Scarlet Peak: Inheritance and anti-tradition of the "Blue Beard" story (20151211 has been repaired)

Enola 2021-11-30 08:01:29

Because of my fascination with the theme of "Blue Beard", I still recommend this film. But if the audience is watching a "horror movie" with the purpose of being scared, sorry you will be disappointed.

In addition, this article is just my own opinion. After all, it is one of the angles of watching this film. If you find it interesting, you can continue to think about it. If you don't agree with it, there is no problem at all.
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“A girl from a poor family was arranged by her family to marry The rich Duke Bluebeard lived in a gorgeous castle. The Duke gave his wife a bunch of keys before leaving. She was able to open all the rooms in the castle, except for one room, which was strictly forbidden. Once opened, she would suffer serious damage. Punishment. After the Duke left, his wife could not help curiosity, opened the door that was forbidden to open, and found that there were dismembered corpses inside. Those were all the Duke’s former wives, lying in a pool of blood. Frightened, wife The key in his hand fell to the ground and was stained with blood. It could not be removed by any method. After the Duke came back, he found the blood on the key. He knew that his wife had violated his order and was furious and wanted to kill his wife. His wife was in Gao. The tower called his brother to come to rescue. The brother rushed to kill the Duke and rescued their sister." The

above is one of the earliest and most popular versions of the "Blue Beard" story. There is no doubt that the core of "Scarlet Peak" is the most traditional bluebeard mode. From the earliest version to the latest interpretation of "Scarlet Peak", the "Blue Beard" story has been rewritten in many ways, from the setting of the characters, to the direction of the story, to the ending, and the most essential elements are indispensable. "Scarlet Peak" has retained the essential elements-which is why many viewers think this is just an old-fashioned horror film-and has undergone an anti-traditional rewrite. The most obvious anti-traditional performance is that the overall mental power of female characters in the film is stronger than that of male characters, especially the appearance of wives and strong female blue beards, and even the ex-wife (successful preservation of evidence) has the IQ of not losing men, and The male characters in the film are weak in ability and complexity of character shaping.

Movie style:

Scarlet Peak incorporates a lot of traditional horror film elements. Director De Toro admitted that part of the inspiration for Scarlet Mountain's screenwriter came from "Butterfly Dream" and "Innocent People." High society women’s curiosity and fascination with mysterious bachelors, famous mansions, British husbands and American wives, strong female roles, etc., can all be reminiscent of Hitchcock (original author Daphne Dumouri) A) "Butterfly Dream". In one of the scenes of the film, Edith gets a letter from his ex-wife Enola because they are both called Mrs Sharpe. These wives have lost their names at this time and can only rely on the existence of their husbands. This stem is also from Mrs De Winter, the heroine who has no name in the whole book in "Butterfly Dreams". It reflects the wives who died in unknownness. It's sad. The childish lullaby that appeared in the opening and the film, the weird children's song Ding Dong Bell read by Thomas in the recording tube, and the evil siblings (siblings) originated from Jack Clayton's (original Henry James) "Innocent People". The heroine who married away after the death of her parents can also remind people of Angela Carter's classic modern blue beard rewriting novel "Blood Cave."

De Toro created the mysterious, poignant, and eerie atmosphere and tone of the "Blue Beard" story by using techniques and techniques such as screen tone, sound, and props. The title that appeared on the cover of a broken fairy tale book first opened the prelude to the story. The design of the old house, Allerdale Hall, has exquisite patterns and decorations, combining gorgeous and decadent features. The dead leaves and snow falling on the large open roof aggravated the sense of run-down. The spiked decoration of the ceiling and the peeling walls covered with black moths further exaggerated the gloom of the old house.

Pure and strong color contrast is a major feature of the film. For example, the contrast between white and black at the two funerals creates a solemn atmosphere, and the black markings on the wall when the father was killed are like evil vines ready to grab Prey, gradually promote the anxiety in the audience's hearts. The red souls contrast strongly with the cyan hue of the old house at night, giving people a feeling of coldness and fantasy. When I first arrived at the manor, the red earth road was like a red carpet for newlyweds at their wedding, and as the story progressed, red was given the meaning of sin and desire. When Thomas was forced to attack the doctor, the pure white snow in the manor was all dyed red. It was not until the ending Edith left that she set foot on the pure white land again.

