Who took it down? Why has been taken down?” The fact that Gregory calls the old servant into the room to observe the empty wall and requests her to “kiss the bible as a solemn oath telling the truth” emphasizes the realism of the situation. The camera slowly zooms in, focusing on Paula’s striking look at her husband her seemingly soft, broken voice questioning her own self: “Yes, the picture has been taken down. For instance, there is a scene when Gregory accuses Paula of taking and hiding a picture from the wall, which makes her absolutely frightened, gradually move away from him. Paula’s pretentiously compassionate husband imprisons her in their antique house, forbidding any outside visitors and slowly convinces Paula that she is losing sanity through an accumulation of incidents. Years later, Paula marries a pianist named Gregory Anton, played by Boyer, and the couple returns to her aunt’s house yet a series of unexplained events happen, especially the secretive dimming of the gas-powered lights that serve as a metaphor for Paula’s weakening mental health and perception of herself. Paula, a young woman who lives with her aunt in London, later moves to Italy after her aunt is killed during a burglary. The term “gaslighting” is defined by Wikipedia as “a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity”. The story brings to light a patriarchal system where men dominate over women by diminishing their dignity with false psychological claims, labeling them as frantic and hysterical. George Cukor's Gaslight is a claustrophobic yet enthralling thriller about emotional control and manipulation. This paper will, as a consequence, examine Gaslight’s cinematic treatment on the topic of mental abuse, its allusion to a patriarchal system where women are vulnerable and regarded as victims, especially the feminine defiance in the film’s ending sequence, as well as the film’s similar stylistic characteristics with film noir and its political allegory-the way politicians nowadays make use of media to control and popularize people’s mindset. Through Cukor’s skillful direction, Gaslight creates suspense through manifesting its complicated character study and psychological perplexities. Gaslight shares many elements with film noir, whose characteristics is signified through the dull atmospheric Victorian London setting and melodramatic style revolving around the attempt of a husband in driving his wife insane for deceitful purposes. The mid-1940s generated several psychological thrillers but George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) stands out with an enthralling narrative structure, spectacular production design, and stellar performances delivered by Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten. The combination of social disorientation, hopeless romanticism and gendered power struggles unleashed in those post-war years was addressed in a lot of films produced during that period.
Originated from the 30s gangster films, this gloomy and pessimistic genre, literally meaning "black film", often address crime issues and consist of dark plots, victimized femininity in contrast to toxic masculinity. Film noir, emerging in the 1940s, serves as a reflection and presentation of Hollywood with socio-economic problems during the war and post-war periods.
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