{"id":9245,"date":"2018-04-08T09:31:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T15:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9245"},"modified":"2018-04-09T20:59:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T02:59:57","slug":"our-salem-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9245","title":{"rendered":"Our Salem Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prompted by J. W. Ocker’s A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts<\/a><\/em>, M. and I held a little Salem film festival. (We skipped The Lords of Salem<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n

In order of creation, we watched these three movies:\u00a0 Three Sovereigns for Sarah<\/a> <\/em>(1985), Hocus Pocus<\/a> <\/em>(1993), and The VVitch<\/a><\/em> (2015).<\/p>\n

https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/three-sovereigns-clip.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

(This looks like a bootleg copy, but I wanted this scene. Sorry about the quality.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Three Sovereigns for Sarah<\/em>, a three-part PBS documentary, is well-done, using authentic trial testimony in spots. Vanessa Redgrave<\/a>, playing accused witch Sarah Cloyse<\/a>, just dominates it \u2014 although she has some competition from the young actresses playing the “afflicted” girls.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

A historical consultant told Ocker, “We had a lot more power on the production than historians usually have on commercial things.” They were even able to nix Alexander Scourby’s<\/a> casting as a judge, because Scourby would not shave his beard, which was historically inappropriate. Clean-shaven Patrick McGoohan<\/a> replaced him.<\/p>\n

The church meeting house where the Rev. Samuel Parrish holds forth was built for the movie, and like all 17th-century buildings, included recessed fluorescent lighting. OK, that’s a joke. But compared to the moody available-light shooting in The VVitch, Three Sovereigns for Sarah<\/em> is lit like a TV soap opera, giving a sort of “witchcraft under the microscope” vibe.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, it gives you the feel of what happened. And guess what \u2014 no one is hung for being an herbalist or a healer. That is romantic mush that started in the 1960s and 1970s. It may make you feel good<\/a>, but it is not about what happened in 1692 in America \u2014 or elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Importantly, the film gives Sarah Cloyce a speech in which she explains how neatly the witchcraft accusations matched property disputes in Salem Village. In other words, adults were feeding suggestions to the “afflicted” girls about whom to denounce. That is usually the way it works in “children’s crusades.”<\/p>\n

BEELEEVE THE CHILDREN!<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/hocus-poscus-trailer.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

Of Hocus Pocus<\/em> (1993), Ocker observes,<\/p>\n

The witches are played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Nijimy in, if not exactly career-defining roles, roles that will probably outlast anything they’ve ever done. There are entire generations of people who know Hocus Pocus<\/em>, but have no idea about wind, wings, sex, city, hair, or spray.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, but it’s Disney (kids win, witches lose). That is probably why I had no interest in it in 1993, and besides, I had student papers to grade. And Sex and the City\u00a0<\/em>will be Parker’s role that I <\/em>remember.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Witch-trailer.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

If Three Sovereigns for Sarah<\/em> presents a documentary-style take on the 1692 witchcraft panic, The VVitch<\/i><\/a> gives us the imagined European witchcraft of the 16th\u201317th centuries transplanted to New England, where tiny cleared islands of Christianity struggle to survive up against dark walls of savage forests, In that, it echoes some of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s spookier fiction, in which he dips from the same well.<\/p>\n

But it’s a horror movie, so the central character witch is herself a teenager, not a mature woman. Of course you have your pact with the devil, the Witches’ Sabbat, spectral flight, possession, and Black Phillip, the goat who is more than a goat. In lighting, costuming, and general atmosphere, it is the best of the three. Unlike the other two, it was not filmed partly in or near Salem but near Kiosk, Ontario<\/a>, in order to get the best cinematic forests.<\/p>\n

Also, it gives me a segue into talking about Nathaniel Hawthorne and witchcraft, coming up.<\/p>\n

  1. Sarah Cloyce is depicted . . . differently . . . by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I am coming to that. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Prompted by J. W. Ocker’s A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts, M. and I held a little Salem film festival. (We skipped The Lords of Salem.) In order of creation, we watched these three movies:\u00a0 Three Sovereigns for Sarah (1985), Hocus Pocus (1993), and The VVitch (2015). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,103,36,325,13,29],"class_list":["post-9245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-massachusetts","tag-movies","tag-salem","tag-travel","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2p7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11842,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11842","url_meta":{"origin":9245,"position":0},"title":"Salem Museum Gives In, Exhibits 1692 Witch-Trial Materials","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2017, Donna Seger, a history professor at Salem State University (Massachusetts) wrote an open letter to the leadership of the Peabody Essex Museum, a big, rich institution in downtown Salem that along with being a major art museum, controls (and usually hides) the town's historical archives. Her letter stated,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Massachusetts\"","block_context":{"text":"Massachusetts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=massachusetts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/sewall-256x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9408,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9408","url_meta":{"origin":9245,"position":1},"title":"Hawthorne’s Witches and a Secret History of Salem","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 28, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A century and a half after the Salem witch trials, they still lived in the mind of a young Salem writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804\u20131864). From his fiancee's window, if he had a good arm, he could have thrown an ink bottle at the headstone of his ancestor John Hathorne, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"literature\"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/hawthornes-girlfriend.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9540,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9540","url_meta":{"origin":9245,"position":2},"title":"Salem Still Follows Us","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"My April 25th post said, \"The Southwest Follows Us to Salem & Salem Follows Us Home.\" That has not stopped. Yesterday I stepped into the Goodwill store in Pueblo, Colorado to buy some of their 99\u00a2 wineglasses for daily use. (Wineglasses break.) This shot glass caught my eye instead. Trade\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Massachusetts\"","block_context":{"text":"Massachusetts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=massachusetts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/salem-shot-glass.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9456,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9456","url_meta":{"origin":9245,"position":3},"title":"Witchy Cultural Tourists Do Exist","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In J. W. Ocker\u2019s book A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts, Jay Finney, chief marketing officer of the big Peabody Essex Museum, tells Ocker that \u201ccultural tourists\u201d who visit the museum are a different crowd than those who come to Salem for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9206,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9206","url_meta":{"origin":9245,"position":4},"title":"Witches, Sea Captains, and Art \u2014\u00a0We Go Back to Salem","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last November, during the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Boston, I made a quick trip to Salem, Mass., with some fellow Pagan studies scholars. It was only one afternoon\u2014long enough to visit some of the witchy shops, a magickal temple, the Charter Street\u00a0cemetery, and a few other sites.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/black-magic-rum-ocker-sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9473,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9473","url_meta":{"origin":9245,"position":5},"title":"Aye, My Hearties, the Six of Coins!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The history of Salem, Mass., is more about the sea than the witches \u2014 at least through the 18th and early 19th centuries, the peak of the Age of Sail. In the beginning, all the coastal communities were fishing ports, but while some like Gloucester stayed that way, Salem went\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"history\"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/pickering-wharf-cropped-sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/pickering-wharf-cropped-sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/pickering-wharf-cropped-sm.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/pickering-wharf-cropped-sm.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9245"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9278,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9245\/revisions\/9278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}