Review: Gaslight (1944)

Gaslight is an important film that’s probably less seen than you’d think given the popularity of the expression the title spawned. Over the years, but especially over the past six or seven, the term “gaslighting” has come to be used colloquially to describe a pattern of psychological manipulation and torment, in which someone makes someone else feel like they are going crazy, such as a cruel, controlling husband driving his wife to question her reality and thereby keep her vulnerable. Although use of the term has its origins in pop psychology and feminist criticism, more recently, the term is widely deployed by both the contemporary Left and Right, especially in the context of US politics, as an accusation of the psychological manipulation of a targeted populace. In this sense, liberals said Trump gaslit his supporters, and conservatives complain that the mainstream media gaslights citizens.

I was drawn to Gaslight not only to better understand the origins of the expression, but also because it features Ingrid Bergman, one of my favourite classical Hollywood actresses, in a performance that won her her first Best Actress Oscar. I’m pleased to say the film is far richer than I expected and worthy of renewed attention on its own merits.

MGM’s 1944 production of Gaslight, directed by George Cukor, is based upon a 1938 play (by Patrick Hamilton) and a 1940 British film of the same name (directed by Thorold Dickinson). Gaslight is a Gothic mystery, blending romance, terror, and a potent atmosphere cultivated in no small measure by the locale and its architecture. In Italy, a young lady (Ingrid Bergman’s Paula Alquist) is seduced and courted by a charming older man (Charles Boyer’s Gregory Anton), the pianist for her opera lessons, who soon becomes her husband. From early on the film indicates that Gregory possesses a mysterious past and hints at his possibly sinister intentions. 

The main twist on the genre is that Gregory does not take Paula home to his own lavish, Gothic manor in the countryside, but instead to her old home in London. You see, Paula grew up with her world-famous opera singer aunt at No. 9 Thornton Square, but when her aunt was murdered—and the crime was never solved, mind you—the young Paula was raised abroad, and trained to become an opera singer. The townhouse was left to Paula, and her new husband is eager for them to repossess it. The townhouse also points to another variation on the Gothic genre: Gregory is not aristocratic, but rather a social climber who mentions earlier experiences of poverty. 

Although Cukor’s film opens up the setting somewhat, the Edwardian townhouse on a London square remains the primary location and source of atmosphere for the disturbing happenings. When they move into No. 9 Thornton Square, Paula remains traumatized from past events, and so Gregory suggests they board up all her aunt’s old opera stuff in the attic, which becomes the room of mystery of so many Gothic tales. As the story progresses, Paula hears footsteps from the supposedly empty attic, and she notices how the gaslight in her room turns down precisely when she hears those sounds, suggesting that gas is being used elsewhere in the household, even though the old housekeeper denies lighting any new lamps during the night. 

Gaslight is a brilliant, disturbing portrait of psychological torment in the domestic sphere. Gregory does little things to make Paula think she is going crazy, such as constantly telling her that she is forgetful and loses things, and then secretly taking an object of hers and making it look like it has gone missing. He tells her there are no sounds and that the lights haven’t changed. It’s important to note that the film isn’t concerned with the mystery of whether Gregory is actually manipulating Paula: that much is clear fairly early on, once they move into the townhouse and an old letter is discovered. The mystery is not who, but how and why: what are Gregory’s motivations for doing all this? How exactly is he “gaslighting” Paula and how long will his torments prevail? You can understand why the film became the basis for the expression, since it is a sophisticated document of his cruel behaviours and their psychic effects on Paula. His gaslighting is despicable and infuriating, which is exactly the point.

The last quarter of the film turns into a more mundane Hollywood thriller. Joseph Cotten is appealing as Inspector Brian Cameron, a Scotland Yard detective with a prior history with the aunt. Our concerns shift to whether Joseph will rescue the heroine-victim, with hints of romance between the inspector and Paula. Angela Lansbury is also amusing as Nancy, an Edwardian tart employed by Gregory as an additional housemaid to keep an eye on Paula.

However, like most classical Hollywood films, the feminist energies within the work are mostly contained by the conventional ending. The film exhibits a dampening of female agency that is typical of classical Hollywood. Paula is a victim, and in the end she is rescued, even if she actively takes some revenge once Gregory is caught. This might not conform to narrative patterns and expectations about characters in 2022, but this neither lessens the potency of the first three quarters of the film, nor does it “ruin” the story. It’s what one should expect from Hollywood in 1944; in this sense, Gaslight is not an outlier. 

I would also point out that the film’s psychological and atmospheric potency owes precisely to the effectiveness of Gregory’s manipulations. If Paula were easily able to see through his deceptions, they wouldn’t be so sinister and terrifying. Bergman delivers an exceptional performance, one of her best. She is excellent at conveying Paula’s sincere confusion and her psychological descent and torment at the fear that she is losing all grip on reality. The scene at a piano recital, where Gregory publicly humiliates her, is excruciating to watch. The denial and deconstruction of Paula’s agency is specifically the intent of the gaslighter, Gregory.

Furthermore, the film’s conventional ending does not erase its criticism of how some men psychologically manipulate women to control them. Indeed, the film’s conventionality, which somewhat enacts further control of the heroine, implicates studio-era Hollywood in the systems of control. The film’s interest in opera and show business (after all, Gregory meets Paula when she is a singer with raw talent and lots of potential) builds even more connections to the Hollywood system. How many producers of the studio-era that Bergman inhabited controlled their stars this way? How similar is Harvey Weinstein to Gregory?

We can still imagine, though, how sinister the movie would be if he got away with it. Around the edges of the film are extremely dark suggestions that make one question one’s reality. How many domestic arrangements, whether between lovers and partners or between parent and child, are layered with and sustained by gaslighting? Such speculations make this a lastingly unsettling film, as are the superb depictions of claustrophobic terror and deceptive control.

As I noted earlier, Gaslight is not a mystery in the sense of making us, the audience, question whether Paula’s concerns might be baseless. We might fear her eventual insanity due to torment, but we never believe Gregory’s deceptions. Fairly early on, most viewers will suspect Gregory is manipulating things, but we don’t know why. The mystery, as I said, is why. Paula thinks she’s going insane, but the audience knows better. This, I think, lies at the heart of the currency of “gaslighting” in popular cultural and political discourse. Many are now inherently suspicious of our media and our governments, and so the mystery becomes not whether the lying and manipulation is happening—but why. The film’s narration anticipates the mindset of the skeptical person feeling gaslit today, not the psychological state of one being fully manipulated.

As much as I want to recommend Gaslight on its own merits, I do think the film is essential viewing for understanding our current culture and a media landscape, which, whatever one’s political persuasions, is clearly replete with multitudes of psychological manipulations, from the advertising and tailored search results we all are aware of, to newsroom narrative control, to mainstream and independent media propaganda, to government-run “nudge units.” You’re not crazy to see the relevance of this film today.

9 out of 10

Gaslight (1944, USA)

Directed by George Cukor; screenplay by John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, and John L. Balderston, based on the play by Patrick Hamilton; starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Angela Lansbury, and May Whitty.

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