PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES

UK, 1997, 101 minutes, Colour.
Toby Stephens, Emily Woof, Ben Kingsley, Frances Barber, Edward Hardwicke, Phil Davis.
Directed by Nick Willing.

Photographing Fairies is an intriguing film set at the beginning of the 20th century, World War One, a period of belief and non-belief.

The film focuses on Toby Stevens as a war photographer who has grieved the death of his wife after one day of marriage. He goes through the war, returns to practice, avoiding weddings, goes to a theosophical society meeting and a discussion about photography – and his specialisation in trick photography. A woman comes claiming that her children have seen fairies in the garden, photographing them.

The film explores the response of the photographer, issues of belief and non-belief, of fraud and integrity. He encounters a minister, also grieving, the father of the girls. He is played by Ben Kingsley. In the background is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who believed in such phenomena. He is played by Edward Hardwicke.

The film is small in scope, directed by British director Nick Willing (who won a number of awards for his 2003 film Doctor Sleep).

At the same time, a bigger-budget film was made: Fairies: A True Story, directed by Charles Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust). It had the added benefit of Harvey Keitel appearing as Harry Houdini and Peter O’Toole? as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

This film also focuses on the children, their seeing of the fairies, the photos, the issues of reality and unreality.

1.The factual basis of the film? A fictional interpretation of the events? The focus on characters, situations, the period - and the parallels with '80s and '90s New Age beliefs?

2.The British production: style and manner, budget? Cast? The Swiss mountain settings? England, London and the countryside pre and post-war? The evocation of World War I? Post-war England? The musical score? (The waltz, the background to Charles' execution?)

3.Special effects, the editing, the dreams, the effects for the fairies, the photos, the fairies and the visions?

4.The credibility of the events? The Theosophical Society in the early 20th century? Mediums, seances? Belief in fairies, transcending all religions, theories of lost angels, intermediaries with human beings, messages? Children's response to fairies and delight? Adults and the fairies as leading to death? The visualising of the fairies - late 19th century, early 20th century art? Female and male? Their appearances, the dancing, the flying, burning and destruction?

5.The screenplay's theory about the appearance of the fairies? The Theosophical Society and its speeches and debates? The drug effects of the special flowers? Hallucinations?

6.The title, the original photo of the marriage ceremony? Charles as photographer? The possibilities of capturing reality realistically and stylistically in photos? (In film?) The types of camera, quality of plates, development? Capturing what the eye cannot see?

7.The opening: Switzerland, 1912? The wedding group - and Charles missing, coming from behind the camera? Kissing his wife, the blur in the photograph? Its being on his wall - and Mrs Templeton's comment about weddings? Charles' love for his wife, the waltz, the love? On the mountains, the weather, the crevasse opening, his inability to hold his wife? Her loss and his grief? The reprisal of these in his dreams and memories: the dance floor, the locked doors, the empty room, the erotic aspects of his dreams and memories? The end and his being able to save his wife as he died? Images of Heaven - a heavenly state in which everything was complete?

8.Charles and his character, photographer, talented? The effect of his wife's death? The wall, helped by Roy, photographing the corpses, the dangers, the unexploded bomb, his recklessness towards his own life? His death wish? Surviving?

9.His work after the war: the sequence with the grieving parents, the pose, Roy taking the place of the son, his manufacturing the photo? Indication that photos can be manufactured? His visit to the Theosophical Society and his denunciation of the photos with the fairies? His speech, giving out his cards? The speaker and the introduction to the photos and invitation to audience belief? Conan Doyle's response? Seeing Charles as a seeker for the truth? Beatrice Templeton and her presence, her visit to Charles, the explanation of the photographs? Her enigmatic responses? Roy and the exasperation about the interruptions to the work, the enlargements and the range of photos, his discovery of the reflection of the fairies in the eye of the child? His abrupt treatment of the councillors and their photo?

10.His having a cause, travelling to the countryside, asking Roy to bring the gear, Roy's exasperation? The visualising of country life? Seeing the girls coming out of school, following them, bursting into the reception, being offered the cakes, the initial encounter with Nicholas Templeton? Mrs Templeton and her enigmatic reaction, making the appointment?

11.Mrs Templeton, presence at the society talk, bringing the photos? Her visit to Charles and the discussion about the photos, her wanting reassurance? Her anxiety, eating the flower, the hallucinations, climbing the tree, seeking the fairies, her death? Nicholas ambling through the woods for the appointment, finding her body? Going to the police, the presence of the children and Nicholas? His attending her funeral and listening to the oration and prayer?

12.His growing obsession? The enlarged photos, his continued study of them, the plausibility of speed and motion and the photographing of fairies? His theories? Watching the children, seeing the flowers and their eating them, the hallucinations? Putting the mementoes of their mother into the tree? His taking the flower, his own hallucination in the pub, seeing the fairies? At the tree, his continued hallucinations, his climbing the tree, his fall and his being injured? The blood, his going to the funeral? The encounter with Linda and her helping him?

13.Linda and her care for the children, helping Charles, stitching his forehead? The attraction? The discussions? The village celebration, the dance (and Charles' hypnotic presence, remembering his wife)? On the roof looking at the town? Linda and her meeting with Roy, working with him for the taking of the series of photographs? Her fidelity to Charles' memory, bringing the children to London?

14.Roy, the war service, working with Charles, exasperation, the photo of the councillors, the partners and the decisions about the company, his money sunk into it? Watching Charles being taunted by Nicholas at the harvest, throwing the sacks of flour? Working with Linda at the tree?

15.The children, their age, background, seeing the fairies, making up the stories, their mothers' mementoes in the tree, the importance of the flowers? At their mother's funeral? The continued questions of Charles? Going back to the tree, the flower, the young girl's fall? Her father's interrogation - after his finding the mementoes and reading the notebook? The children at the end - inheriting their parents' money, going to London with Linda?

16.Nicholas Templeton, his jovial manner, his war service background, love for his wife? The grief at her death, at the police station? The celebration of the funeral, his words and the hymn? The people sharing the grief? The invitation to Charles to stay for the meal, giving him more food? The tricks of the mind as he expected Beatrice to arrive? Charles joining him for the run, on the log above the waterfall, letting Charles fall, holding on to him, demanding a confession? The injury of his child, cross-examining her, finding the notebook and reading about the flowers? His destruction of the tree, destruction of the cameras? At the harvest and his taunting of Charles with the weight of the sack? Their fight, his impalement, his strength - his dying (and the fairy breath seeming to come out of him)?

17.Charles and his dismay, the destruction of the tree, asking the children where the flowers came from, going under the tree, the small remnant? The photos and the series, his belief in them, his explanations to Roy and Linda that the fairies had been photographed even though they had not seen them? The hallucination at the tree - the fire and the fairies being burnt in the fire? The fight with Nicholas and his death? Going to the police station, confessing, not wanting to mount any defence, pleading guilty? In jail, the visits, Linda's presence? The final meal and his being calm and content? The walk to the gallows in the snow, the chaplain and the words of the Resurrection and the Life? His willingness to die? The death experience, the tunnel, the light? Being reunited with his wife, being able to save her from the crevasse, Heaven as the completion of all things?

18.Themes of faith and superstition? `New Age' theories of angels and intermediaries? The role of the church? Angels? The afterlife? Descriptions of Heaven - as a state in which all things were complete (and the discussion with Sherlock Holmes)? The relevance of this kind of story for the late 20th century?