In addition, the charm of the sound has also been used very cleverly. The crunching sound of the ancient house does not know whether it is the whistling of the cold wind or the cry of the soul, which makes people shudder. When Lucille was feeding the sick Edith oatmeal, she narrated the terrible past, while holding a spoon and a bowl rubbing a long, harsh sound, effectively aggravating the audience's tension and discomfort. Other weird props, such as the doll heads of Thomas Studio, watched Thomas and Edith strangely when they were kissing, and the next second, Lucille interrupted their intimacy with a life-threatening tea.

As the ghost of the beginning and the end, De Toro's design also has his own characteristics. In addition to the smoke and mist and the floating feeling of being under the water, their colors seem to be particular. The ghosts of the previous wives and mothers are intense red, and the texture is like flowing and sticky red clay, implying that they are the souls who died tragically under the hands of their elder brothers and sisters, and were buried under the red clay. They asked Edith to find their bodies and take them home, so that they could get free. The ghost after Thomas' death is transparent and pure. He has fulfilled his redemption wish, so he disappeared with the wind. Both Edith's mother and Lucille are pure black, and they still have concerns in their hearts, but as Edith's monologue said, Lucille's ghost should not disappear. In form, she is closer to the entity than Edith's mother. There is no solution to her love and hatred, and she cannot escape, and can only be trapped in the sun forever to mourn her loneliness and loneliness. In a sense, the ghosts in the film can guide Edith to find out the truth and communicate with the people of Yang Shi at a certain time. They are no different from people, they have feelings and attachments, perhaps because of this, the film has been emphasizing, "This is not a story with ghosts to scare people, this is just a story with ghosts appearing as characters."

The heroine Edith-the anti-traditional wife:

The passive, ignorant, and helpless image of the wife in the "Blue Beard" story turns into Edith, a female writer with independent thoughts and budding feminist thoughts in the "Scarlet Peak". She is different from the rich lady like the doctor’s sister Eunice. Soon after the beginning of the film, she walked freely through the streets in a long dress and walked on a muddy road without showing any discomfort. She dared to satirize the pursuit of the powerful, describing the aristocracy as a parasite with titles, and at the same time pointed out the society’s prejudice against female writers who can only write romance novels (although she still made some compromises and decided to replace her manuscripts with prints) Manuscript, because her handwritten font is too "feminine"). What's interesting is that this pen, which "selled out" her femininity, was finally used as a masculine weapon and made her a powerful counterattack to save herself. Just as her father commented on her as "extremely stubborn to the bone", her character made her not blindly fear and panic when facing a series of strange events behind the old mansion, but quickly calmed down and took the initiative. Find the truth.

One of her initiative is reflected in the emotional aspect. The first two kisses with her husband were taken by her, and she was never ashamed to express her feelings and express her thoughts; the other was reflected in her financial ability. This is a very important difference from the early "Blue Beard" story. In the prototype of the story, the husband is the wealthy one, while the wives mostly get married for wealth. Here, only the wife finally signs, the husband can seek the wife's property. The role of the doctor was originally a savior, but was severely injured, and turned into the rescued. The image of the wife realized self-help, solved the problem of Blue Beard, completely overturned the plot of Blue Beard’s prototype that she needed to call her brother for help, even more so than in "Blood Cave" that she needed another female image-the mother to save her. Winner. Therefore, as the image of the wife in the Blue Beard story, Edith is completely anti-traditional, from weak to strong mentally and physically, and is no longer a curiosity but at the mercy of others. Only this image of a wife can convincingly become a survivor under Blue Beard's butcher's knife, rather than relying on luck and the help of others.

