For 25 years, I thought the movie "Bell, Book, and Candle" (1958) was about an Oregon trail-era schoolmarm. Indeed, it is about a lonely single women and a house cat, but our heroine is a witch. A manipulative, leotard-wearing witch whose intentions falter from flirtation to true love.
For reasons literary and archetypal, I'm always eager to assess a witch story. In "Bell, Book, and Candle," sorcery is the primary distinction, but Kim Novak's character Gil is surrounded by additional metaphors of "otherness."
Jazz!
In 1957, "Funny Face" illustrated to the movie going masses that jazz clubs were at the heart of la vie beatnik. And free-thinking beatniks are surely analogous to the ominous portent of a witch.
Art!
To an outsider, the world of art is a faceted one, with its own vocabulary and pieces collected or disseminated with enchanted focus. So, of course Gil is a proprietress of a gallery - the exclusivity, specific vernacular and idol worship is much like the realm of a witch.
Pants!
Technically it's a catsuit, but Gil spends a lot of time wearing pants. And, in the 1950s what is a stronger symbol of power and self-reliance than menswear? A witch is a powerful woman; powerful women wear pants...
Regardless of a woman's ability to conjure, clearly any association can draw outsider status. It should be welcomed. Along with those feminine wiles, wicked ways and the classic: "women's intuition." As Aunt Jet Owens says in Practical Magic, "There's a little witch in all of us."
(See Life magazine for more of the enchanted Kim Novak.)
No comments:
Post a Comment