Was she a true medium or a scam artist? - Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) Discussion

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

I think she was scamming herself.

Matthew

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[–] psdhart 12 years ago

Someone has an interesting theory here http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058557/board/nest/30685368?p=1

If so, this is one wild plot: the evil ghost of a stillborn baby influences his psychic mother and henpecked father to kidnap and murder a girl. His dad doesn't believe in him, and secretly saves the girl. Arthur betrays his parents by spilling the beans during a seance attended by suspicious police.

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[–] AmbientD2 12 years ago

Could be, however if he was an evil ghost, what changed him to become a friendly one? Did they answer?

..I'll get my cape...

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[–] thatguy_78757 12 years ago

yes, scamming herself

she is plagued with grief and guilt over her dead baby and thinks (makes herself think?) its talking to her and giving her psychic information.

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[–] solmaquina 11 years ago

It's very common for "spirit mediums" to become good enough at cold reading and getting a strong sense of intuition that they "go rogue" as the industry calls it. This means that they start to believe in their own powers despite them not being supernatural or anything like that. I felt that this film was trying to portray that from the character - although it was left ambiguous.

Art is a lie that tells the truth.

http://twitter.com/solmaquina

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[–] loisbcuz-1 10 years ago

The scene where she was perfectly normal after "fainting" was an example of what a phony she was since she just wanted the mother of the girl to leave the house so that she wouldn't discover her there. She certainly wasn't expecting to have a real psychic experience when her dead son came through.

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[–] nutritionist 10 years ago

I think you do not understand that at the end she actually had a real psychic experience, she "saw" that the child was not dead. Her mother and aunt were psychics and used to torment her as child for not being able to "see" psychically. At the very end, ironically, she actually finally achieved the gift of psychic ability she so craved, only to turn both of them in.

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[–] ObscureAuteur 10 years ago

She is obviously a scam artist since there are no true mediums in real life. Period.

The fact she would insist on committing a crime to boost her reputation seems to seal that fact nicely. That she would go further to having the victim killed moves her from scam artist to psychopath. The first victim of her scam may well be herself if she actually believes that she has "the gift". It is apparent from the story she is partly deluded or even insane, and partly manipulative predator.

Houdini desperately wanted to believe in the occult in order to communicate with his dead mother. In many attempts he only found frauds that he could easily expose. He was unwilling and unable to con himself no matter how much he wanted to believe. I find that to be quite enough. That others willingly accept these frauds lacking both the expertise and character to do otherwise is no support for such phenomena being real. Let the "true" medium today submit to examination by Penn Jillette.

CB

Good Times, Noodle Salad

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[–] nutritionist 10 years ago

The point of the movie, the twist at the end, is that she read her husbands mind at the end, she has a psychic episode while holding Billy's hand, she read his mind, she saw the child was under a tree not dead. That is the irony since her crazy plot was to gain fame and accolades by proving to the world that she was a real psychic, and to make herself feel like a hero, since she was mocked and humiliated as a child by her mother for not being psychic like they were. This was the psychology behind her psychosis. She was a psychopath and had no intention of ever returning the child from the beginning.

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[–] PrometheusTree64 10 years ago

She is obviously a scam artist since there are no true mediums in real life. Period.

I'm agnostic on the subject of mediums, but anyone who finishes their assertion with "period" doesn't help his point.

Let the "true" medium today submit to examination by Penn Jillette.

This doesn't help your point either, as Penn Jillette is an imposition on the human race. For many reasons.

In fact, ObscureAuteur, I think you've just single-handedly convinced me that mediums do exist. So, thanks.

--

Non-sequiturs are delicious.

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[–] Silent_Larry 9 years ago

She is obviously a scam artist since there are no true mediums in real life.

Well, I'm inclined to agree with the second part of your statement, as I am very skeptical of all that psychic nonsense.

However, you may be surprised to learn that being a skeptic does not require you to abandon "suspension of disbelief" while watching a movie, in particular this movie, which comes under the heading of something called fiction.

I would be tempted to explain that fanciful and even impossible things are not against the rules of fiction, if there are rules, and indeed this sort of stuff can make a fictional story quite entertaining. But I fear I would be wasting my time.

I suppose one could watch say, THE SHINING or THE UNINVITED and conclude that within the context of the story, there is real-world fakery going on, and that the characters are all dupes of unseen pranksters who are never revealed in the course of the film. Gads. It must suck to go to the movies with you.

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[–] ObscureAuteur 9 years ago

I don't think suspension of disbelief applies in this case. This movie is not about psychic phenomena, it is about the consequences of a fraud that gets out of hand. So even in context she is not a "true medium" because in the movie's world, like ours, there is no such thing.

CB

Good Times, Noodle Salad

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[–] Silent_Larry 9 years ago

I think you are making a leap, making conclusions not supported by the dialog quoted in this thread (admittedly I had a very hard time following while watching, due to audio quality issues which seemed to have the worst effect on Kim Stanley's voice when muttering and such), not to mention that the psychic angle is (apparently) made very clear in the book.

