I've watched this many times over the years and there is something I never clued into until watching it tonight. Why was Cora's notebook in the attic room along with Joseph's wheelchair? Sorry if the answer is obvious, sometimes it takes me a while
shareI've always wondered that too. Maybe Cora sometimes took her diary up to the attic room and played with her imaginary friend, Joseph. It's fun to speculate on.
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"House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!"
Either it was her play-room, or it was her bedroom. Point is, she was there a lot, and must've met Josephs ghost - who eventually scared her out of the house, and to the road where she was run over by the cart.
*******
They blew up Congress!
My blog(Norwegian):
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I've always wondered why the subsequent owners of the mansion never removed Joseph's old furniture from the attic.
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"House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!"
They eventually got so scared by the sounds coming from it, they boarded it up instead.
*******
They blew up Congress!
My blog(Norwegian):
http://jennukka.wordpress.com
But without at least removing the old furniture? It must have been very urgent.
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"House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!"
What I always thought happened was that Joseph's father boarded up the room before he left the country. That's why I wondered why Cora's book was in the room. Or, if he was not the one who boarded it up, why would he leave the wheelchair there?
shareMaybe Dr. Bernard boarded it up after Cora's death.
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"House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!"
I agree with you, OmegaWolf. He must have realised something bad was there, and didn't want anything to do with it. Why Josephs things never was removed, well.... any guess is as good as mine. Josephs father probably never bothered to remove it, so it just continued to be there. Perhaps ghost Joseph somehow made the things impossible to be removed.
*******
They blew up Congress!
My blog(Norwegian):
http://jennukka.wordpress.com
Perhaps Joseph's things were removed to some storage nook for Cora's occupancy, but when the decision was made to board up the room and seal off whatever spookiness was there, the stuff was shoved back in there to get rid of it.
We can imagine several plausible reasons, but in any event the co-existing of childrens' posessions from different occupancies in the one room is likely just a wrinkle that the viewer needs to forgive for the sake of the story.
It took me a few years, but after it clicked, I always wanted to know how it got up there too. I was always under the impression that Joseph's father kept all of Joseph's things up there and boarded the room up before he left to hide the evidence or something. I don't think he'd leave without doing so to cover his own arse. But I did think that if Joseph's father, for whatever reason, didn't board up the door, Cora's father did once Cora kept going up there and maybe he wanted to put a stop to it, should she have been communicating with Joseph or being scared one time after going up there. I wish the topic was revealed in the movie!
shareExactly.
Another thing might be that maybe since there were no moving vans back then, furniture was simply left at the house when the family moved out and went with the house for whomever bought it.
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"House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!"
I think another possibility is that Joseph "borrowed" the book, and placed it in his boarded-up room, either before, or after Cora died.
He did a similar thing with John Russell's daughter's ball, making it reappear in the house, even after it was thrown off a bridge miles away.
[W]hy would [Joseph's father] leave the wheelchair there?Carmichael's story was that his son had recovered after staying abroad, not that he had never been sick. So it wasn't as if the wheelchair was evidence of his crime. He didn't need to remove it. share
What I always thought happened was that Joseph's father boarded up the room before he left the country. That's why I wondered why Cora's book was in the room. Or, if he was not the one who boarded it up, why would he leave the wheelchair there?
Just watched the film, and I'm pleased someone's asked this question. There isn't a satisfactory answer though is there. Quite simply, it doesn't really work.
Good film though.
I figured previous tenants, apparently as far back as 1909 knew that the haunting was centered around that attic room and they boarded it up, perhaps after Cora's death, not by Mr. CarMichael. The room must have been open. Most of Joseph's furnishings have been removed from the room, which it appears was being used for storage.
shareI just watched it this afternoon because I saw it on Youtube and recalled how it scared the heck out of me back in the mid 80s when I saw it first. Then I joined here because I too wondered the same. I have my theory, but was hoping to find some overlooked obvious answer.
I think Cora may have just been an unexploited plot device. Being that she was killed in an accident similar to John's daughter, and being that she too might have been haunted by Joseph's spirit, it would have been a more poignant twist to have Cora at first be the one communicating with John. Perhaps the ball bouncing down the stairs might have been one of Cora's attempts to get his attention? But sadly her name wasn't mentioned at all after that notebook scene.
That's interesting. Perhaps the film student wanting to remake the film could incorporate this scenario into the story.
share[deleted]
My read is that Cora used to go up to the attic room to play, and left it there one day.
Either she first went up there because Joseph called her to the room, or she discovered it on her own while exploring the house. It would have appealed to a child because it was high up, remote (a nice place to get away from parents and servants), and it had been a child's room, with a child's items still in it, which would have attracted her.
It wasn't uncommon for people to leave old and unused things in an attic room, instead of cleaning them out for a new owner or tenant, and Carmichael would have had less reason to want to have the room cleaned out because of the memories it held for him.
It doesn't really explain if the room was boarded up because Cora revealed to her parents that Joseph was up there and it scared them and/or her, or if Joseph then began communicating with and scaring the rest of her family after she died, but I assume one or the other.
The real question, I suppose, is exactly who it was that boarded up the stairway to Joseph's room. Carmichael needn't have bothered; nothing in the room would be probative of anything that needed to be concealed. Joseph's infirmity and occupation of the room were simple known facts, and the use of the room as a storage area for the wheelchair makes sense, given that he and his father were stuck in Europe untill after the First World War. Any evidence of a crime had gone to the bottom of the well in the family ranch.
It must have been Bernard, then, who boarded up the stairway, likely following some kind of scenario in which Cora is contacted by Joseph. I subscribe to the theory that Cora was lured up there, and the notebook simply left in the room prior to access being sealed off. The notebook, far from being a macguffin or simply overdetail in the film's story, serves as an accessible symbol of tragedy involving a child, one that Russell is able to research, unlike Joseph's death, which was covered up. The death of Cora, and its similarity to Russell's own tragedy, propels him to further research that will eventually enable him to uncover the circumstances of the death of Joseph.
I always figured it was either Dr. Bernard or maybe the architect who had last occupied the house and sold it after only two years.
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House. My room. Cant walk. My medal. My father. Father, dont!
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I don't know. The lock on the door that John was swinging the hammer at was pretty old, like something from the early 1900's. Dr. Bernard boarding up the door makes the most sense.
Cora's notebook is there just to get the plot going. Without records of Cora's tragic death there would have been no investigation by John, because according to public records Joseph never died.
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