THE BEGUILED
US, 1970, 100 minutes, Colour.
Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Hartmann.
Directed by Donald Siegel.
The Beguiled is meant to be an atmospheric horror story. It is minor and fairly successful, although quite slow-moving in the first half. Cloistering, education, repressed personality and sexuality have been a common theme for horror stories, probably because when repressions break out the results must be somewhat bizarre. Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" (and its film version The Innocents) is an example of this. A more recent example is The Finishing School which is more of a horror story than this one.
Clint Eastwood successfully portrays a soldier wounded in the Civil War (the action is portrayed in sepia stills with sound effects during the credits) who is taken into a small girls' school managed by two repressed spinsters. The inevitable happens in the minds of the spinsters and in their dreams but what happens in reality differs, and there are strong clashes. The horrors -darkness, amputation, poisoning - are worked into the plot rather than added just for audience scares.
The hero is ambiguous and repellent in many ways, so that the audience does not identify with him, nor with the two spinsters. In fact, the only sympathetic character is the little girl who finds him and rescues him and who, eventually, maliciously kills him. The actresses are good and direction is by Donald Siegel (whom the French critics always praise as a genius but who considers himself an unpretentious director of crime films or westerns). Coogan's Bluff, Dirty Harry, Kill Charley Varrick and even his comic western Two Mules for Sister Sara, show a hard streak in his work. In this film The Beguiled Siegel's hardness finds a satisfactory vehicle. However, it might have been much better in black and white.
Bizarre. For those who like horror films with some perspective and style.
1. What was the purpose of making this psychological horror film?
2. What did the title mean? To how many people did it refer?
3. How did the sepia stills of the civil war plus the sounds of battle in the background create atmosphere for the film?
4. The film was a variation on the theme of the outsider who changes everyone's life before he leaves. Was this plot convincingly portrayed?
5. What kind of man was Burney? Was he likeable? His actions in the flashbacks contradicted what he said. Did he have any redeeming qualities?
6. Was he merely trying to seduce the spinsters or was he trying to use them to escape?
7. How did the atmosphere of the place contribute to the film - the enclosed grounds, the school, the lessons, the confederate camp not far from the school, the patrols, the odd pocket of civilisation in a war which seemed to have been on for a long time?
8. How normal were the two teachers? In what way were they frustrated? Had they never had the chance to meet people and broaden horizons?
9. Why did Miss Martha not hand him over to the patrols?
10.What was the significance of Miss Martha's dreams? What did they tell you about her, her attitude to Burney, the place itself?
11. How did the film reveal something of the feelings of jealousy, shame, hatred?
12. How did everyone regard the amputation of the leg? How did he regard it? How was it a symbol of imprisonment and punishment?
13. Why did Edwina forgive him? Did she love him? Did he really love her or was he planning to escape?
14. Why was the killing of the tortoise so significant? Why was the little girl's hatred so implacable? Was she mirroring the adults?
15. Who decided to kill him? Who Has responsible (as they all passed the mushrooms on)?
16. What should Edwina have done when she realised the mushrooms were poisonous?
17. What had the film achieved at the end - only a chilling, psychological horror story, or something more?
