Review of Gaslight (1944) by Aleksandar S — 09 Jan 2013

A Unique Movie In Western Cinematography.

The movie "Gaslight" is a superb rendition of the shakespearean battle of wills (superbly reminiscent of King Lear and his madness, his poignant foibles).

This movie is completely TIMELESS as far as the recording of the essentials of the Western-European spirituality is concerned. A Frenchmen Boyer pitted against a Nordic diva Bergman, defended from the distance by the knightly Cotten and seemingly oddly egged-on by Whitty (all of whom were creme-of-the-crop thespians from the Walhalla of Western acting). It is as much a battle between intellectual wills as an abysmal struggle with inner daemons lurking in the soul's chasm.

The powerful but devious battle of wills between the chief protagonists is ingenuously interleaved within the storyline. The movie plot is supremely depicted within the appropriate foggy/sunny dichotomy of the classical London existence from the heyday of Victorian Western Culture period - and deserves nothing but our awe and our gratitude rooted in our appreciation for the historical value of this cinematic composition.

The movie plot is dynamic through-and-through, loaded with subtle detail easily overlooked by the casual watcher, but available to the perceptive one for a fuller experience. The engine of this dynamic: The northern openness of soul instilled in a Grecian somatic beauty and tenderness of aristocratic lady-character of actress Ingrid Bergman in a complex (but not fully incompatible) contrast with the 'southern race-cunning' of the devious, impetuous, tyrannical, Napoleonic pivot of relentless willpower of actor Charles Boyer. A noble desire to be of service is in trouble with the relentless drive towards a fixed, manic, obsessive and self-destructive goal. How very Faustian!

The Black-and-White scenes of the movie greatly enhance the gothic ambient of the movie's settings, and make the situations more artistically enhanced because the Baudelaire-esque psychology of the movie is supported by the effusive and accented shadows of grayness and blackness, greatly suffusing the sense of this signature European high drama.

If on the ruins of our world, aliens from another planet were to some day enquire about the most culturally representative Western-European movie ever made - it would be "Gaslight" (1944).