Gaslight

Rating

Director

George Cukor

Screenplay

John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, John L. Balderston (Play: Patrick Hamilton)

Length

1h 54m

Starring

Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotton, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury, Barbara Everest, Emil Rameau, Edmund Breon, Halliwell Hobbes

MPAA Rating

PG (formerly: Passed (National Board of Review))

Review

While film history is filled with productions that tapped into a zeitgeist and rode it into history books, some films manage to influence modern culture in unusual and historically uncommon ways. Gaslight may have been well regarded in its day, having won two Academy Awards alongside its Best Picture nomination, but it’s the film’s entry into the modern lexicon through the term “gaslighting” that has refined its place in cinema.

Ingrid Bergman stars in her nineteenth feature and her first Oscar-winning role as an opera singer who’s brought to the home of her violently-murdered aunt by her new husband (Charles Boyer). As items around the house go missing, Bergman is assured by Boyer that nothing unusual is going on and that she’s imagining things. As the mysterious happenings continue and worsen, Bergman tries desperately to retain a firm grip on her sanity, with her husband’s increasingly bizarre behavior exacerbating the situation.

Boyer, Bergman, and an incredibly young Angela Lansbury (in her film debut) were nominated for their performances, which are all excellent, but Bergman is working at the top of her game, a state she often existed in well into her later career with triumphs like Murder on the Orient Express (her third and final Oscar win) and Autumn Sonata (her seventh and final Oscar nomination). Cukor’s skill as a director had been proven time after time with his work up to that point. Some directors might have coasted on their prior successes, but Cukor wasn’t satisfied and continued excelling at his craft for the next (almost) four decades.

Gaslight, which also scored Oscar nominations for Art Direction and Cinematography, was richly deserving of those citations. The Oscar for Art Direction was equally fitting as the gas-lit house felt claustrophobic with the added atmosphere of the black-and-white photography adding depths to the shadows and making the goings on feel both sinister and calculated. Although it was based a 1938 stage play of similar title Gas Light, this film (the second adaptation) is a far better evocation of the themes and thrilling tensions of the play, giving a visceral definition to the production.

Gaslight isn’t the kind of film that younger audiences would flock to, especially those who have cemented the term gaslighting into common parlance. Yet, its viewing seems almost imperative considering the context and framing of the film itself. A woman being terrorized and convinced that she’s seeing things that aren’t there. It’s a concept that has endured for decades because of its resonance and that similar situations still occur even in a supposedly more enlightened time only makes its importance all the more significant.

Review Written

September 20, 2021