[SPEAKER_05]: The drama is the passion.
[SPEAKER_08]: We're only interested in one thing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Can you tell a story about it?
[SPEAKER_08]: Can you make us laugh?
[SPEAKER_08]: Can you make us cry?
[SPEAKER_08]: Can you make us want to break out?
[SPEAKER_08]: Enjoy your song.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's about time and a film.
[SPEAKER_08]: Nothing happened.
[SPEAKER_08]: What a brave choice a director may.
[SPEAKER_08]: What a way to play in here this guy is.
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's do nothing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you know anything about the art of film production?
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, I like to think so.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this where I go to be star?
[SPEAKER_08]: It's where you go to sacrifice your craft and work hard?
[SPEAKER_08]: Movies.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, let's talk movies.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_08]: Make this up.
[SPEAKER_08]: Throw them, throw camera, speed, death, water, actually gets me actually gets me.
[SPEAKER_06]: An evil old house, the kind some people who haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hillhouse, it stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more.
[SPEAKER_06]: Silence lay steadily against the world and stone of Hillhouse.
[SPEAKER_06]: And whatever walked there, walked along,
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to Scene By Scene.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a film discussion podcast where we break down a film story and technique on Joe.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my name's Justin, in this episode, we'll be discussing Robert Wise's The Haunting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our discussion will be spoiler-heavy, and you may find this discussion more engaging if you've seen the film before listening.
[SPEAKER_05]: and supposed to happen, but it does happen.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, look, Doc, we're buddies, OK?
[SPEAKER_06]: But don't try to convert me, I'm trying to prepare you.
[SPEAKER_06]: My name's Markway.
[SPEAKER_06]: Dr. Markway.
[SPEAKER_06]: A scientist interested in the supernatural.
[SPEAKER_06]: The... a natural, if you like it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I came to Hillhouse to find the key to another world.
[SPEAKER_06]: Assisting me in this exploration of the unknown was Eleanor.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, who could look back into the past and feel something of a witch who could see into the future.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is Luke who didn't believe in anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: Until evil, hastened, waiting, made him change his mind.
[SPEAKER_04]: Who said was I holding?
[SPEAKER_07]: How many of us take seriously the things we cannot or do not want to understand?
[SPEAKER_07]: Simply because we are afraid.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I know you're poor.
[SPEAKER_07]: Enjoy having a calling.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, this house, you have to watch it every minute.
[SPEAKER_07]: The haunting was produced and erected by Robert Wise, brilliant producer of West Side Story.
[SPEAKER_07]: The stars consist of a cross-section of top talent in the world of entertainment.
[SPEAKER_07]: Judy Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Hamlin.
[SPEAKER_06]: What does it take to convince you that the dead do not always rest in peace?
[SPEAKER_06]: But some houses like Hillhouse, a born bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe!
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello!
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing well.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're into, into like spooky season, the Halloween season.
[SPEAKER_03]: I generally look forward to marathoning some movies that I haven't seen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, haven't made the decision on what yet, but follow me on letterbox and see what I come up with.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyways, how are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well I'm good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, this is one of my favorite times of the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Halloween.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love horror movies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the fact that I shit on all the ones we watch, I'm just gonna say I could go a whole month of October watching horror movies and have a great time but also not watch anything good.
[SPEAKER_00]: That typically happens.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, as to do find myself maybe venturing out a little bit more around the time into the no budget micro budget horror type films that you find on to be where
[SPEAKER_03]: There isn't a lot of backing in and just kind of seeing what's out there versus maybe always looking for the traditional stuff to be clear I generally don't check a lot of those in on my letter box account because
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not dealing with a significant budget or a mass distribution plan or various factors.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've found myself just checking in, no star rating, or just completely omitting a check in for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But anyways, we're not here to discuss my letterboxed habits.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Joe, I have a question for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you familiar with found TV?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a service called found.tv.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a free subscription, which features ads.
[SPEAKER_00]: at the most inopportune times throughout the movies as a streaming service does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and there's probably a lot of crossover between what's on to be and what's on found, but found focuses specifically on phone footage, movies and really low budget phone footage movies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so I've been periodically watching stuff on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this October I'm going to dive into some of those.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if anybody's not familiar with found TV, check it out Interesting low budget found footage films
[SPEAKER_03]: You are well aware that found footage films are absolutely my guilty pleasure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I will seek those out, know that her how terrible they look.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, and for me too, and it's like one of those things where I enjoy them when they're not great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when they're really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they can achieve something really special, you know, the ones that are really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those things where it's like no matter what I'm going to get, I kind of enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, check out what's there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight there's something different to discuss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was my selection for October.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal was to pick something that was a little bit more traditional horror for the month of October.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this year I picked something that I've never seen before.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've never seen it before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that correct?
[SPEAKER_03]: This version.
[SPEAKER_00]: This version.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen the remake as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of what motivated me to watch it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a film that does get a lot of respect today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't know if it did at the time of its release necessarily, but I think it will for time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's grown a bit of a cult following and there's several filmmakers who have cited it as a favorite or an influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to finally get around to check this thing out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually, we talk about our experiences with the director.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen some Robert Wise films.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's made some films largely considered classics and various genres.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's obviously a lot I have not seen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember or know what your first Robert Wise film was?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to have to look at his filmography.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you know the answer to that question?
[SPEAKER_03]: Actually, I do two things that you're going to find out and you're going to learn about Joe today.
[SPEAKER_03]: at a very young age.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember seeing Star Trek the Motion Picture.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I recall watching in syndication like the reruns and everything of the William Schatter TV show, and then as a little kid at the video store, I remember renting Star Trek the Motion Picture.
[SPEAKER_03]: That, of course, like predates me having an understanding
[SPEAKER_03]: But secondly, just that I have never seen the sound of music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not one I'm gonna necessarily give you any shit about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's not a film I'm out there championing.
[SPEAKER_00]: but a lot of people love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you seen West Side story?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to be over three here and I'm sure I'm going to turn off a lot of our audience.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm just actually not a big musical person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that there's a lot of love, a lot of craft that goes into musicals.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know people love musicals.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're one of the genres that I find myself having the hardest time getting into.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what I'm hearing is we're going to have to do a we have to do a couple of goals.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we have to do some musicals coming up here and westerns.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, if I had to guess maybe west side story was my first and then probably start track the motion picture.
[SPEAKER_03]: He does have a pretty significant and lengthy filmography.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's one of those sort of like classic journeyman filmmakers, but at the same time looking at his filmography now, he has done a lot of work in horror.
[SPEAKER_00]: The haunting isn't necessarily an outlier in his filmography.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's worked in the genre quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's, you know, he's dabbled in like every genre, which was, I think, pretty common at the time for studio filmmakers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the haunting is an interesting film, and we'll get into this, obviously, in the sense that it's coming at this period where you're sort of on the brink of New Hollywood, and this sort of change in what Hollywood is producing, you know, these young filmmakers sort of being inspired by foreign cinema,
[SPEAKER_00]: and they're not afraid to experiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's sort of on that the cusp of this big change in Hollywood, but at the same time looking at this film for what it is, it feels both very old-fashioned, and also kind of daring and bold at times, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of like this weird mix that I found.
[SPEAKER_00]: The boldness comes in the technique, the technical aspects that are deployed here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The story feels very, and the acting feels very traditional and kind of old-fashioned in a ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, so we add a describe it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I see that and I agree with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I even thinking about like the decisions made in regards to this being a horror film like it doesn't even feel like that to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It really does have this like psychological element of a person struggling and going through like an emotional time in their life, which I don't think that this was the first.
