7. CAT PEOPLE, dir. JACQUES TOURNEUR, 1943
----
be a good wife and
be happy
in the end,
we spend our lives alone
lines i remember from our last film.
i have seen so many films that tell such different stories, and yet sometimes i think, for the good ones, the foundation is always the same. it can be a family, a marriage, a crime -- when they end, to me they are always somehow about time, existence, mortality, and survival.
is it just me?
when i left the theatre after watching inland empire, all i could think was time. when i finished watching our last film, all i could think was time.
in the end, we spend our lives alone.
and we watch people slipping across the screen to forget this, to ignore hours and minutes, to forget the clock that needs winding.
or, maybe, we watch to remember.
often it seems it is in small moments that we gather the most information about a film. it's in could-slip-by-you-unnoticed scenes that the film whispers to us what it most wants us to know. for me this came in an autumn afternoon when the clock on the wall has stopped and must be wound. we are told here that time is always upon us, and we are simultaneously empowered by it and powerless in face of it. i really loved this moment in the film.
my house is freezing and as i'm sitting and typing and thinking about time and death i want to crawl under my quilt and watch something full of the fantastic and fright. i have seen the re-make of cat people, but never the original. i think it's going to be another gem.
3 comments:
Given that this is [shudder] christmas week, I suggest making it a double feature of Cat People & Curse of the Cat People; the latter takes place at xmas & gives good snow.
Both of these films are wonderful near-masterpieces, but so, so different.
Secret weapon in the Val Lewton films is composer Roy Webb. Great old-Hollywood style scoring, but writ small.
yeah, i second your suggestion. they're both on the val newton horror double feature disk so i planned to do them both, but figured i's stick with the technicality of one film per week post. i didn't know the sequel was x-mas related, though, so you're right-- let's break the mold for the holiday and say: if you have the time and the desire (which i do and do) watch them both.
we must be on the same wavelength. i've had cat people saved to the dvr for at least a month now without having yet watched it. impeccable timing!
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