THE CINEMATIC HORROR OF STILLNESS

Scares are not just loud and quick. We can know this from Director Nicolas Roeg’s and editor Tony Lawson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “The Witches”. When Helga briefs her grandson Luke on the existence of witches, she recounts an episode of her life where childhood friend Erica disappeared after being sent out for milk by her father, who had just showed her his new painting. 

As Helga approaches the dining table where Erica’s mother is at, the father enters the room and comes to a stop, staring right off the frame. The next shot - his point of view - pushes in slowly but decidedly towards the painting on the wall. It’s significant that she describes him as walking towards the painting, yet what the movement suggests is more of a displacement of the gaze (in contrast with the shaky coverage of Erica’s kidnapping). Older Helga’s voice narrates the scene, reflecting that “it was as though he had seen a ghost”. This is supported by the reactions of Erica’s mom and young Helga, also within his field of view at the start of the shot, as they set their eyes on his abnormal behavior. As the painting fills the frame, in unison with the narration, we can notice a figure - not yet detailed - inside the composition’s house, that Helga confirms as Erica. The view cuts to a medium close-up of Erica’s father walking towards the camera, his face showing a speechless, unnerving terror. The following shot reinforces this eeriness by continuing a forward-moving attitude towards the phenomenon, this time back to the push in on the painting, detailing the face and body of Erica at the window.

It is the stares that channel the unsettling nature of the events portrayed. Eyes, we hear, are the window to the soul (and also what gives witches away in the story, with a purple tint on theirs), and this formulation of shots ends with a pair of inert, yet haunting eyes, looking up straight through the lens to her father. A faint voice, reverberating almost from beyond the grave, surrounds the atmosphere: “Papa!”.

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