[SPEAKER_03]: you know horror film to ever do that or touch on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But in a way the film does feel a little like timeless because you look at horror films today and I've appreciated the films of like Ari Astor so much of what he does and so much of what like modern horror is feels like it can be traced back to this where it is
[SPEAKER_00]: psychological trauma and emotions, but that's what's interesting is I think his films have inspired those types of filmmakers, the R-Yasters as an example, but if we look at the modern haunted house film, those have gone in a completely different direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, at many times, was transported back to my experience and our discussion of the entity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that film had, for me, a major lack of a subtlety that really kind of got on my nerves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this film goes the opposite direction and I really like that stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that we don't see the ghosts allows you to
[SPEAKER_00]: question if any of it is real and if it is to what degree it's real.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then also just like the entity, there's room to interpret everything that's happening as strictly in the mind of the protagonist or strictly a manifestation of their trauma and their anxieties, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both very stylish films, in terms of a lot of the film techniques, the stylistic flourishes at moments, but they're very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: In their execution, I think overall, and I prefer the haunting execution.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most modern haunted house films are more like the entity.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the sense that it's big and it's their loud and they've gone much more graphic and bloody and violent and focused a lot on like creature effects and now it's CGI obviously yeah you know these CGI creatures clearly this has had an influence on
[SPEAKER_00]: horror films are like psychological thrillers or dramas, but at the same time the sub genre in which it's most closest has gone in like a completely different direction, which I think is interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well...
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think we'll talk about it, and maybe now is the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did not revisit the 1999 version for this episode, but I do remember a fair amount of it, what I distinctly recall about that one is how heavily it relied on like visual effects.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I recall things like little like statues moving or turning to look at somebody.
[SPEAKER_03]: versus accomplishing those things with like the set design or, you know, the section of wall that looks like ice and a face and just how effective that is, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and yeah, when the biggest things are happening in the film, it's all about sound and sound design.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sound is still used today, but it's used more as like a jump scare technique, or a tool to facilitate a jump scare, and the visuals are really kind of what I think the focus is with most modern horror films I see.
[SPEAKER_03]: In more modern horror films too, I think there's this reliance on music too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Over the years, I've become maybe a little bit more cynical of a movie watcher, but I'm sort of tracking and tracing where the jump scare is going to come in or the spooky moment's going to come in because for me, at least I'm listening to the tone and the pitch of the music and there it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: But with that said, I know that this is a horror film or considered a horror film, but I do think that this is one of those where I don't know that those were the things that interested me the the most when I came to the story, I think that they're good elements,
[SPEAKER_03]: to me, I think it really was just Eleanor's spiral and watching her and her mental state and how fractured she feels.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is pretty closely connected to the supernatural paranormal elements, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, this was not planned, but I thought this was a interesting follow-up to perfect blue, to a film in which a lot of the discussion we had was about what's real, what's not real, is this potentially in the protagonist's mind and that character kind of spiraling out of control and in.
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of losing grip with reality, much different approach, but a lot of that is happening in this film as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the cause of that spiral is obviously much different, but I think we see some similarities, I think.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been talking about a...
[SPEAKER_03]: A few things that I think we're going to probably double back to, but do you want to tell us a little bit about the haunting what it is and what happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: The film introduces us to this house during the opening credits through voiceover narration.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm some very spooky shots of an old New England house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it talks about how, from the very construction of the house, bad things have happened to your people have died.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's this doctor, and he wants to spend some time in this house, basically studying, I guess witnessing and studying the paranormal, and in order to conduct this experiment, he enlists a couple of people to help him, and these people are
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor and the Adora, these are two women who have passed experiences with the with the paranormal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor had experienced a poltergeist and the Adora had like, like an ESP experience or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: He enlists these two women and I think he thinks that, you know, because these two women have had these experiences in the past, there may be more sensitive to
[SPEAKER_00]: and that their presence in the house will help facilitate or stimulate some sort of paranormal activity for him to witness and study.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the three of them and then another man Luke takes along.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the nephew of the owner.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he's going to one day I guess inherit the house and he's skeptical of the paranormal element and he's very focused on making sure that the house stays in good condition and that he can get maximum value out of the property and
[SPEAKER_00]: the items inside the property when it finally belongs to him, although he makes a pretty dramatic shift at the end, I think we'll get into.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these four people enter the house, they spend time in the house, eventually this paranormal activity.
[SPEAKER_00]: happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of it is depicted through pounding in on the walls and voices heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's never any real sighting of what is making this noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the biggest depiction of something paranormal is this moment where a wood door begins to like bend and kind of
[SPEAKER_00]: buckle through the pressure of something on the outside, but we never see what that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're kind of following these people as they spend time in the house and they have all these conversations about fear itself and how a ghost has never caused someone to die.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always the fear that gets them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think this is a film about fear, a film about how fear affects people amongst
[SPEAKER_00]: But largely we're following Eleanor.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is, I think, our protagonist were introduced to her backstory a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was for 11 years taking care of her sick mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mother is died now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mother died calling out for help and Eleanor ignored it so she feels guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some trauma associated with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's now sort of lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's shaped her identity off of taking care of her mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that that's gone, she doesn't know who she is.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's searching for an identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's searching for a home.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she enters the house, she slowly kind of unravels.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the question is, is the house causing it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is
[SPEAKER_00]: she causing the things in the house like is it a manifestation of her trauma and her fears and anxieties or the question even is is it all in her mind and none of its real and I think the film largely leaves that up for interpretation and again ultimately because she's not doing well everybody in the house agrees that Eleanor needs to leave the house for her own safety
[SPEAKER_00]: She sort of flees the house in a car.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's driving at high speeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she crashes into a tree and dies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, another question is, was there some sort of entity something in the house that was tugging at that wheel and caused her to crash?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or was it maybe just suicide?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, you know, something in her mind, but ultimately, an accident?
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, left up to the viewer to answer those questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: This film is based off of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hillhouse, which, again, maybe similar to the movie, did not Shirley Jackson, I think, overall, did not get the respect she deserved in her lifetime, although she was fairly successful to win some awards.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think,
[SPEAKER_00]: In the years since her passing, she has certainly gained a larger following, and I think in some ways she was very ahead of her time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am actually a Shirley Jackson fan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't read a lot of her work, but this stuff I have read, I really do enjoy.
[SPEAKER_00]: and so this is based on her book and Robert Wise was basically just reading the book and really struck by how scary the book was and he thought to himself that if you know a book can be this scary if reading something can be this scary imagine what we can create with
[SPEAKER_00]: the tools of cinema.
[SPEAKER_00]: He handed the book off to his friend and writer, Nelson Gidding, and Nelson Gidding wrote the screenplay and he talks about how he initially thought that it was a traditional ghost story for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at a certain point he was struck by how
[SPEAKER_00]: No, this actually is not a ghost story, this is about a woman losing grip on reality, and having this sort of downward spiral, and it's potentially, there are no paranormal aspects, whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he had this realization, he was a little unsure how to progress forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, this story can work either way, but I think we need to
[SPEAKER_00]: really kind of decide what the story is going to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to do that, they went and visited Shirley Jackson and basically posed this theory to her that this is all in her mind and none of this is real and apparently Shirley Jackson said, I never thought of it that way, but that's an interesting idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't fully believe that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't fully
[SPEAKER_00]: so much of this book is inspired by her life and so much of it is about a person being torn between like a traditional nuclear family and nuclear household and this other identity which is being an artist and a writer and so much of it is taken from her own experiences with her mother
[SPEAKER_00]: the relationship she had with her mother, and even with her husband, and I don't believe Shirley Jackson wanted to ever give answers, similar to other great artists, she wanted to kind of let other people interpret it, but I don't think she actually thought that this was all truly supernatural.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe at the very least a mix of both supernatural
[SPEAKER_00]: That sort of high thing how this develops and I think it's sort of where the film deviates from the book a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does maybe take a little bit more of this approach that it can be all in her mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the fact that we don't see anything lends to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the book is a little bit more graphic and does have more sort of like visions of the paranormal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think captures the spirit of the book for sure, while doing its own thing, which I think is the mark of a good adaptation, really.
