(Symbolically, this isolation is also like how imperialism economically isolates such countries as Cuba by imposing embargoes on them, to bring an end to the regimes of those ‘brutal dictators’.) The servants believe she’s ill, too, and are cool towards her, upsetting her all the more. The servants honestly deny any knowledge of the gaslight dimming (just as the average worker doesn’t know of the ruling class’s tricks), and Gregory pretends not to know either for it is he who is dimming it–hence the term ‘gaslighting’.Īlways claiming Paula is ill, Gregory never lets her out of the house to be sociable, like a typical emotional abuser. This frightens her, for she has no idea who is causing it to dim. When he leaves her alone in the house, ostensibly to go out somewhere and work on composing classical music, but actually to sneak up into the attic from the back to search for the jewels, she notices the gaslight dimming in the rooms. He reveals her ‘forgotten thefts’ with a cruel frown, causing her to be frightened and hysterical. He does this by deliberately moving items when she isn’t looking, then claiming she took them and forgot she had. Gregory, who–as I see it–represents bourgeois imperialism, tricks Paula, who represents both the proletariat and those ‘brutal dictators’ that imperialism wants to remove, into thinking she is a forgetful kleptomaniac. Since Patrick Hamilton had communist sympathies, especially in the late 1930s, when he wrote Gas Light, I feel at least some justification in making a leftist allegory out of this movie. Remember that, just as an emotional abuser often controls his victim’s finances, imperialism deliberately stifles the economic growth of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This ruthless searching for treasure, violating other people’s property in the process, reminds us of the plunder of the Third World for resources, diamonds, etc., by Western imperialists. In another scene, we see him in the attic, searching furiously for those jewels, using a knife to hack through the cushion of the back of an old chair in a desperate hope to find them (about an hour and a half into the movie). In one scene, he speaks of his great lust for precious jewels (about a half-hour into the movie). Normally, emotional abuse is used on a victim for the purpose of having power and control over him or her but Gregory, or Sergius Bauer, to use his real name, only wants to get rid of Paula so he can freely search about that old house, to find the coveted items he killed Alquist to steal–her jewels. It is from this film that the term ‘ gaslighting‘ originated, for the villain, Gregory Anton (Boyer), uses this very tactic–tricking his wife, Paula (Bergman), into doubting her own perception, memory, and sanity by staging bizarre scenarios for her–in an elaborate scheme to drive her mad, have her committed to an insane asylum, then take possession of her old London house, originally owned by her aunt, Alice Alquist, whom he murdered years before. The film got a total of seven Oscar nominations.
The film was also nominated for Best Picture, and it won Best Art Direction. Fortunately, the original film wasn’t ever destroyed, but this 1944 version still eclipsed it.īergman won her first Academy Award for Best Actress with this movie, while Boyer was nominated for Best Actor, and Angela Lansbury was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
Gaslight movie movie#
Another movie version was done in 1940, adhering more closely to the original play but when MGM did the 1944 remake so soon after this first film, they wanted to have all existing prints of it destroyed. It was directed by George Cukor, and based on the 1938 stage play Gas Light, written by Patrick Hamilton. Loosely adapted from Batman: Gotham by Gaslight comic book.Gaslight is a 1944 thriller film starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten, and co-starring Angela Lansbury and Dame May Whitty.Kari Wuhrer - Barbara Gordon, Pamela "Ivy" Isley.
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