Episode 62: It's Like 'The Shining', But With Nuns: On 'Black Narcissus'
The 1947 British film Black Narcissus is many things: an allegory of the end of empire, a chilling ghost story with nary a spook in sight, a psychological romance, and a meditation on the nature of the divine. Its weirdness is as undeniable as it is difficult to locate. On the surface, the story is straightforward: five nuns are tasked with opening a convent in the former seraglio of a dead potentate in the Himalayas. But on a deeper level, there is a lot more going on, as Phil and JF discover in this conversation touching on the presence of the past, the monstrosity of God, the mystery of the singular, and the eroticism of prayer, among other strangenesses.
\n\nREFERENCES
\n\nMichael Powell and Emeric Pressburged (dirs.), Black Narcissus
\nRumer Godden, author of the original novel
Stanley Kubrick, The Shining
\nGilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
\nTim Ingold, British anthropologist -- lecture: "One World Anthropology"
\nJonathan Demme (dir.), The Silence of the Lambs
\nPierre Bourdieu, French sociologist
\nBruno Latour, On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods
\nDon Barhelme, American short story writer
\nPaul Ricoeur, French philosopher
\nWeird Studies episode 16: On Dogen Zenji's Genjokoan
\nThe King and the Beggar Maid
\n Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers
\n \u201cPainting with Light,\u201d featurette on the Criterion Collection DVD of Black Narcissus