IMHO as to the movie, seems to me like the best skeptic's case one could make is that it's setup such that she could be psychic. I don't see that in the movie's world, this is ruled out. Rather feels more like they wanted to serve up a dose of irony at the end; i.e. the fake finally getting her "woo-woo" on and it exposes their guilt.

You want to make examples of the real world, I don't see why this should constrain a work of fiction, which sometimes deviate from the real world rules as the author likes. I'm getting the impression that you feel the entire movie must be steeped in fantasy in order to tolerate any level of paranormal content. You're of course entitled to your opinion, but I can't see this as anything but a subjective case.

Oh well. Kudos to you for your calm reply. I woke up this morning feeling I'd overdone the late-night snark.

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[–] PrometheusTree64 9 years ago

I think you are making a leap, making conclusions not supported by the dialog quoted in this thread (admittedly I had a very hard time following while watching, due to audio quality issues which seemed to have the worst effect on Kim Stanley's voice when muttering and such), not to mention that the psychic angle is (apparently) made very clear in the book.

Exactly right.

And in the movie, she seems to know, at the last seance, that her husband did not kill the girl as planned and claimed. And she's pissed about it.

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[–] Silent_Larry 9 years ago

Thanks.

I'm finding this thread a little weird as there are several posters who seem to be basing their interpretation of this fictional work based solely on what they perceive the real world to be.

We have hardcore skeptics concluding "not psychic", and true believers concluding "psychic", subtleties of dialog be damned.

In more general instances, I've noticed that people (including sometimes me) don't like movies to be ambiguous about things like this (paranormal; possible or not). I just try to enjoy it as I can.

Counting myself as what I would call an "agnostic" skeptic, I appreciate the fact that while the ending has a bit of ironic paranormal content, the film does a good job of showing the fakery that goes on.

IMHO, even if there were real psychic stuff going on in this world, the the job of trying to evaluate any kind of paranormal stuff is made harder by the "noise level" generated by both the fakers and the "true believers". There are hordes of people who seem to have no use for critical thinking, and are easily fooled by someone who is clearly a charlatan performing well known, carny-grade tricks. If there is good evidence out there, it is well buried in the noise. But I digress...

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[–] PrometheusTree64 9 years ago

Thanks.

I'm finding this thread a little weird as there are several posters who seem to be basing their interpretation of this fictional work based solely on what they perceive the real world to be.

We have hardcore skeptics concluding "not psychic", and true believers concluding "psychic", subtleties of dialog be damned.

In more general instances, I've noticed that people (including sometimes me) don't like movies to be ambiguous about things like this (paranormal; possible or not). I just try to enjoy it as I can.

Counting myself as what I would call an "agnostic" skeptic, I appreciate the fact that while the ending has a bit of ironic paranormal content, the film does a good job of showing the fakery that goes on.

IMHO, even if there were real psychic stuff going on in this world, the the job of trying to evaluate any kind of paranormal stuff is made harder by the "noise level" generated by both the fakers and the "true believers". There are hordes of people who seem to have no use for critical thinking, and are easily fooled by someone who is clearly a charlatan performing well known, carny-grade tricks. If there is good evidence out there, it is well buried in the noise. But I digress...

Precisely. Everybody's a fundamentalist, regardless of whether they're a believer or a non-believer. So no dialogue seems possible.

I, for one, am in the middle on the entire issue of clairvoyance. And while I tend to suspect that a legit, real-life psychic (if there are such things) would never be wasting their time on evil pursuits like kidnapping and child murder, I accept the premise because a movie is fiction.

That's not to say that we shouldn't have standards of logic for fiction, too, but that standard should be determined by whether or not the fiction's internal logic works in context, and, for me, it does work in SEANCE well enough --- at least, well enough for me to go along with it and not have to scream either "she's not psychic because there are no psychics!" or even "a true psychic would never kill children!" (even though I lean torwards the latter).

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[–] EyeAskance 10 years ago

I've always believed that her psychic abilities were, to at least some degree, real. The kidnapping scheme had to be devised, because only in a high-media-profile case would she ever become "noticed". That said, such a scenario would have to be formulated.

The "plan" was criminal and dishonest, but that certainly doesn't mean that there was no truth to her clairvoyance. I believe it is made pretty clear that there were, indeed, genuine psychic capacities there all along. The trouble was that they manifested within an emotionally wounded and unstable host(you can't pick up clear reception on a broken radio, but that doesn't mean there was never a broadcast).

As for Arthur...well, I'd say this part is ambiguous. She certainly did have a connection with him...was he a figment of damaged mind, a genuine spirit, or possibly both? Tough to say, but endlessly interesting to speculate on.

Butt out of this or I’ll strip the hide off your cherry picker!

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[–] nedhorn 9 years ago

In the book it is absolutely clear that she is a medium. The ending of the book, which is much more satisfying than the movie's, hinges on that fact.

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