[SPEAKER_03]: For her response to PI, I haven't thought of it that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that doesn't track for me, but I mean, she purposely left mysteries in her writing, and I think she wanted to keep those mysteries alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: outside of the writing as well and so I think a bit of that is like adding to the the mystery and the mystique and not providing any sort of answer or insight.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about many filmmakers on the podcast who kind of like to do that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean David Lynch being probably the most obvious example that we've discussed so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what kind of reminds me of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: You had mentioned that maybe the most interesting element for you was this element of Eleanor, spiraling out of control and losing sort of her grip on reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to start there and maybe talk about what stood out to you there?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a good place to start and you commented before how you felt like this was an appropriate follow-up to our previous episode of Perfect Blue and I see that night feel like there's this element of the unreliable narrator when I think about like the Eleanor character.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the thing that is so interesting to me with what the film does is where it sort of like picks her up and the way that we get the introduction of her, where she's just lost her mother, not too long ago or at least she is still haunted and
[SPEAKER_03]: there's that feeling of loss, there's this sense of maybe directionless a little bit because with her having been the primary caregiver and that directionless nature that follow something like that and how this event sort of feels like in attempt to do something to, I guess for lack of a better phrase but to sort of find herself and to find like her next steps and how
[SPEAKER_03]: trauma that baggage begins to like manifest itself within this house and how her feelings about the house sort of like evolved.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want to come back to that because I think that there's something really fascinating that I want to explore with that one.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's movies like this where I was kind of struggle because it's easy to see and read this as things like happening within her mind, but then there's this element of like shared experience between her with the adora and the other members of the investigation crew that are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's absolutely true and it's brought up in the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's talking to Dr. John Markway.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like this has to be real because we've all witnessed this stuff as well and and her response is well what if you guys aren't real?
[SPEAKER_03]: The film is clearly told through her perspective and she's not necessarily a character that we feel like we can trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, and the other thing is like the other option is that it's not all in her head, but she is the cause of it, and this is hinted at too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they talk about how the stone's falling on the house, this experience from her childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody believes that she caused it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she could be the cause of all this paranormal activity within the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not necessarily in a haunted house, but the people who occupy the house, in this case, Eleanor, she's haunted and she's basically creating these hauntings within the house kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they do try to address it there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that it sort of comes down to this element of guilt that Eleanor is is carrying as well, like a level of responsibility that she feels for her mother's death.
[SPEAKER_03]: When it comes to Eleanor's psyche and her mental state, I think that part of it also comes from this like manifestation of guilt and this manifestation of like trauma of what her life was like and
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's hinted at with the situation that you talked about where, you know, she's blamed for the stones falling on their house.
[SPEAKER_03]: To me, I feel like the film is like giving that as a metaphor for like abuse that she had experienced when she was younger.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that her mother is passed, like she's in this fragile mental state and this guilt and the things that she experienced are manifesting itself across this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what's interesting is the way even just that guilt is made a little bit more complex.
[SPEAKER_00]: And none of this is spelled out directly, but there's obviously the guilt of letting her mom die or feeling responsible for her mother dying because the mother was calling out for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Eleanor ignored it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's guilt for like, oh, did I cause or could I have prevented this death?
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's also guilt, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think ultimately Eleanor is happy her mother died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's happy to be free of her mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's also guilt from feeling that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's resentment towards her mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this guilt for potentially causing her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's feeling of relief that she's now finally free, but then that's immediately undercut by this guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: For feeling that way, this guilt for feeling happy about her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like this very complex mix of emotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that she put her life on hold for so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when that's over like what do you have left?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: She basically says like I cannot go back to her sister's house, but that leaves her with no other place to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those things combined.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes it very clear or very understandable that she would be in such a state.
[SPEAKER_00]: mentally and emotionally that she could be causing these things or manifesting these things and whether that's literally happening in the story or whether that's just what it represents.
[SPEAKER_00]: what's literally happening is maybe less important and what it represents is maybe what we as the viewer should be taking away from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The film does a really good job of placing you in her mental state and really understanding her state without really kind of holding your hand or giving you a lot of details.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean it keeps I think the details pretty sparse overall.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it does a good job at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: her experiences mere other people's past experiences in the house or the history of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the death of her mother, kind of mirroring the death of Abigail and her caretaker in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also the initial death, the wife of the man who built the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: She crashes into that tree and dies and later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor crashes into that same tree and dies, even the way the film opens with narration and then closes with very similar narration.
[SPEAKER_00]: This does sort of communicate a cycle that is on repeat and could potentially happen again or something, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: The psychological spiral that Eleanor has is sort of juxtaposed with the psychological spiral that Abigail's caretaker had.
[SPEAKER_03]: The walk up the circular staircase is like pretty comparable to Eleanor walking up the staircase.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's not one for one, but it is another element that history and also going off of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, rather than leaving the house, that woman, she stays and she commits suicide in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: and depending on how you view it, resorts to killing herself to avoid leaving and kind of stay in the house forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's sort of similarities there as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this is a bit reductive, Joe, but do you have, like, an opinion on are there supernatural or paranormal?
[SPEAKER_00]: Entities living in this house that are terrorizing this group of people, or is it more rooted in the character in some way?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to just say I don't know that my opinion matters on that as much because I don't necessarily know that there is something supernatural as much as I believe that it's in Elinor's mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: But at the same time, I mean, I do question that because of like the communal experience of certain elements that are occurring.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm being honest though, I don't know that
[SPEAKER_00]: I fall into the category of maybe these experiences are real, but are somehow a manifestation of Elinore's fear, grief, trauma, and she's the cause, I guess, of these real events that everyone's experiencing, but ultimately, yeah, it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always these stories where, certainly, you can make up your own interpretation, but I actually feel like trying to understand what is happening in the film or the story, the book, whatever, is actually missing the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think this is so much about.
[SPEAKER_00]: These elements are metaphors for what the characters are experiencing, sort of view it that way and view it on how it makes you feel about the characters and about their journeys and understanding the actual events is maybe not the point if that makes sense and I think this story falls into that category.
[SPEAKER_03]: Another thing that I think that the film does well with just kind of focusing on, like Eleanor psyche here is we're given just enough to sort of empathize and understand where we're picking up with her in her life.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that the film allows us to sort of bring a bit of our own experiences and our own beliefs to that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that that's great, and I think that that's a powerful element to the film because it doesn't spoon feed you or hold your hand or say yes, this is what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like that was maybe a little bit more of that 1999 version of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: where it was, hey, this is what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Versus this one does give that freedom.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can make the arguments a haunted house movie, but I think it's a haunted person movie more than anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: I kind of see this film as this film about an abusive relationship and where that kind of comes from is you think about Eleanor's experience with the house and how her feelings and perspectives about the house sort of change and shift this sense of like the house watching her.
[SPEAKER_03]: and how if you're in like a toxic relationship, somebody might be watching you keeping a closer eye on you, there's this element of Eleanor then like wanting to be there and like even kind of like the flirtatious nature in which you approaches the statue of the man that built it.
[SPEAKER_03]: the house is this thing that's creating problems for her, but also this love and appreciation for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think you're spot on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that all makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just a question for you, Joe, are you familiar with Shirley Jackson's personal life?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm not actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she, so you're just going to tell me, yeah, Joe, everybody knows that.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, I think we'll see
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's people who can certainly see this in the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if there's a lot of people who have not read the book, but who have just seen only the movie, who talk about this element.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's maybe maybe more present in the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's interesting that you're picking up on it in the film, which I totally see, it totally makes sense, and also coming from, you know, it's two key creators being men,
[SPEAKER_00]: the director and writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's interesting that that's still present in this film, because just to back up like so Shirley Jackson, I mean, she had a pretty rough relationship that featured abuse, a lot of infidelity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her husband, who was a literary critic, was very jealous of her success as a novelist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He controlled all of the money in the relationship, even though
[SPEAKER_00]: and just wasn't respected.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is an element that I could see being filtered through two men and being filtered through this new medium that that element or those elements would be lost and obviously they're not.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're picking up on them.
[SPEAKER_03]: The other thing is I just want to be fair.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know that those are maybe as strong as they could be either, though.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it would be easy for people to interpret like some of those moments or the instances that I I viewed as like abuse of relationship moments in in a different way or a different light, but when I was watching it, I'm like,
[SPEAKER_03]: This feels like, you know, at the very least, an emotionally abusive situation that she's experiencing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the reasons why I bring this up too, because I think it does kind of go into Eleanor's psyche if you're in an emotionally abusive or any form of abusive relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's just tactics that the abuser uses to make somebody question their sense of reality and make them question their own sanity.