In addition, although Edith was an unexpected candidate for her sister, the doctor's sister Eunice did not meet the three requirements of the sister and brother for the victim's choice of "no close relatives". Eunice, who has two immediate family members, is more difficult to solve than Edith. Therefore, the reason why my sister opposes Edith is that the younger brother made the choice without permission and did not discuss with her. The point made her feel a sense of crisis, and the point that she (Edith) was still a child was more like an excuse.

Husband Thomas-Weak Blue Beard:

Thomas belongs to the image of a weak Blue Beard husband. First of all, his identity has changed from the extremely wealthy Blue Beard Duke to a British aristocrat who has not formally inherited his name (quasi-baron) and is facing bankruptcy. Secondly, he is emotional, weak, and his conscience has not been completely wiped out. As Edith's father said, hands can reflect a person's true temperament, and Thomas' hands are "too soft", which not only refers to his pampering, but also implies his mind. He did not personally kill anyone, which can be interpreted as good, but this kind of weakness and inaction is also a crime. In a scene where he waltzed with Edith, he said that he would close his eyes when facing things that made him uncomfortable, so that he would feel better, and Edith said that she did not want to close her eyes and would rather keep it His eyes opened. This conversation alluded to Thomas' evasive attitude towards his and his sister's evil deeds to paralyze himself, further highlighting his weak character, and the opposite is that Edith, who is more temperamental, will choose to pursue the truth in case of trouble. Thomas is indeed a dreamer in essence, so even if he still has a conscience, he still has been an accomplice for so long, just to have enough money to realize his dream. The reason why Edith was "empathetic" to him and attracted to him at the beginning was exactly the similarity between the two of them: they were both "dreamers who suffered a blow". He was contradictory when facing Edith. When he was forced to criticize Edith's work, every sentence seemed to mock Edith's psychology, but it was actually denying himself and pointing out the wrongness of their feelings. In the Blizzard Night Post Office, they talked about the protagonist in Edith's writings, and the protagonist was actually alluding to Thomas, "He has a dark quality in him. Has he reached the end of the story?", "It depends on his choice. What kind of person to become". It's a pity that Thomas couldn't get out of the shadows of the past. His correct choice came too late and too weak, which finally led to his tragic ending.

The relationship between Thomas and his sister and lover is one of control and being controlled. He is not allowed to escape, and he is unable to escape. When he persuaded his sister Lucille to stop, she responded: "If we stop, I will be taken away and locked up, and you will be hanged. We want to be together and never separate, and you won't want to leave me ( wouldn't), you won't leave me (won't)." Lucille was not worried about death, but the separation of the two of them, and Thomas answered two sentences "I can't (I can't)." "The first sentence may be an answer to his reluctance, while the second sentence is more like saying that even if he wants to leave, he can't break free of Lucille's control. It is obvious that the plot has developed here. Once he wants to escape, he can only destroy and die with his sister. The core method in the whole conspiracy is his appearance. His "original sin" is the reason why so many women are easy to fall in love with him. He has been perfect since he was a child, so much so that Lucille "understood all of his mother's whipping and scolding for him." When he was finally killed by Lucille, he pierced that layer of skin and also destroyed the function and value of his existence. To a certain extent, it was a relief for him. Thomas has the appearance of a blue beard, but his strength and psychology are not up to the level of the blue beard. He will only be controlled by the real blue beard, and even be eliminated in the end.

Sister Lucille-the hidden strong blue beard:

