🎬 #162 Apparitions On Film.
This week it’s all about ghosts. And the power of film to be able to tell stories from any perspective, to be able to tap into places few other mediums can.
Hope you’re all enjoying the start of Spring!
Happy choosing, happy viewing
Bry
FILM ONE: GHOST
1990 Dir Jerry Zucker
2 hrs 06 mins
I remember being scared by a few sequences when I was really young watching it. I remember being equally terrified, made to laugh and made to sob. And any film that can achieve that, honestly, while telling an engrossing story has got my vote. As I’m sure you’ll all aware, Swayze plays Sam, who after seeing a performance of Macbeth is murdered but remains as a ghost until he can solve his murder and protect the woman he loves, Molly, played by Demi Moore.
What makes this a unique film, especially for the early 90’s, is the blend of the supernatural and romance, much like one of my favourite films ‘A Matter of Life and Death.’ There’s also a healthy dose of comic relief supplied by the touching performance of Whoopi Goldberg. It’s a film that’s much more than its iconic pottery scene, a touching meditation on love, loss and what waits for us all beyond life.
TL;DR: The smash hit of the early 90’s is a gripping investigation of the power of love.
*Available for a small rental fee on Apple and Amazon in the US and the UK.
Fact: The director,Jerry Zucker, also directed Airplane! which is hard to believe.
FILM TWO: PRESENCE
2024 Dir Steven Soderbergh
1 hr 24 mins
I saw this recently in the cinema, I’m a big fan of Soderbergh for his experiments and just the sheer amount of films he releases - love how prolific he is - plus it’s really admirable that he’s always trying something new. His latest is another departure for him, this time into the horror genre. But it’s no straight up horror, it’s a more melancholic story, told from the POV of the ghost - the presence from the title.
The entire film unfolds from the detached, roaming phantom, eavesdropping into various familial scenes that take place entirely within the home they’ve just moved into. Much like Soderbergh’s pal’s film Panic Room, the action of the film is constrained within that one location. The camera roaming through it, only this time its movement is motivated by the character of the ghost. At first, its intentions are unknown, but through each glimpsed moment, secret and not so secret, amongst the family - details begin to fill in the picture, as the story is teased out.
It’s a really smart way to mix the subjective with the objective, because to get those moments in a classically told story, you’d either have to tell the story totally objectively, or by subjectively telling it by following one of the members of the family. But by making the ghost the character through which witness the story unfold, both are seamlessly married together. It’s an experiment really worth seeking out.
TL;DR: Soderbergh’s ghost story puts us in the shoes of a ghost whose purpose is gradually revealed in a taught, unusual, haunted house pic.
*Available in cinemas and to rent on Apple and Amazon in the US and the UK.
Fact: The film was shot in just three weeks.