[SPEAKER_03]: While we've talked about the question of,
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it in her mind or is it something else?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's possible that it is just the the house Hushing her, you know, making her more unstable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's true, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the other things that kind of stood out for me were obviously Eleanor is seeking connection and seeking family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and the house representing family
[SPEAKER_00]: and this connection to family and I certainly think it's interesting that a lot of pivotal scenes happen in the nursery, a room that represents family and children and motherhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could find a way to view this as this character being pressured or forced into conforming to traditional
[SPEAKER_00]: she's being pressured or being pulled to the nursery and they're being some sort of like conflict there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's fascinating to me too a little bit here, you know, talking about the nursery element and again, I go back to the opening because I really love where it's outlining the history of the house, which some could argue, it's kind of a big nothing burger with, you know, I don't know that it necessarily matters a ton.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does set up the house as like another character.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does.
[SPEAKER_00]: which i think is important to the story because so much of it is like the house is alive and this house is looking at me and this house feels my presence and is controlling me in order for that to kind of work you kind of have to like create this mystery and this well i don't think it's completely necessary but i think it's it's certainly serving that purpose
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so I'm going to get sidetracked here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you feel like the film succeeds at that without that opening?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't think it fully succeeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I don't know if it fully succeeds even with that opening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the backstory certainly creates, it's like foreshadowing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It creates an expectation which should create some tension.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it really created tension for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that backstory is somewhat important on that level.
[SPEAKER_00]: The most successful moments of this are really just some of the the core in the house, and some of these really expressive camera moves that almost seem like they are coming from the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think those things, those visuals are more successful at kind of hinting at this, but
[SPEAKER_00]: Overall, I do think this is an element that could have been maybe developed a little bit more from my perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think it's successful?
[SPEAKER_03]: I do really like the opening.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just, I do question and I don't know if I have a good answer for this, but I'm like, I do wonder if there was like a different way that it could have approached this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think through other methods, the film for me,
[SPEAKER_03]: does the nice job of creating a sense of like this house being this other character, this other entity, even just when Eleanor pulls up to it, her inner monologue and the way that it's shot, I got that sense right away.
[SPEAKER_03]: The things that I like about the opening though is all of the traumatic experiences and seeing those unfold and the moment that like San So Tme is is the Abigail in the nursery and she doesn't move out of that room and she basically dies there, so there's this
[SPEAKER_03]: interesting basically spending your entire life like somewhere element.
[SPEAKER_03]: That doesn't I stop of like setting up the later scene with Eleanor sleeping and the the poundings and just sort of like the way the Eleanor connects the pounding to her mother pounding on a wall
[SPEAKER_03]: there's this element of life and death across the opening you have sort of this like birth element where the house is new and constructed and if we're thinking about the house as a character here is birth and we we never see like the house's demise or houses end of life but we do see Abigail as a small child Abigail dying in the house any number of other characters
[SPEAKER_03]: And how the house basically becomes this other lonely character, you don't see it, the film doesn't explicitly say it, but you can imagine it, you can kind of understand there is this house that kind of becomes in a way like Eleanor, where it is lonely and abandoned.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what works about this mirroring, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mirroring, and...
[SPEAKER_00]: connecting Eleanor to the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor as a character and the house as this structure have a lot of similarities and then you know like you were talking about just a minute ago this
[SPEAKER_00]: of this house and the events of the film with Eleanor, as an example, the knocking, Abigail died knocking on a wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor's mother died knocking on a wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then when you're in the house, it's like, is this Abigail's ghost knocking on the wall?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is this knocking coming from the guilt?
[SPEAKER_00]: that Eleanor feels, and then, you know, the house as a structure, mirroring Eleanor, as a character, all these things working together, allow you to either view this as like, oh, this is just a haunted house film, or the house is a metaphor for Eleanor.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can view this as all these paranormal incidents are
[SPEAKER_00]: manifestation of Eleanor's guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the film does a great job of weaving all of these elements that allows the viewer to read it in many different ways, which I think is worth praising, because I think there are many films out there that sort of cheat sort of lie to the audience
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, kind of watching that film on repeat, you start to realize none of it really adds up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is a film where the film is true and honest with the audience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it all kind of adds up and makes sense in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I think that's worth praising.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whether it's the house as this oppressive character in internal oppression from Eleanor on herself, based off of history experience, there's this conflict in nature where she maybe can't be herself, doesn't allow her to be herself, and I think that that comes up with this almost
[SPEAKER_00]: for context there was a scene that was cut of the adora with like a ex girlfriend that made it a little bit more explicitly clear that she was gay and why is decided to cut that scene because he felt like it played better just
[SPEAKER_00]: through the dynamic between Theodora and Eleanor and not making it so clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also wonder if there was maybe pressure from the sensors or something as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the whole story there, but yeah, I think this is interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said before, where Eleanor is searching for family and maybe like a belonging.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also read it as she's searching for her true self or she's finally with her mother gone is trying to let that true self out or she's still hiding that true self and that
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a way to view this also that like all this trauma and all this stuff happening in the house is from her being sort of pressured to come out of the closet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I saw somewhere someone referencing like this the scene at the end or the scenes at the end where they're trying to like force Eleanor to leave the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: is her almost being like forced to come out of the closet and them sort of trying to anchor out of this house is trying to force her to acknowledge something that she is not ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: or willing to acknowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's maybe a growing audience who views this film as sort of like a gay awakening story or allegory for coming out of the closet, think it's another interesting way to view all of these events.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't do a thoughts on,
[SPEAKER_03]: on any of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can agree and I can see that no matter how you dissect it or how you slice it, a significant portion of this film is really this woman, this character who has maybe like,
[SPEAKER_03]: hidden herself, or has but no pressed, who's never been able to socially demonstrate who she is, having the freedom and not knowing how to do that or what that looks like.
[SPEAKER_03]: When it comes to this film, I think so much about the psychology and how regardless of who causes the mental and emotional abuse, when that abuser or cause of that trauma is gone, the scars in that damage remain.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I, you talk about like the adora being gay, there's
[SPEAKER_03]: this almost curiosity from Eleanor that it feels like even she maybe represses herself, she's either unwilling, scared or just has this belief where she, she can't pursue that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's a little bit of like how those scars continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just interesting they do spend several scenes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, eventually they start sleeping in the same room.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're sleeping in the same room.
[SPEAKER_00]: When there are these paranormal events happening, they typically embrace each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: They spend several scenes in bed holding each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to completely deny that there's something there in their relationships, something sort of physical
[SPEAKER_00]: who's to say that the level of physical connection is not ultimately being affected or controlled by the studio by sensors.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is still 1963.
[SPEAKER_00]: There wouldn't have been an acceptance of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would have to sort of code these characters in these events in a way that is
[SPEAKER_00]: subtle enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wonder if the subtlety in this area comes from that, or it comes from, this is actually what the filmmakers wanted to depict.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I think that's an interesting question as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: kind of want to go back because I made the comment about how it seems like Eleanor kind of repress this thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I want to kind of clarify something with that comment though too is it seems kind of feels like for those moments where there is a level of intimacy.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of moments where there's
[SPEAKER_03]: this implied interest in the doctor as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: It almost feels like there's like this confusion, maybe as well, like this uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if this character has been basically putting their life on hold to take care of their mother and probably has never dated, probably has not had really a lot of time to socialize with anyone outside of the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there would be a little bit of confusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think self-discovery comes through experiences and comes through interactions with other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's through those things that you discover who you are and what you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if she's never had that before, because her whole life was being at her mother's sort of back in call, sort of understandable that her first maybe big moment or only moment,
[SPEAKER_00]: outside of the house and interacting with other people would be completely confusing to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this way, maybe this is like a coming of age story as well for her, because there is like a bit of like discovery and self awakening happening as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's an interesting perspective, and I didn't necessarily see this as a pseudo coming of age film, but I do think that you're onto something with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really interesting because this is a film that is so open to interpretation, and I think about the fact that it's all the way back from 1963, and
[SPEAKER_03]: Here we are, we've identified multiple thematic elements to it that we see a certain way.
[SPEAKER_03]: But on the flip side, somebody could very easily just read this and see this as, like, a traditional, like, haunted house kind of film.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it works that way too.
[SPEAKER_03]: It does.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: You made that comment during the perfect blue episode of like how you didn't think about those certain things in regards to animation.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just good filmmaking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that this is just good storytelling to be able to craft a story that has so many different layers or interpretations.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would you just agree if I said a central theme of this film is isolation?
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't think so, but, you know, I just want to get your engagement here.
