First of all I love this movie and I think Ingrid Bergman was great. However, did anyone else find it painful to watch her almost to the point of her being annoying? Even though I feel that way about her, it adds to the suspense of the movie. Strange! I've never felt that way about a character in a film that I like before.
share[deleted]
I disagree completely, she did a fantastic job in this film!
Dorothy: Ah, you're first kiss was in the rain?
Blanche: No it was in the shower.
IMO it was painful to watch her, as she did a great job of acting like she was in pain....
Urania to Terpsichore: "You're so quiet. Musing????"
This is a woman who thinks either she's going crazy or that there is someone/something out to get her. For what reason do you think this wouldn't be an emotionally painful experience?
Bergman gives a raw, truthful and intense performance appropriate to the emotional journey of the character.
It's a disturbing film and frustrating for some who feel that abuse should be confronted.
That is a great observation. The film very effective without having any of the usual situation you see in films these days.
shareIf this were to be remade, I think I'd spend less time showing the wife as a simp that doesn't realize that her husband it messing with her head, and more time on a revenge plot. While watching Bergman, I kept thinking 'you really can't be this stupid, can you?'. The frustration level was high.
shareBut the reality is that even now with all the feminist propaganda numberless women, and many men, stand for endless abuse....it is not necessarily a sign of stupidity, but psychological
weakness. The craving for love, along with widespread delusion, makes such "stupidity" inevitable.
Oh Bergman´s annoying alright, playing the character as this meekly submissive, whimpering moron so breathlessly in love for some reason that she can´t see the dude acted like a count from Transylvania even before she married him. Of course, the narrative requires her to be a trusting nitwit in order to work, but still her behaviour, the way she kept believing her very obviously dishonest and scheming hubby, stretched the believability well beyond the breaking point. She pretty much had to be insane, although in different ways, in order to believe all that crap the guy kept insinuating. Of course, Bergman played a lot of similar roles of mousy, helpless dames of semi-self inflicted distress, just as almost all of female actresses of the era did. And the Academy was a sucker for this kinda thing, awarding Bergman an Oscar here and another one for an identical performance for Joan Fontaine (who was, of course, the main gal when such dim witted weaklings needed to be played) in Suspicion. There´s a reasonable amount of sense in Gaslight, but since Miss Bergman´s so damn grating to watch, it´s difficult to rate this pic higher than 6/10. When it comes to films featuring nightmare husbands after their wives´ fortune and life, the 1952 Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford and Jack Palance is somewhat superior to this.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
You are right, it is difficult to believe she could be so stupid. Personally I believe in reality most people are as stupid as they want to be. However, I can see how it could go on for a while especially considering the era in which the film takes place. Women had very little say in anything and to be fair she was in love. It would be difficult (for a while anyway) for her to believe he would or could treat her that way. Love makes you think that the person you are in love with feels the same way. That the one you love could never hurt you as you would never purposely them. I thought the casting of Angela Lansbury was brilliant in this film as she actually helped perpetuate and validate the feeling that Paula could be losing her mind.
shareSure, being in love goes some ways and it´s obviously too horrible to even consider that you´re just being used... and later probably discarded one way or another. But Bergman´s innocent naivete would certainly have been a whole lot more believable had Boyer played it with more ambivalence, the way Grant did in Suspicion where no one can really be 100% sure as to what the no-good hubby really has in mind (even if his planning a murder looks far more likely than the opposite). There are a few instances in particular where Boyer´s behaviour is so bizarre, and his subsequent explanations so awkward, that even the most foolish woman in the world would become suspicious.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I agree, franz, Boyer's cold and too-obvious fakeness is the weak link here. George Cukor let him get away with it, unfortunately. Should have been more subtle and less calculatingly over-the-top.
"Did you make coffee...? Make it!"--Cheyenne.
Do you really have no concept of historical perspective? Your comments regarding her gullibility are equal to if you had asked why she didn't fly to France.
shareYeah, she is supposed to be in pain. She thinks she's going mad. We are supposed to feel her pain. One of Ingrid's rare "weak" women--although she manages to rally against Boyer at the end.
shareMight I point out one of the things RL abusive people is to limit the (let's say the wife)'s contact with their concern family members or friends "Who X hasn't called in awhile they don't see to care about you"? They also will control the victim's money, in the modern world they will not let the victim go to work/school. An example of domestic abuse would be those teenage girls who became "Lovely Ladies of the Night" (ie red light district). Another example is Melaine-just w/o the gaslighting. http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/11/02/brother-testifies-at-trial-of-father-charged-in-death-of-girl-found-in-suitcase.html
shareI think it's important to remember that in the time period this was set, women in particular didn't have the experience and knowledge they have today. There was no daily women's programming on TV or radio, nor even books that would help them recognise the sort of monster she was being manipulated by.
Imagine if someone today grew up without access to books, TV or radio - they would have the same degree of naivety, and would easily fall victim to this form of abuse.
thank you michaeldecker.
Oh, they had access to *books* all right. Books were a very big part of the lives of the upper classes in the 19th century!
(Even the working class probably did more reading then than working people do today, as they had so few other options for entertainment---not NONE, but few.)
But in every time period, some people have less self-confidence than others do. Paula seemed to have relatively little self-confidence and depended upon the approval of others. She was a person who needed love, and wasn't going to get any from that sociopath she was married to.