a week after Dr. Montague and his team move in, they are joined by two unwelcome visitors--Dr Montague's wife and her friend Arthur. At best one might call them comic relief. She is the bossy, take-charge type who knows everything and knows how to do everything better than anybody else. She has come to take charge of the study. She is a complete believer in everything, from astrology to the use of the planchette, a type of Ouija board. She firmly believes that all spirits are benign as long as one treats them with "infinite compassion," something only she is best qualified to do. While I generally am on the side of the humans, I will gladly make an exception in her case and nominate her as First Victim.
If one is looking for buckets of gore and body parts scattered about, one will be disappointed here. The terror and fright are generated more by not knowing who or what occupies Hill House. The tension and suspense slowly build as we see Eleanor become increasingly influenced and changed as the days pass. Moreover, in spite of the terrifying manifestations that take place during the night, Eleanor finds herself more and more attracted to the house. At one point she thinks, "Odd, she thought sleepily, that the house should be so dreadful and yet in many respects so physically comfortable--the soft bed, the pleasant lawn, the good fire, the cooking of Mrs Dudley."
One of those manifestations that seems most chilling is the following: it is night and Eleanor and Theadora are in sharing a bedroom and "From the room next door, the room which until that morning had been Theadora's , came the steady low sound of a voice babbling, too low for words to be understood, too steady for disbelief. . .Eleanor and Theadora listened, and the low, steady sound went on and on, the voice lifting sometimes for an emphasis on a mumbled word, falling sometimes to a breath, going on and on. Then, without warning, there was a little laugh, the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling, and rose as it laughed, on up and up the scale, and then broke off suddenly in a little painful gasp, and the voice went on."
I find that small gurgling laugh, amidst that mumbling voice, most chilling, especially since it seems to accompany the horrendous blows struck at the intervening door, the blows that almost but not quite break down the door. Who or what is beyond the door?
Two films were made of The Haunting of Hill House, one in 1963 with Julie Harris as Eleanor and Claire Bloom as Theadora, and a remake in 1999, with digital special effects and gore, from what I have read. I have seen the 1963 version and found it a very good adaptation. The most significant difference was in the portrayal of Dr. Montague's wife. In the film she is portrayed as a complete skeptic and insists on sleeping in the nursery, the heart or source of the ghostly manifestations. I haven't seen the remake yet, but if I find it I will take a look at it.
Overall Reaction: a great novel and a very good film version--the 1963 version anyway. Highly recommended. It being Halloween, tonight would be a good night for either the novel or the film.
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