[SPEAKER_03]: You look like you're falling asleep, so.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not at this hour.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're only on our six of recording.
[SPEAKER_03]: I find this element of isolation to be like another one of those interesting things that's stood out to me talking about it from like just the this story and the thematic element of it here we have a character who is you know searching for a self who is struggling with identity as we've just talked about a little bit here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she's traveling to this house that is in itself isolated.
[SPEAKER_03]: Through exposition, we learn that, well, we see it's sort of secluded.
[SPEAKER_03]: We do know and we're given that there is a town nearby.
[SPEAKER_03]: People from town don't come to this house.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the house is isolated itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: The isolation continues with just like the minimal characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, maybe not at the time, but I think of doctors maybe as being a little bit like colder, especially like when it comes to like a researcher.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they are maybe less emotionally driven or caring less about the subjects of their study versus the results.
[SPEAKER_03]: While there are those moments of like the communal hauntings and experiences, like the way that people react to them, also creates almost this like sense of isolation too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Eleanor generally seems a little bit more concerned with them while others kind of,
[SPEAKER_03]: tries to rationalize or explain them away, Theo is a little bit more light-hearted as is Luke.
[SPEAKER_03]: So even like the experiences that are communal, like the reactions create like a little bit of a sense of like loneliness or isolation.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to also talk about this from the perspective of filmmaking a little bit too because through its cinematography, through the visuals here, I do feel like many of the scenes create this like isolation or isolated feeling, often using like those wide shots, if something is shot a little bit closer, it feels like more times than not, it's shot as a single rather
[SPEAKER_03]: So visually the film's creating the isolation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a use of like shot size and composition, things.
[SPEAKER_00]: These wide shots where all four characters are in frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Markway, Luke, and Theo typically kind of form a group.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they kind of tend to group together on one side of the frame, and then Eleanor is a little bit further away on the opposite side of the frame, so she is just away from everybody else with this negative space between her and everyone else, which does certainly isolate her, and I mean, you discuss the other techniques.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one sort of flashy shot that I can't stop thinking about, and it's towards the end of the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: We hear her narration in her head, so we're in her head, and I think she's like walking out of the nursery and sort of walking away from everyone else, and she's walking towards the camera, all the other characters are in the background.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the background just slowly dims and goes dark completely isolating her from these other characters and even isolating her from the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean we also have an example of like a split by uptershot here which separates her from Theo which obviously made me think of the entity as well because that film uses split by upters quite frequently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is using a lot of different techniques to create this disconnect through film language, the film grammar?
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a moment slash an element that's used pretty regularly here, but um, you know, I love my mirror shots.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love, you know, shooting people in the ears and how that creates
[SPEAKER_03]: this false sense of reality, there's the dinner scene, you know, the way that it's blocked that you talked about, and then the spacing that's used, Eleanor is shot as a reflection in a mirror, and even with like the way that the reflections are,
[SPEAKER_03]: captured in this mirror.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's this like constant sense of isolation even in that reflection of her.
[SPEAKER_03]: It cuts from that shot to like this two shot of Theo and Eleanor that next shot is maybe a little bit more what you're talking about where Eleanor is positioned a little bit closer to like the right hand side of the frame and
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, these are all just like examples, moments, shots that highlight this visual style of isolation.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's another one where they're all sitting like after that dinner scene and like the the parlor.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is this massive wide, and Eleanor is like sitting like very close to or closest to camera.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the fact that she is sitting on like basically like a couch, something that is big enough for multiple people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and I think even just the direction she's facing and that scene, you have Luke and Theo kind of, their playing cards or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're basically looking at each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Markway is reading, but he's framed at an angle in which he's in reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's sort of facing
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But through the lens, it looks like he's, you know, facing Luke in and Theo.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you have Eleanor who's facing straight ahead at like the fireplace.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even just the the fact that the other three characters are almost like looking at each other and she's looking at nobody looking at the house in front of her, the room in front of her, the directions
[SPEAKER_00]: helping sell that effect as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the standouts of the commentary track for me was some of the stories from Julie Harris and Claire Bloom.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I believe like Richard Johnson, me have touched on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Richard Johnson plays Dr. John Markway.
[SPEAKER_03]: Julie Harris was Eleanor Lance and Claire Bloom played the
[SPEAKER_03]: And I believe all three of them, especially Richard and Claire talked about how Julie seemed like she wasn't like fitting in or how she wouldn't necessarily like engage in cast activities and Claire Bloom talks about how Julie Harris just wouldn't talk to her between takes or
[SPEAKER_03]: And Julie Harris talks about this sense of depression and the sadness when it came to making this film and how she would cry in the makeup chair.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clear blue I'm going back to her talks about how after the film was wrapped.
[SPEAKER_03]: Julie Harris, like, brought her a gift and they had a conversation about how Julie Harris said, well, our characters are supposed to hate each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: So she isolated herself.
[SPEAKER_03]: She went talk to Claire Bloom.
[SPEAKER_03]: We talked about, for, for lack of a better term, we've talked about, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: committing to those characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to bring this up because here you have Eleanor who is this character who's, you know, dealing with this feeling in sense of isolation, but you have an actor who is making these decisions, whether it be intentional or unintentional, or if there's just something
[SPEAKER_03]: that maybe she was going through or maybe something within the script that spoke to Julie Harris.
[SPEAKER_03]: I find it fascinating that in today's world there is this focus on method acting and everything, but here you have examples going all the way back to the 1960s where actors were so committed to bringing these characters into immersing themselves in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's use the term method acting,
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a method actor, but the thing is, I think method acting was Respected more in the 60s than it is today that that's why we hear about it today is because Method acting today has a sort of a bad reputation as being toxic and unprofessional
[SPEAKER_00]: In the 60s, I think it was like, okay, this is a serious actor with serious training and they're taking their craft very seriously, and that's just not the way it's viewed today.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have plans to maybe discuss things like this in the future, because I think this is a fascinating topic to dive into.
[SPEAKER_00]: but getting back to her isolating herself to play this character who is isolated, I think it makes complete sense and it's hard to obviously say for sure but I bet it did really help the performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think her performance overall is a style of performance that I don't typically appreciate all that much but it does certainly establish her as someone who is struggling with something very serious and she is on sort of like tight rope on the edge of sanity this very loud and heightened performance I mean her opening scene she's very excited and it is just kind of like a big
[SPEAKER_00]: showy performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it for the most part works for the film for what the film is trying to communicate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this approach probably helped.
[SPEAKER_00]: this performance a lot because I mean, if you get close to somebody, it does affect sort of the chemistry and the way you play off each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we talk about this, like, sort of on the the other side of the coin in which if you're going to play like this couple who are very close, you have the actors spend lots of time together, give very comfortable with each other, and that will heighten the performances.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the way they play off each other, here's like just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want these characters to have a bit of conflict, a bit of feeling of unease between them, with then you create that disconnect, not just in the characters, but the actors as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a similar approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: from what she talked about.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was kind of going through her own depression.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was going through a tough time during this period and I think that probably heightened this performance as well, playing this character who is going through this very traumatic experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, going off of that real quick, I think because I mentioned, you know, her performance, her introduction, I think the voice over narration is interesting in this film as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, we have voice over at the beginning and the end of the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning, it's Dr. Markway, at the end, it's Eleanor, and there's some mirroring in the language used.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's about the house, and how it stood for 90 years will stand for 90 more, and it is this functioning as exposition, but it's also establishing the house as this sort of mysterious fifth character in the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, like I said earlier, kind of establishing this cycle or this pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there's this other form of voiceover, which is Eleanor's thoughts, which happens frequently in the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is interesting because number one, it kind of cues us into what she's going through and the changes her character is going through at various points in the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: at the very beginning, it's a good way of signaling that this character is potentially unstable in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, before we even get to the house, we have a sense that this character is not doing well and is sort of on the edge of kind of losing grip of reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's doing that effectively.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other thing is, and going back to what we were just talking about, is I think this voiceover is another thing that creates
[SPEAKER_00]: It implies that she spends a lot of time in her own head rather than in a moment, in real time, with the other characters of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's disconnected in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like she's talking to herself, the way it's verbalized, basically talking to herself more than she really talks to any other character or confides in any other character.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's the voice over is
[SPEAKER_00]: doing a lot of things, but it's another one of those things that is signaling a disconnect as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Looking at it from the perspective of the time as well, it made sense that a way to depict somebody who is potentially like mentally unwell or disconnected or having those issues would be somebody who talked to themselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: It does just go back to that feeling of like isolation and seeing herself as the only reliable person
[SPEAKER_03]: The last thing that I want to maybe bring up with that though is going back to the earlier discussion about the house as a metaphor for this like abusive relationship as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that we're introduced to Eleanor maybe isolated to begin with, but in a way the house also feels like it's creating more isolation and creating these situations where
[SPEAKER_03]: Eleanor maybe is struggles to trust struggles to connect and almost reinforces her belief that others in the house can't be trusted and you know, there's this scene where there's like the writing on the wall and she blames Theo for it so in a way it feels like the house
[SPEAKER_03]: the entity, the whatever it is that's haunting her is also forcing this isolation.
