Thursday 29 November 2018

Carrie (1976)

Carrie (1976)






contains spoilers



You know what you notice in Carrie? The music. Whole scenes go by without a single line of dialogue, with just the on screen images and the incidental music to carry you along. What a relief that Pino Donaggio's score fits and creates the mood so well. In fact, moments like Carrie looking through her seemingly empty house for her mum, and the aftermath of the cruel prank at the prom, seem all the more powerful for the lack of dialogue.

This is a film about 2 monsters, none of them Carrie. She is a reaction to two sided abuse. That of the bullies at school, but worse, imo, that of her mother, terrifyingly played with realistic religious mania by Piper Laurie. When we balk at the fact that when Carrie explodes,
those who tried to help her are killed as well as the bullies
, but those conditions were placed in her by a lifetime of her mother. The mother she mourns,
even as she is dying from mother inflicted wounds.

When my Granda George was alive, he went in town one day, and instead of CDs found rows and rows of "Special CDs" at his HMV. On being told about the existence of DVDs, he bought a player and some DVDs on the spot. Various operas, and A Night with Peter Ustinov, to give you some idea of this 70 year old orthodox Catholic man's tastes. He was showing off the DVD player, when he said "Wait, I managed to get a grand film I love", and went into his other room to find it. Me and dad spent a good minute trying to guess, and settled on some John Wayne flick.

Out he comes carrying a DVD case you might recognise...

"Stephen King's Carrie, that's a rare film, that is!" He declared proudly.

Falling to the floor levels of hysterical laughter followed, from all three.

But he really loved this film. Apparently its underlying subtext about the dangers of religious mania as a means to abuse folk is evil is widely appreciated, even by folk you wouldn't expect.

So Carrie? It's a rare film, that is.

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