I finally bought the Val Lewton Horror Collection, $49.99 at WalMart in Canada, if you want a deal. You get nine films produced by Val Lewton at RKO studios in the 1940s. Lewton was a producer hired by RKO to develop profitable horror "B" films on low budgets, using studio-tested and approved titles. As long as he used the titles, kept the running time under 75 minutes, and didn't spend too much money, he was pretty much given free rein to assemble a creative team and develop the films he wanted (though apparently, following the box-office success of Lewton's films, the studio did begin to interfere). The result was some of the most intelligent, evocative, and effective psychological horror films ever made. If you don't know Lewton's films but are a horror fan, and if you are already a Lewton fan, this DVD box set is an absolute must. I'm slowly making my way through the collection, and will post thoughts on each.
Today, the first of the Lewton series, Cat People (1942). This was also the first of the three Lewton films to be directed by Jacques Tourneur, who went on to direct the classic noir Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, and Night of the Demon, a very Lewtonesque supernatural thriller from 1958 (more on that in a later post). Cat People involves the relationship between Irena (Simone Simon) and Oliver (Kent Smith), a marriage that begins with Oliver meeting Irena at the zoo, while the latter sketches a black panther as it paces its cage. Irena lives a lonely, melancholic existence, deliberately cutting herself off from any meaningful relationships.
She later explains the reason for this. Her family is originally from Serbia, and according to local legend the people of her village worshipped Satan and learned how to transform themselves into cats--black panthers, to be exact. She is desperately afraid that an emotional (and sexual) connection will change her into a panther and kill the one she loves. The rest of the film involves their doomed marriage and the growing alienation between Oliver and Irena.
As with all Lewton horror films, the question as to whether the supernatural is involved is up for debate. Does Irena truely have the ability to transform into a giant cat? Or is her inner demon figurative, in the mind? Cat People provides no definitive answer.
Aside from the superb performances, what makes Cat People so memorable is its evocative, palpable atmosphere. Events slowly build, and light and shadow-soaked cinematography result in a film imbrued with mounting dread. There are two justly-famous scenes that embody this dread: a suspenseful night walk where one character is convinced she is being followed by something; and another scene involving the same character treading water in a darkened swimming pool while what we suspect is a panther menaces her from the shadows. Both sequences are masterfully filmed and lit, and still invoke fear to this day. Cat People is also notable for its exploration of sexual repression, which is mostly symbolic given the censorship limitations of the time.
On the DVD, Cat People is paired with its quasi-sequel, Curse of the Cat People, which is a perceptive study of fantasy and reality in childhood. The picture quality on Cat People is very nice, rendering the noirish cinematography in a crisp fashion.
No comments:
Post a Comment