[SPEAKER_00]: and like an abusive relationship, turning her against everyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, purposely to isolate her.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't know if I gave the whole like, the house as a metaphor for a relationship or an abusive relationship much thought, while I was watching it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the more you talk about it, the more it just seems.
[SPEAKER_00]: such an interesting view on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be a romantic relationship at is abusive or it could be just like her mother, her relationship with her mother.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it can work both ways too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that way, it makes so much sense that it's maybe guilt inspired or manifested through guilt because it's like as soon as she's free from her mother,
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like the, let's call it an epilogue in which Eleanor gives this closing narration over these exteriors of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that, you know, I like the end title card effect mirroring the opening, the haunting title card effect.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is like, we've already talked about this
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like everybody's reaction to Eleanor's death was kind of a bad note, like an out of tune note for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it really worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all standing outside the car, almost like giving their closing thoughts on their experience in the house and what happened to Eleanor and it just didn't feel right to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this moment was supposed to have impact for me as a viewer, I feel like it should have had an impact on the characters and I don't feel like it entirely did based on their reactions to her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you disagree?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I felt like that was a very cold scene.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know that I would have expected much in the way of emotion based off of the time that passed the fact that everybody was strangers at the
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it just did feel very cold and in a way to me disconnected.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you can question if that's the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you can question if I know this is kind of messy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't entirely make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: But referencing that scene in which Eleanor talks about how maybe this is all in her head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe even the doctor, Luke, and Theo are also in her head.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like there's this feeling that this is Eleanor kind of thinking about how people are reacting to her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a statement on how she views herself, her lack of importance in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, whether that's like she's actually died now and she's this sort of spirit that's thinking about this or this is literally all in her head and
[SPEAKER_00]: She's gotten to this place where now she's like, if I die now, what are people going to say about me when I'm gone, how are they going to react?
[SPEAKER_00]: If this is her view of what people are going to say and think, it's a statement on how little she thinks of herself and how little value she believes she has in the world, which makes sense within the character.
[SPEAKER_03]: flowing then right into this voice over this like narration to this was one of those moments where I questioned the legitimacy of what I'm witnessing versus if this is just happening in Eleanor's mind, like you highlighted and called out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: because we go from her death or the perception of her death to this narration where it feels like she is still with the house or still there, you know, maybe like trapped stuck, whatever the case may be, there's ways to read this and in which it, you know, fits the character, fits various readings on the film as a whole.
[SPEAKER_00]: but that doesn't make the scene impactful while watching it for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately, that experience is what stands out most of all.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, more than, oh, does this scene have multiple interpretations?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we have a discussion about what the scene means?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great for the podcast and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But...
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm watching the film and I, I'm just feeling like, oh, this just doesn't land the way I think it needs to in the moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when it comes down to it, I had questions about Luke.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke is this character who this entire film has been talking about how this is going to be his payday one day that he can't wait to inherit this house and sell it and make all this money and then in the end he's like this house should be burned to the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, okay, what happened to make him change?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it just the death of Elanora?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we never saw him necessarily have a lot of affection for Elanora throughout the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we certainly don't get a sense that he's heartbroken about her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: So where does that change of character come from?
[SPEAKER_03]: Isn't he just the most underdeveloped character in this whole, maybe not underdeveloped, but to me, maybe the least relatable or the character that I just personally connected with the least out of the four main characters?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel the same way as you.
[SPEAKER_00]: well he's not even really supposed to be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's only there because the owner of the house would only allow Dr. Markway to spend time in the house if he also let looped take a long basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what does that provide?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that adding to the film?
[SPEAKER_00]: is he's supposed to be the skeptic, but isn't Dr. Markway kind of like a skeptic in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's open-minded, but he's not going in assuming that the paranormal is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think he even really offers a different perspective on the events of the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: or the paranormal activity of the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's the other thing, like, people have died at this house before.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like, oh man, now someone has died at this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: This changes everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: The house has a history of death surrounding it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just another...
[SPEAKER_00]: death associated with the house and like we discussed not one that you necessarily are that invested in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get why he would care.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna go down a little bit of a rabbit hole here.
[SPEAKER_03]: So um okay people might disagree with us and that's fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if people want to disagree with me I would love to hear the the
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just going to say that there are two unnecessary characters in this film.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I know one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, two of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you know both?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, go for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Luke is one of them, Luke is one of them, and Dr. Markway's wife, Grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know her name.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how important she is to the story.
[SPEAKER_03]: Grace served two purposes from my perspective.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and there.
[SPEAKER_03]: To be trapped in a room and to be utilized as a sort of jump scare later.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not saying I disagree, but can I provide another thought?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm open-minded, so, okay, okay, let me pause for a second here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, if we're going to like, truly go into this, I do think that there probably is more to it, regarding Eleanor's maybe interest in Dr. Markway and creating this sense of,
[SPEAKER_03]: damaging trust a little bit, but ultimately that maybe doesn't work for me, but I will turn it over to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way I sort of viewed this is going back to something we discussed earlier, and that's Eleanor searching for a family of her own searching for connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the house representing a new home, human connection, and family for Eleanor, and you know whether that's a relationship with Dr. Markway, a relationship with Theo, both irrelevant.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just represents the idea of a home and a family.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about this moment in which like Eleanor wants
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like no one's entering the nursery that room is off-limits and Eleanor can't go in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then later his wife shows up and she immediately is like, I'm gonna just sleep in the nursery and basically Dr. Mark White gives in and you know there's other events that lead to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the doors are wide open now and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she's now let into this room.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the nursery being, you know, this room that represents motherhood and a family, and from Eleanor's perspective, she probably feels like Grace is taking her place, has stolen, you know, her home, stolen her opportunity for family and connection, and that feeling that something that belonged to her has been taken away, given to Grace, probably heightens her instability, heightens
[SPEAKER_00]: anxieties and sort of pushes her further over the edge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, having said that, I agree with you, and I would also make the argument that introducing a character in our in 20 minutes into a hour and 50 minute movie is never a good idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the fact that they introduced her in the final act is certainly a sign that like,
[SPEAKER_00]: she's not going to serve much of a purpose other than plot really she's a device at that point it's not enough time to develop her as an actual character she kind of comes out of nowhere I would say introducing a character that late in the film is always a kind of a big red flag for me I understand you know everything that you said in regards to
[SPEAKER_03]: With that said, don't we already have going to establish character that we could have like leveraged or utilized in that role where Eleanor becomes more and more suspicious of Theo and there's things maybe happening with the house that almost gives Eleanor this impression that the house favors Theo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's where I'm going with this and I'm absolutely on your side.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just sort of playing devil's advocate a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think like I said I don't think it's a great idea to introduce her character so late and I think a better approach would have been to basically combine her character or like combine the purpose her character serves what little purpose there is combine that purpose with another character like Theo would be a better approach because then you're
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a character who's given a whole film to be developed and explored, so she's more than just a device, a plot device, she's a character, but also that time spent in proximity to Eleanor, the time they spent together, would only make the impact of that feeling and those emotions even more powerful and make that more impactful.
