La morte corre sul fiume
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by Charles Laughton
1955 | 92 min.
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Harry Powell (R. Mitchum), a fake protestant pastor, a psychopathic and a murderer, is seeking a hidden treasure. The two little brothers John (B. Chapin) e Pearl (S.J. Bruce) keep the treasure secret. Harry marries the brothers’ mother, Willa (S. Winters), in order to find it, and then kill her. “Night of the Hunter”, the only one by Laughton (1899-1962), is a cult movie. The extraordinary performance of R. Mitchum and the wonderful photography by Stanley Cortez are together with the distinguishing visual technique of the direction, which is influenced by German expressionism, by Scandinavian cinema and by Griffith. This is a mysterious film characterised by a polyphonic complexity where “several genres and traditions are melted together. There are two clear paths. Noir and fairy tale. The major paths tangling and the other motifs of the final product create transformations and changes which make it impossible to give the film a label.” (Bruno Fornara). The film asks many question but does not provide many answers. Different views of it are possible and a strong psychoanalytic connotation characterises it.
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- Direction
- Charles Laughton
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