Lucille, as a strong female bluebeard image, is part of the subversion of Bluebeard's anti-traditional process. She is like Rebecca in a butterfly dream, but Lucille is not a ghost, but a real existence, firmly in control of the mansion and her brother and lover. Her first appearance and introduction in the film started with her brilliant red dress and skillful and dynamic playing, and then the camera moved from the piano hand and the ruby ​​ring on the hand to the indifferent expression, and the hair was Tightly tied high. This series of techniques shows the character and power of this character. Like her long hair tied up all the time and books with erotic pictures locked in a box, she represents a symbol of asceticism generally held by the image of a mother, so Thomas can only be affectionate with Edith after leaving the house and watching her. Her long hair did not disperse until the scene of the adultery with Thomas was revealed, symbolizing the liberation of nature, so from another perspective, she also represents desire. The ring and the key are both symbols of her power to the house and love. She cannot bear that someone can replace her, threaten her, or have the key that can only be used by her. She has never been the only one giving orders to her brother (Now it's the time), and she is not allowed to be ordered by her brother (You are ordering me?). Her self-destructive tendency and instability of her personality come from her fear of loneliness, just like when she was holding hot food while saying to herself, "I was the only one here last night, and I can't bear to be the only one. people". The film interprets this as a mental illness, implying that she was sent to a mental hospital after her mother's accident-"The newspaper said that you were sent to a monastic school in Sweden, and I think you went to another institution"- —More precisely, this state should be attributed to the destructive symbiotic relationship between her and her brother.

From another perspective, for Thomas, Lucille is a sister and a lover, but in fact, he is also a mother. The elder brother did not feel much maternal love when he was young, and the only "maternal love" that the younger brother could feel was the care and love of his sister. The elder sister was even humming the lullaby she had been playing when the elder brother and brother were making each other. At this time, the younger brother was completely attached to her like a child, which helped her sister's strength little by little over the long years. There has been a "Blue Beard" story mentioning that the first woman Blue Beard murdered was probably his mother. This could be explained by men’s fear and contempt for women, or the enlightenment and source of sexual pleasure. But the reason for the murder of the sister and the younger brother here, in addition to the hatred brought about by extinction and long-term abuse, should also be the exclusivity of the sister’s possessiveness towards the younger brother. There cannot be two "mothers" to control a child at the same time, so only one can survive. At the same time, Lucille inherited the iconic characteristic of Blue Beard's jealousy. Thomas became her only weakness. Once she betrayed Lucille, she would lose her sanity. Only by using this can we defeat her. "I won't stop unless you kill me or I kill you." To complete this anti-traditional adaptation of the "Blue Beard" story, the ending must be a strong female Blue Beard vs. an anti-traditional wife, not you. I am dead.


Siblings and parents-a deformed family:

Sibling adultery is not a brand new element in the Blue Beard story. Part of it should stem from the age difference between the husband and wife in the prototype. In the eyes of many scholars, this relationship hides the Electra complex and the Lolita complex, which is the oppression and restriction of women by the patriarchy. The power conversion between men and women in the film does not necessarily involve feminism, but as mentioned earlier, in the final analysis it is a relationship between control and being controlled, and the most obvious age difference is used to express the strength of power. Similarly, the balance of this relationship requires absolute obedience from one party to the other, and it will be destroyed if it is out of balance.

The sibling’s parents are a hidden pair of blue beards and his wife. In Lucille's narrative, the mother collected the books, which shows that it should not be a cruel and twisted woman. But the locked books with erotic pictures are a reflection of the lack of relief of desire. This not only refers to Lucille, but also refers to the mother of its original collector, Lucille. Naturally, just like the traditional bluebeard model, "father often goes out and squanders the family's money", and then "father is a villain, he hates his mother, and even kicks his mother's leg off." Why does the father hate the mother? If it is not the general fear and hatred of women, there are very derailed factors and possibilities. As a result of this, the mother also twisted into Blue Beard, locked the child in the nursery, beat and scolded the child, thus making her child the next generation of Blue Beard, and finally died in the hands of her own child.

In the early stories of Blue Beard, there is usually no next generation, and the film gives the possibility of the next generation of Blue Beard: the new Blue Beard, and will be more vicious, more dormant, and more insidious. "This way my mother can look at us from above. I don't want her to miss everything we do." She let her mother look at their sins and let her see that she made them. Both Edith and his mother described siblings as "devil", but the devil can only give birth to the devil. "The fruits that grow on this land are bitter, so as not to be swallowed." "Evil is done because of love. For such love, what is done will only be horrible... This is abnormal love. It also turned us into monsters.” Perhaps this is also the reason why the former wife killed the brother’s son, not only because the child is a product of incest, but also because she has to cut off the continuation of this abnormal love and the next generation of blue. The birth of a beard.

