The Haunting (1963)

 "It was an evil house from the beginning- a house that was born bad!"

This may be the quintessential, the perfect haunted house movie. It's also a serious contender for the best and most terrifying horror movie ever made.

It won't satisfy fans of gore, of course. The fear is abstract and unseen, just sound and subtle but terrifying hints of something malevolent in this house with a long, evil past. The horror is conveyed by the performances and, especially, by the extraordinary direction of Robert Wise: few things in this world are more terrifying than the use of the camera in this film. And there's a nicely metatextual touch in that part of what makes the house so unnerving is the unnatural angles, a nice little nod to German Expressionism.

Yet, as with many such horror films, the focus is on one tragic young woman, Eleanor- naive, of limited horizons, spending her whole adulthood caring for her controlling mother in a dysfunctional family. No wonder she's attracted to the calm, urbane Dr Markway. He, on the other hand, seems to represent the veneer that is civilisation, which likes to think it is in control of the forces that truly shape everything... 

There's a lot going on here, thematically, behind the horror. Eleanor's background is complex, tragic and shown to us without didacticism. Yet it seems to me that, ultimately, the film is about the cycle of abuse, a truly terrible thing. This is a truly great film.

A couple of interesting points, mind. I was surprised to see the diminutive "Nell" for "Eleanor" used as late as 1963; it feels much more archaic than that, being a contraction of "Mine Eleanor". And then there's the dialogue about creepy statues moving when one isn't looking at them.. don't blink!

Julius Caesar (1970)

 "This was the noblest Romam of them all."

Obviously, I know this play. I also know the 1953 film with Marlon Brando, and with John Gielgud in a less exalted, but more electrifying part. I mean, is the superlative Sir John Gielgud... phoning it in? I do believe he is.

Not that this film is crap. It's just not the 1953 film, probably. I mean, I saw it probably twenty-five years ago, long before this blog. Memory is an imperfect intrument. But it- and Brando, especially- made a deep impression on me. Any subsequent Mark Antony has big boots to fill. And those big soliloquys must be approached with trepidation. An actor lives or dies by them.

So how does this compare? Well, the standard British characters actors are very RSC. Robert Vaughn impresses with Casca, giving a daring yet pleaasingly arch performance. Diana Rigg shines during her one big scene.

But what of Charlton Heston? Well, this was brave of him. He's no Brando, not even close, but he's good enough. His "Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of Earth" is so so, but his funerary speech for Caesar is fascinating. Not as passionate as many, but great facial acting and restraint, which really, really works.

The entire production is fascinating. We begin with a bird of prey, circling. The battle is visceral, as is the bloody murder. There is no honour in war here, only bloodshed. Shades of Vietnam, and Oh, What a Lovely War?, the 1970 zeitgeist. This is not the best version, being quite flat. But hey, it's Shakespeare.