The Night of the Hunter
d. Charles Laughton, 1955
After six viewings of The Night of the Hunter, it's becoming hard to discuss the film divorced from the way it makes me feel: genuinely happy, mildly disturbed, wildly amused, and even a bit nostalgic. It's a film of such captivating beauty that it defies criticism, which is ironic considering that its screenwriter, James Agee, was himself a prominent film critic. The story of the film, as everyone should know by now, is that of Harry Powell (Charles Laughton), a self-proclaimed preacher more interested in punishing people than saving them. Near the beginning of the film, he's put in the same cell as a man who killed two people and stole $10,000, which are now with his two young children. The rest of Night of the Hunter is an exploration of terror and shadowy compositions as seen from the perspective of a child. Stanley Cortez (who also shot Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons) carefully executes Charles Laughton's compositions, resulting in one of the most visually inventive films of all time, let alone of the 50s. A masterpiece.
