Movie Crush Monday: CT & The Night Of The Hunter

Let me start this Movie Crush Monday off by sharing a little story with you all. When I was but a Young CT, finishing my third year at film school, I thought I was pretty impressive stuff. I mean, by that time I'd studied abroad, I'd made a handful of short films, I felt like I'd hit the point where school was just going to be a downhill ride from that point forward. So I signed up for a class called "Magic, Wonder, and Cinema" thinking that I would watch a few magician movies and move on with my life.

Boy, oh boy was I wrong. That class dug into my puny little mind and just started pulling things apart. We spent hours of class time discussing the nature of wonder, reading about the philosophy behind "broken knowledge", and watching some of the best films I've ever seen. Why yes, I am a nerd, but I've rarely enjoyed anything the way I enjoyed that class.

So how does all that relate to my Movie Crush this week? Well one of the movies that we watched in "Magic, Wonder, and Cinema" was the classic, The Night of the Hunter.

The plot of The Night of the Hunter is pretty straightforward. A bank robber, Ben Harper, steals $10,000 and manages to hide it in his daughter's doll before he's captured. Only his daughter and his son know where the money is. However, the robber's prison bunkmate (played by the indomitable Robert Mitchum), finds out about the money. Mitchum's character, Harry, calls himself a preacher but he's really a murderer and con-man. He convinces Ben's widow to marry him, and proceeds to terrorize both her and the children to find the money.

The majority of the movie's narrative is told through the children's eyes. They're practical, brave kids, and they're willing to do almost anything to protect themselves, their mother, and the money. And there's something uniquely magical about a story told through a child's eyes. The barrier between reality and magic is more permeable for kids, and so their narratives have all kinds of magic around the edges, even when the main story is rooted in a harsh reality.

There's a particularly incredible sequence where the children are floating down a river to escape the Preacher. Even though the movie is filmed in black and white, the light quality in this scene is almost unmatched by any other movie I've scene. The whole world takes on a gorgeous, luminescent quality, like the kids have crossed into a different world.

The Night of the Hunter packed a punch that has stayed with me in the years since I took that class. Beyond the classic performance that made the movie famous, it captures its own terrifying sense of wonder.

Until next time,
CT

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