The Night of the hunter

the Night of the hunter ( The night off the hunter ) is a American film carried out by Charles Laughton in 1955.

Synopsis

At the time of a short stay in prison, Pasteur Harry Powell has like companion of cell Ben Harper, a desperate man who, to save his family, made a holdup and assassinated two men. Powell seeks to make say To grip where the 10.000 concealed dollars are, but this one does not yield. The fanatic preacher goes to the widow To grip who was hung. Willa Harper is not long in marrying the man of the church, not wanting to see that this last wants only one thing: to make acknowledge in his/her children, John and Pearl, the site of the nest egg.

Comment

It is the single film carried out, with the the United States, by the British actor Charles Laughton, superstar of the screen. Starting from a situation built on the dichotomies (the good it badly, the adults them children, the day harms it, the external studio-the, etc), Laughton carried out a work with share, complex, unclassable, single, borrowing as well from the western as with black film or the nightmarish tale for child, whose fantastic one is never far. The commercial failure of film prevented Laughton from carrying out other films.

The scenario of film is based on a novel of the same title of the writer and American scenario writer Davis Grubb, published in 1953.

Data sheet

Distribution

Around film

  • Star of the dumb man, in particular in films of D.W. Griffith, Lillian Gish (1893 - 1993) finds one of its speaking roles here most outstanding. It is époustouflante in the skin of this nanny of character living only surrounded of the children and teenagers whom it collected.
  • Robert Mitchum directed the children in their scenes because Charles Laughton particularly did not have affection for the kids.
  • It is the bad reception of film by the public which made give up Laughton carrying out another film thereafter.
  • Later, Mitchum would have said the Night of the hunter that it was, among the films in which he played, its favorite.
  • Laughton proposed the role of the reverend Powell to Gary Cooper, which refused it. Mitchum as for him was auditioned for the role.
  • Robert Mitchum was openly scorning with Shelley Winters on turning. He wanted that Laughton uses the body of the actress for the scene where one finds the car in the lake.

Analyzes

If this film is an uncontested chief of work of the cinema, regularly classified in first preferred films of criticisms, the Night of the hunter is before a whole jewel with share. Its black and white scintillating, its soft music and terrifying, its interpreters at the top of their art make a poetic work of it and more still, lyrique.
S' it is films which one says that it gets clear " something " , that of Laughton does not leave us unscathed. Easy, it uses children for victim of a ex-prisoner! So only… The children - and especially the little boy, terribly convincing - are other thing that victims, they have a strength of character as it is known to them, the fear makes them all the more luke-warm as they are accustomed to being it and the tenderizing which they cause is larger still when diabolic Powell frantically becomes unverifiable.

The scene in the house, after the disappearance of the mother, is of a tension, a madness and of a terror indescriptibles.
Mais when the children fall asleep in their boat letting itself carry by the river, the size of the scenario writer and the magic beauty of this tale explodes radically with the eyes. The more so as the second part of film is remarkable, in particular by confrontation between Lillian Gish as a protective shepherdess vis-a-vis the wolf Robert Mitchum.
The confrontation between Rachel Cooper and Harry Powell is also that of two Spiritualité S personal Religiosité S all, opposition which is symbolized in the scene where each one interprets its own version of the song Leaning one the everlasting ARM , whose reverend Powell forgets words.

This film does not want to be to in no case a realistic account. It is of a tale, a dream, or rather about a nightmare whose malfaisant genius borrows the features of Robert Mitchum, and whose good fairy is not other than very large Lilian Gish. Between them, two children. The tale is for them. And for the amazed spectators of such an amount of beauty and terror, which will remain forever these children deriving with the wire from the river in an artificial decoration from a poetry to cut the breath. Because this tale is also a splendid graphic poem.

Black and white of Stanley Cortez (photographer, amongst other things of " The Splendor of Amberson" of Orson Welles), its contrasts light/shade, its compositions expressionnists, its obvious homages to the cinema of Griffith, remains one of the most notable marks of film.

The telescoping of this visual poetry (makes the glance of the two children of it on the history) with the quiet, brutal and carnal force of Mitchum, is another key to include/understand this impression of fascination and faintness which invades to us during this hour and half of shivers. Because the fear governs the vision of " The Night of Chasseur".

External bonds

  • Fiche IMDB
  • One r' makes the film (blog)

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