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BELL_BOOK_AND_GOTH

                                             September 02, 2022

Once, a friend of mine had just seen
"Bell, Book and Candle" at the                   BELL_BOOK_AND_CANDLE
Stanford Theater, and I asked him what
he thought of it.

   He responded dismissively about how
   it was the just the usual Hollywood        A peculiar criticism in a lot of
   version of occultism.                      ways-- I wouldn't expect anything
                                              substantive about occultism from a
                                              movie-- or any other source, for
The feminist criticism of the                 that matter, I'm not much of a
movie that makes more sense to                True Believer in anything.
me: the female lead *loses her
power* in the end, and that's                      I sometimes like fantasy,
treated as some sort of happy                      but the magical elements in
ending:  it makes the man feel                     it strike me as symbols of
more comfortable.                                  other things: in "Bell, Book
                                                   and Candle" there's an
                                                   underground of people who
   There are many more things about                think differently, they're
   the movie that just work for me,                walking a different path
   including, for example, the                     from the straight world.
   quality of the acting, with Ernie
   Kovacs cast in what was probably                BELL_BOOK_AND_VILLAGE
   his greatest film role...

            ERNIE_KOVACS



The look of Kim Novac's character is
really impressive throughout the movie,
a fine example of proto-goth, albiet a
toned-down elegant version.


    And the scene where she casts a
    spell, humming to Pyewacket--          Or so it always seemed to me.
    now that's real magic.
                                           Admittedly, in retrospect I'm
                                           afraid it can be unintentionally
                                           funny-- the changes in lighting
                                           seem pretty heavy-handed to the
                                           modern eye.



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