Im Not In Love With You Anymore

“I’m not in love with you anymore”

The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001) and the colour yellow

It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946)

“Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings! Love, Clarence”

One of Hitchcock’s repeatedly used narrative techniques was the concept of libido ripping it’s way through to reality, this is seen in Vertigo (1958) and The Birds (1963). However, Psycho (1960) provides a different narrative technique.

Psycho can be read as a film solely about the repression of our true desires and how horrific the release of our “Id” can be. Norman Bates acts as the embodiment of the classic Hitchcockian film whereas, Norma Bates acts as the films repressive figure. The ambiguity regarding Norman’s identity towards the end of the film further proves this, if only Norma exists than the only thing we can truly do is repress our desires as society rejects the freedom of our Id. Norma’s final actions prove this as she states, “I’m not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching… they’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know, and they’ll say, “Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly…”. This highlights how important repressing actions is to her character.

Whilst The Birds find it’s narrative progression through the freeing of our desires, Psycho (and definitely, Vertigo) highlights the horror of male desire and how the world cannot exist along with desire becoming reality.

Is family the biggest horror of all? Discussing The Witch (Eggers, 2016)

Modern Horror, at times, misuses the notion of Family, films like Maggie (Hobson, 2015), Poltergeist (Kenan, 2015) and The Conjuring (Wan, 2013) are just some films that use family as an empowering theme. In these films, our hero fights the Monster for the sake of the family because family is always safe, always strong and always there. This is why the start of The Witch appears too slow because the audience does not suspect the family at all, all Eggers provides the audience with is the beginning of a tale. The film immediately invokes sympathy with them, they are banished from their village and forced to go it alone in the forest. The characters are easy to identify with, the use of old language can put some spectators off but fundamentally, Eggers encourages the audience to understand this Puritan family as our own. At the core of this film is a family coming to terms with loss but this, by no means, suggests that the family is innocent. The Witch shows that horror starts at home and by the halfway point of the narrative, the audience loses all sense of family values.

The audience is forced to experience this film with the characters and once they leave the Village, the setting switches between the forest and their new makeshift home. The use of long shots connotes that the family is completely alone, they only have each other and their Puritan religion to keep them going. This is one of the most interesting aspects about the film, as all they have is each other, they quick to turn and suspect one another. The audience shares the narrative experience with the family, both completely unsure about when and where the horror will emerge from. Will it be from the Witch in the forest or will it be from inside the family which is being torn apart in front of the audience’s eyes?. As the narrative progresses, the audience clearly suspects the latter more. It is interesting to add in here that this film is set in 1630, yet family is still a questionable structure to this day. A 2009 FBI report stated that 25% of murders take place within the family and furthermore, over half of all murder victims know their killer. The Witch shows that fear does not come from the ambiguous creature who lives in the forest, it comes from the people who are “supposed” to love you unconditionally. The terror each family member feels is caused by a sense of loss and confusion with their relatives, their own flesh and blood whom they suspect is terrorising them.

The Witch is a film that lingers on the mind and after viewing it I was completely unsure how I felt. The audience is immediately put on edge and the strategic use of intermittent blank screens makes us wait in fear for the next potential scare. The film is more of a tale than a horror movie, the narrative is incredibly rich and engaging but the best thing about this film is its use of family. The Witch challenges the notion of family, family traps you, family suspects you and ultimately, family can kill you.

Frank (Abrahamson, 2014)

“We’ll have many productive seasons here”

Rushmore (Anderson, 1998)

“Tell that stupid Mick he just made my list of things to do today”