The main twist on the genre is that Gregory does not take Paula home to his own lavish, Gothic manor in the countryside, but instead to her old home in London. From early on the film indicates that Gregory possesses a mysterious past and hints at his possibly sinister intentions. In Italy, a young lady (Ingrid Bergman’s Paula Alquist) is seduced and courted by a charming older man (Charles Boyer’s Gregory Anton), the pianist for her opera lessons, who soon becomes her husband. Gaslight is a Gothic mystery, blending romance, terror, and a potent atmosphere cultivated in no small measure by the locale and its architecture. MGM’s 1944 production of Gaslight, directed by George Cukor, is based upon a 1938 play (by Patrick Hamilton) and a 1940 British film of the same name (directed by Thorold Dickinson). I’m pleased to say the film is far richer than I expected and worthy of renewed attention on its own merits. I was drawn to Gaslight not only to better understand the origins of the expression, but also because it features Ingrid Bergman, one of my favourite classical Hollywood actresses, in a performance that won her her first Best Actress Oscar. In this sense, liberals said Trump gaslit his supporters, and conservatives complain that the mainstream media gaslights citizens. Although use of the term has its origins in pop psychology and feminist criticism, more recently, the term is widely deployed by both the contemporary Left and Right, especially in the context of US politics, as an accusation of the psychological manipulation of a targeted populace. Over the years, but especially over the past six or seven, the term “gaslighting” has come to be used colloquially to describe a pattern of psychological manipulation and torment, in which someone makes someone else feel like they are going crazy, such as a cruel, controlling husband driving his wife to question her reality and thereby keep her vulnerable. Gaslight is an important film that’s probably less seen than you’d think given the popularity of the expression the title spawned.
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