Imagery and foreshadowing:

The use of imagery in movies is also worthy of scrutiny. The key mentioned above is generally interpreted as a sexual metaphor in the traditional Blue Beard story. Most of the situations here are likened to the control of power (the sexual metaphor still exists). The wife stealing the key is a manifestation of her increased initiative and threat. Here comes the power of Blue Beard. In addition, the scene of "the room at the end of the corridor" appeared many times. Either Edith was inside the room and someone was approaching from outside, or she was walking through the corridor to uncover a terrible secret. The structure of "the room at the end of the corridor" forms a feminine uterus symbol, which can symbolize oppression and mystery in the traditional sense. From one perspective, if Lucille peeped at Thomas and Edith from a lock hole, the person in the room is the object to be observed, and there is no way to run, so it gives people a feeling of oppression and anxiety. From another perspective, the room at the end is also a secret storage point, a source of fear and darkness. The elevator is actually a variant of this imagery, representing the human heart. The secret is hidden at the bottom floor and is forbidden to enter. "Never go to the bottom floor" is actually just "Don't use this key to open that fan" in the traditional version. Another way of saying “door”. The effect of the "blood-stained" peaks caused by the red soil is to some extent the externalized expression of the secrets and evils of the "blood cave" in the house. It is the same as the sinking, gorgeous old but severely corrupted mansion, symbolizing morality. The collapse of humanity and the annihilation of humanity.

Images of moths and butterflies have also appeared many times. In the Christian faith, the butterfly symbolizes resurrection and rebirth, while the film more symbolizes beauty and purity. The black moths in the manor are opposite to the butterflies. One breeds in the dark and cold, and the other draws heat from the sun. The black moths feed on the butterflies, just as sisters and brothers live by devouring the wealth and blood of beautiful and innocent girls. In the scene in the park, Lucille mentioned that natural food is just a link to swallow a link. She put the dying butterfly next to her face, enjoying the feeling of the butterfly struggling and flapping its wings, and placed the butterfly next to Edith's face. It compares Edith to the butterfly that is about to be killed. But the irony is that the phrase "butterfly draws heat from the sun, once the sun abandons them, they will die", it is also Lucille's own prediction of the ending of Thomas love or death, they are like moths to the fire. Walk towards your own end in self-knowledge or unawareness.

The direction of the story does not actually make too much mystery, because the conspiracy of the brothers and sisters has been close to express at the beginning, but the puns of many of the dialogues and the foreshadowing of the lines are still worth savoring, such as the servant’s sentence "Master, you have been married. It will be a while", implying that this is not Thomas' first marriage. Before this, others satirized Edith as a female writer who would eventually be single like Jane Austen. Edith replied, "I like Mary Shelley better. She died a widow than her husband." In the end of the film, she did become The widow, and Mary Shelley she mentioned wrote "Frankenstein", which can be described as the world's first female science fiction writer. This corresponds to the style of the film and the setting of the heroine's love to write ghost-related stories. The most creepy puns come from Lucille, and every comfort to Edith is ghastly in retrospect, "When the time comes, everything will be back on track" "This is already your home, and you have nowhere to go." "I was taking care of my mother at the time, and I will take care of you in the same way now. You will get better soon, and you will get out of this bed soon, I promise." These foreshadowings and puns not only hint at the direction of the plot, but also help to render the suspenseful and strange atmosphere of the film.




Although more people think that this is not the very scary horror film they are looking forward to, and everyone has already been tortured by a large number of surprising and mysterious films, but only from a literary point of view, "Scarlet Peak" is in the new The era rewrites the "Blue Beard" story with its novelty and worthy of study. Or we can see more things worthy of scrutiny if we look at it several times and take a closer look.

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Extended Reading

Crimson Peak quotes

  • Edith Cushing: You're monsters. Both of you!

    Lucille Sharpe: Funny. That's the last thing Mother said, too.

  • Thomas Sharpe: [from trailer] Where I come from, ghosts are not to be taken lightly.