Gaslight (1944)

This is one of those movies that has made its mark on modern culture while few people of recent generations have seen it. “Gaslighting” has become a verb, used normally in a political context and often dealing with feminism. Of course the terms current usage defines something quite mild compared to what happens in the movie.

Ingrid Bergman stars as Paula, a traumatized woman whose famous aunt had been murdered, probably for a set of gems. The case is unsolved: both the murder and the robbery. She falls in love with Gregory (Charles Boyer), a mysterious piano player who manipulates her into marriage and a return to her aunt’s home. He spends his time doing something secretive at night, but the day is spent with him convincing her that she is insane. He gives her a gift, steals it back and then tells her she lost it. He’s constantly telling her that she is ill, that she is confused, and that things are not as she remembers. This works shockingly well and she’s nuts in no time. Meanwhile a detective (Joseph Cotton), intrigued by how much Paula looks like her aunt, picks up the closed case, and quickly realizes that the piano player is the murderer and he’s back looking for the rocks.

And people love this film.

I’ll grant that it is filmed beautifully with high contrast B&W that gives everything a gothic feel. But once I’m done marveling at the cinematography and smiling at the solid if unmemorable score, I’ve nothing else to compliment. Bergman and Boyer overact in the way I expect from stage productions. She’s doing the acting 101 crazy person routine. Her movements belong in a silent picture. Her speech would be too much in a radio drama. Boyer is doing the comic liar bit. He might as well be winking at the camera. Everything he says is clearly a lie to the audience, and should be to Paula. Yes, she’s weak-willed from finding her aunts body ten years ago, but this isn’t a matter of will. He does everything but twirl his mustache.

Are we supposed to be engaged with Paula’s slow decent into madness? Nope, because that all happens in three weeks during one scene change. They show up, and in the next scene she’s already “too sick to go out.” So that’s already done and we just see Boyer lying to her over and over and her squirming about or whispering.

I don’t think anyone would say we are supposed to be interested in the mystery. Gaslight is often characterized as a mystery, but it isn’t one. We know immediately who the killer is, and the minute the gems are introduced, we know what the killer is doing, where he is doing it, and that he will be caught. There’s no mystery.

Are we supposed to be pulled in by the suspense? What suspense? There’s no uncertainty for us. Every single thing in the movie is telegraphed. Most events (to the extent this film has “events”) are set in stone at the beginning. We know exactly what is going to happen and how it is going to happen. There are no surprises, no doubt, and no tension.

Don’t come in looking for a character study. These people have no characters. Paula is “girl going nuts.” Gregory is “crazed liar.” That’s it. There’s nothing deeper.

Perhaps if we spent more time with Cotton and his police work, it might—might—have been interesting as a procedural, but that takes up very little screen time. Most of the movie is just Boyer lying about how Paula is crazy and Bergman overacting her responses. It happens over and over. Some have said this is like a Hitchcock thriller, but I’d say its closest cousins are in modern torture porn. We are watching unpleasantness (overdone, unbelievably presented unpleasantness) for unpleasantness’s sake and we are watching it over and over again. It doesn’t lead to anything, since any plot points connected to driving Paula insane are covered in a few seconds. Once we get that he’s broken her (and as mentioned, we get that early and quickly), there’s nothing more to learn, yet we get fully an hour more of psychological torture.

If that’s entertainment, I’m happy to remain unentertained.