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess like if we wanted to keep the Luke character, I mean maybe that's the answer too, even though it's not a female character.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is going to be Luke's house he will own it at some point or he will take ownership of it at some point.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's maybe a threat to the house.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's any number of different approaches.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't necessarily love that specific idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily love this idea either, but here's a thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke as the future owner of the house, if he has plans to basically, let's say demolish the house and sell the property for some other development.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then Eleanor feels like she has to protect the house in some way to preserve its existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's that sort of dynamic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I've seen that in something so it feels sort of done and probably overdone and kind of cliche, but that would introduce a little conflict between Luke and Eleanor and give Luke a little purpose, maybe?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't actually think the film would be better for doing something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe, you and I love movies in which characters are just sitting in rooms talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we both love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's an example in which a large part of this movie is character sitting in rooms talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Luke is one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you just made Luke more interesting, prioritize making him a well-rounded, fully developed character.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, his presence would be welcome, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the fact that he's there, but he doesn't really do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really learn much about him, that he comes across as kind of like useless.
[SPEAKER_03]: If these are all individuals or characters in Eleanor's mind,
[SPEAKER_03]: maybe they are just representative of these other individuals that she knows she's experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you think they'd be a little bit more antagonistic?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, let's say she's paranoid and she's paranoid about all these other people and what they think of her or maybe they're not trustworthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I can't trust anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wouldn't her mind like take that to the most extreme place and these characters would be
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe like scheming behind her back or like they would be antagonistic in some way and he's just kind of fair not doing anything
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it a situation where, and I'm going to save Luke for last, is it a situation where Dr. Markway is almost this fatherly figure to her.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have Theo who is more of what Eleanor wishes that she was a little bit more of like that free spirited that Eleanor doesn't allow herself to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: Luke is sort of this representation of the men that she has experienced when she has been out.
[SPEAKER_03]: These not serious, like if we were to put it into like terms of a relationship at this point, she's maybe not interested in dating a man because this is her perception of what men are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all this talk we've had about what is the source of this paranormal activity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there ghosts in the house?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it a manifestation of Elinore's guilt?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it all in our head?
[SPEAKER_00]: For the conversation I want to have next, none of that matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just going to view this as a haunted house ghost story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about the depiction of the ghostly events.
[SPEAKER_00]: and just how I guess subtle they are for lack of a better word.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't see a single figure, a single creature.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all through sound, banging voices.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about earlier, there's the one scene in which the door is being pushed in from the outside and it's bending
[SPEAKER_00]: that's pretty much the extent of what we see as viewers, you know, I'm obviously brought back to the entity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's maybe a little unfair to the entity.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're different movies, but I think to the opening scene of the entity in which she's assaulted and just like within the first, you know, couple minutes of that film is just like all out.
[SPEAKER_00]: chaos in the music is pounding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's a scene in which we don't see anything either.
[SPEAKER_00]: The entity itself is not shown at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: But its approach is very heavy-handed and very loud and very aggressive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a film that handles it with some grace and some subtlety.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really appreciated that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: like I think the biggest like set piece of the movie is that scene where Eleanor runs up that spiral ladder.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bolt is like coming out of the wall and it's gonna fall and she's gonna get injured and Dr. Markway has to like go up there and and save her.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the biggest set piece of the movie almost.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe I'm missing something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Showed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me if I'm wrong here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's like the biggest sort of like,
[SPEAKER_00]: die.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a moment that it has anything to do with supernatural or the paranormal or these entities.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a, again, you can make the arguments the house, but really it's like a poorly maintained ladder in a 90 year old house.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing about it that screams this is paranormal, it's just a old ladder, and that's the big kind of extended set piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: that a movie about the paranormal, a movie about, quote, unquote, a haunted house, and some of the big events aren't even related to spirits or ghosts in any way, and we never really see a spirit visualize on camera in a way that we would normally in modern films.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that subtlety spoke to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, like a lot of this, like we talked about, it helps us make certain interpretations, it helps us view this whole film a certain way, but ultimately I just appreciate a film that's willing to show some restraint, I guess, in a world where films don't seem to do that very often.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially in horror.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember what my biggest complaint was with the entity?
[SPEAKER_03]: It was dumb.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, there's no escalation of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't feel like there is an escalation, but it doesn't feel like an escalation.
[SPEAKER_03]: It feels like like a consistent this is the attacks.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, in area that I do feel like this film is more successful is there is kind of that building tension or we see a character hitting a breaking point.
[SPEAKER_03]: where basically the last half hour or so.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a character reaching their breaking point and it's all been building towards this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I like that a little bit more with this.
[SPEAKER_03]: there is a lot of the things that we don't see and I think we're in agreement that the things that we don't see, especially when it comes to film are the scarier things because those are open to our own imaginations.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been doing my best to not reference too many times the 1999 version.
[SPEAKER_03]: I
[SPEAKER_03]: the things that stand out about like the quote unquote like scary haunting pieces of that film that at least I remember from years ago when I last watched it are those things that we actually see where statues move like the turning of like heads on statues.
[SPEAKER_03]: Personally, I don't find that scary.
[SPEAKER_03]: I find it scary when we don't know what something is.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's that's tormenting.
[SPEAKER_03]: In this one, in this version, without any form of movement of like these statues that are like strewn all over the house, there is this unsettling discomforting
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, of course, part of that is like the cinematography, but that's also set design.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's, you know, whether it be things that existed or brought in, it creates that feel in that atmosphere.
[SPEAKER_03]: The only other thing that I think does kind of stand out, that's maybe interesting or unique.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they go back to this shot a couple times, and I respectfully, I would too.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a conversation about how the production achieved the spiral staircase shot.
[SPEAKER_03]: And utilizing the Gaddaily set up on the handrail as the actors would walk up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that this is like one of the more unique and creative like shots.
[SPEAKER_03]: I bring this up because it is a little bit more flashier, a little bit more showy, but at the same time it's not as as simple as just okay, we're going to dolly up and we're going to set it here because that would be very, I guess.
[SPEAKER_03]: easy filmmaking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna get a little off topic here, but there was a statement made on that commentary track that stood out to me where somebody had commented how Robert Wise, his experience as an editor, resulted in him only shooting what he knew he needed.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I may be paraphrasing a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you know, we've we've talked about how I go back to our a gear either
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not garbage collectors, we're doing the next end, I'm just getting Joe, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had not garbage collectors, we have filled makers, that's Arnold, okay, sorry, I failed at that.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a particularness, there's a focus on I'm not going to overshoot this, I'm not going to get all of this coverage that I don't need or you know over complicate this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know these are the shots that I need or want to really sell this effect.
[SPEAKER_03]: We know this, I often talk about it, like, one of the things that I struggle with is editing, because, like, my patience, the meticulous nature,
[SPEAKER_03]: And I do think that's that's a falter of flaw that I have, but if you are an editor, I think it helps you think differently about what you're capturing when it comes to a film like this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And just in general, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: when it comes to that particular dolly shot up the stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor's on the balcony and the camera is high above like in the tower and then it flies down at her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she almost falls off the balcony and Dr. Marquilla catches her.
[SPEAKER_00]: their shots were, you know, the camera will dramatically push in very quickly, like all these very flashy showy camera moves.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of those things that we talked about earlier how the film is sort of a mix of old fashion filmmaking and then stuff that feels very fresh and new at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in 63 something that was bold and maybe inspired by
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of the French New Wave in which they were using film techniques that drew attention to the fact that you were watching a film, camera moves, jump cuts and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things that were breaking these traditional film rules, saying that everything needed to be invisible and strictly serving the narrative of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they kind of throw all that out the window or doing these these big expressive things that made the audience aware or reminded the audience that they were watching a movie and Robert Wise does that in this film as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is also serving a purpose, I think it's doing so much to communicate that this house is
[SPEAKER_00]: living and breathing and watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to interpret the film another way in which this is all happening in Eleanor's head, then it's just another visualization or manifestation of
[SPEAKER_00]: Eleanor Seiki in which she's being watched and she's paranoid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I was expecting so much of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, not that the film is like you said.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like the whole film is like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every shot is like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sort of comes in bursts and Robert Wise slucks his moments very carefully for these types of techniques, but I didn't quite expect so much of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were certain shots that opened up the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like during that opening sort of montage,
[SPEAKER_00]: with the voice over about the house that I thought were very interesting the way Robert Wise would frame a shot and then something would fall into frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a very interesting technique.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean there's two obvious examples of this after the carriage crashes into the tree.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the wife is killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like a close-up on the broken wheel and her sort of lifeless hand falls into frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other one is the caretaker walking up those stairs and the camera sort of pans to the left to look in empty frame and then her legs fall into frame and dangled there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That honestly was like a highlight to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I loved that shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's just really good visual storytelling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's very striking, framing and composition, and I just, um, those were shots that really stood out to me using movement to reveal something, um, and, you know, you can do that with camera movement, or you can do that with movement within the frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's an example of it being essentially static shots and movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: falling into frame to reveal something and communicate something I thought was just really good filmmaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing those relevant is in the commentary rubber wise talks about wanting a wider
[SPEAKER_00]: angle lens and contacting Panavision and getting a, like a basically a prototype of a 28 millimeter lens and they were reluctant to let him use it because it had obvious distortion in the picture and he was like that's perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want distortion and he basically had a sign a waiver just to be able to use it, but him using that lens to create this sort of distortion in the environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just a great example of a filmmaker using equipment flaws to their advantage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we talk about a filmmaker using limitations to their advantage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's another example of like, if you know those flaws, you can exploit them for your own purposes and get something really interesting and really great filmmakers find a way to
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess exploit limitations, problems, or flawed equipment.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the fact that it was, I'm good to test out and try this thing that may not work, but based off of the information you're giving me, I'm going to make it work and it might actually help and enhance the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other interesting thing is like you're working in the time period where you don't know if it worked right away either.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like you're filming digital where you immediately can look at that image and go, oh, yeah, this doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to basically shoot everything, at least a full day before you get any daily's back and you can have all that's a process and screened that you can even see if it worked or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's even a bigger, bolder risk back then when you are shooting at film.
[SPEAKER_03]: my final thoughts really are the fact that this is a film that I appreciate.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a significant amount of respect for it's tough for me to say but I feel like I sort of lump this in with some
[SPEAKER_03]: another film that I kind of thought a lot about when I was watching this that we covered was actually possession.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you've listened to our episodes on those those two films you may know that maybe I was in super high on those two.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not super high on this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a good film.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do this isn't necessarily a problem with the film but this is maybe a problem with me where
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what it could have done that would have maybe reached the heights of like the expectations that maybe I had going into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a good film.
[SPEAKER_03]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_03]: It just didn't fully come together for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would echo most of your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a film that has a lot I like about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think overall, it's a film that doesn't fully work for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That being said, I think it is a film that is a great film to discuss with somebody that you like talking movies with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, sort of like a film club type of movie where you can debate interpretations and things like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think you're absolutely right on this one because
[SPEAKER_03]: I enjoyed talking about this film with you a lot more than I actually enjoyed watching the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: This experience overall has made me want to learn more about Shirley Jackson and explore a lot of her work that I am largely unfamiliar with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe, any, I know you mentioned earlier that there wasn't necessarily a lot of supplemental or background info, but is there anything that stood out too?
[SPEAKER_03]: we've talked a bit about the commentary track.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think to me that's probably worth checking out and listening to.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a few things on YouTube that are maybe relevant upwill link to all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: DGA Q&A says it's from 1993 with Robert Wise, Russ Tamblin, and Nelson getting about
[SPEAKER_00]: content is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously quite a bit of overlap between what you're going to get in the audio commentary and what's covered in this interview, but there's a couple other little things, little perspectives on how the film came to be and experiences while making it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd recommend that that will be links in the show notes, but there hasn't really been a lot that I've
[SPEAKER_00]: able to find about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it kind of feels like a miracle that there's even a commentary track.
[SPEAKER_00]: One that I shared with you, Joe, is from the Blu-ray, but I think that's from the original DVD release.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and you can tell everyone what just sounds so old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but so it's kind of like a miracle that there's even that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Any takeaways as a film fan or even as a filmmaker?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think my takeaway with this episode is the obvious way to look at this is this applies only to horror, but I don't think it really does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this applies to filmmaking in general and you can find ways that this is relevant to all different types of filmmaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: The takeaway is to not show everything, to allow some mystery to remain and allow the audience to sort of fill in that mystery with their own interpretation, or their own imagination.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what they bring to it is going to be specific to them, what they imagine is going
[SPEAKER_00]: More impactful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to resonate more with this particular film obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about hiding the source of the banging But when I'm watching it, I'm imagining Something that is very specific to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone else is going to imagine something that's very specific to them Something that scares them maybe the most
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're watching the same piece of art, but we're getting two very different experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think you can apply that to other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, here's an example.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the film that we're still working on, there were several scenes in which notes were in the film.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had written a note for another character.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had conversations about, do we get a close-up of the note?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we want to see what that note says?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think ultimately we decided that sometimes you will sometimes you won't, but that's a situation where if you hide the content of that note, the viewer can fill in what that note says for themselves and they can bring their own experiences to that and that can maybe resonate with them a little bit more than some generic message on a note or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's an example of how this maybe applies to horror, but it can also apply to any type of filmmaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's my takeaway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just allow some mystery to remain and allow the viewer to fill in those gaps themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe, do you have any takeaways from the haunting?
[SPEAKER_00]: Either as a film gore or a filmmaker?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we talked frequently about like the filmmaking techniques, the things that you do for certain genres to sell effects and everything like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the haunting is a good reminder of the importance of sound design when it comes to horror films.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think what gets misconstrued in that, honestly, is something that we talked about earlier where there's a reliance on
[SPEAKER_03]: music with like a visual jump scare.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like the haunting is different in this regard where it's not dependent on music.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is some dependence on like visuals, but where the tension I think comes from a bit and where some of the scare elements are rooted in
[SPEAKER_03]: you can absolutely use music to enhance those scares, the attention, you can absolutely use that music to manipulate your audience into the feelings and emotions that you want them to have.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when it comes down to it, this film demonstrates a very reserved approach to tension.
[SPEAKER_03]: And while I didn't necessarily love this film while watching it, I do feel like this is a great film, and a film that's absolutely worth watching and dissecting from a technique perspective.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think just reinforcing, refocusing on and sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright Joe, what do you want our next episode is your selection, and I'm very eager to hear what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was looking at our schedule, our release schedule for 2025, and since we began this podcast every year, we have covered a film.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, Justin's like, oh, okay, I think I know we're going.
[SPEAKER_03]: every year we have covered a film from a specific director.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a filmmaker that I think that we both have an appreciation for that I might want us to discuss another one of his films.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, Justin, do you know who I'm talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: I assume Edward Yang.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm gonna just actually throw a little bit of a curve ball here and I'm gonna say that we are going to talk about in my opinion, the worst Edward Yang film.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna talk about Mashaang.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do know that people actually really like this film and every time I've watched it, my appreciation for it has grown.
[SPEAKER_03]: I still like it the least of his filmography.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd like to like actually revisit it in an analytical setting like we kind of provide.
[SPEAKER_03]: and just talk through it with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited, good pick.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for listening to this discussion about robberalizes the haunting, subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your pods.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to support the show,
[SPEAKER_03]: Drop us a review on Apple Podcast and share us with someone who might enjoy us.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to let us know whether you agree or disagree with our opinions on the film, or if you have any thoughts or questions about the show, you can email us at scenebyscenepodcast at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Justin Johnson on Letterbox, Joe is seen by scene Joe.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to follow us, links will be in the description.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Sean, you don't have to look at the set anymore.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, the movie's over.
[SPEAKER_06]: Your movie was over, that's what you said.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's nothing going on in movies right now.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great movie, huh?
[SPEAKER_08]: So we're freshing to see something like this after all these cop movies.
[SPEAKER_08]: Have you seen a lot of movies here?
[SPEAKER_08]: But are you so crazy about movies forever?
[SPEAKER_08]: Obviously, they don't watch enough movies.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's part of your problem, you know?
[SPEAKER_08]: You haven't seen enough movies.
[SPEAKER_08]: All of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you have any experience in motion pictures?
[SPEAKER_08]: Quite a bit of experience.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm an active renter at Blockbuster.
[SPEAKER_08]: I love the fact that you did all this work.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think it will help you later.
[SPEAKER_08]: But not on this one.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sorry, could we cut?
[SPEAKER_08]: Still rolling.
[SPEAKER_08]: You're like, who not still rolling?
[SPEAKER_08]: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut