USA, 1955
Ben Harper: "What religion you profess, preacher?"
Harrpy Powell: "The religion the Almighty and me worked out betwixt us."
I
Harold Bloom famously proposed that "the American religion" (commonly called "conservative Protestantism," though Bloom sees nothing Protestant in it) sets itself apart from European Christianity by declaring that individuals have direct contact with God. The American Christian has an intimate relationship with YHWH; Jesus is a "personal Savior." Salvation is an experience one has as much as a gift one accepts.
To some, this loose line of communion between man and God creates a predisposition to heresy or, at the very least, a dangerous lack of firm, doctrinal foundation. Indeed, the already rich history of American faith proves very accommodating to fluid and radical changes - in nearly 300 years, we've produced more strains and variations of faith than the last 1,700 years of European Christianity.
Charles Laughton and James Agee's "Night of the Hunter" is a harrowing portrait of the American religion gone horribly wrong. It is one of the creepiest, most unusual, and greatest movies ever made. It is Laughton's only film, and one of Agee's few screenplays. Had either continued making films into the '60s, there's no telling what their talents would have produced. As it is, we only have "Night of the Hunter," a heavily stylized and terrifying masterpiece.
I'm not sure if "Night of the Hunter" is a parable against the American religion or a celebration of it. I'm not sure how much Rev. Harry Powell (who, as far as I can tell, is a reverend...as well as a thief, a murderer, and a villain) is actually the antagonist of the film. "Night of the Hunter" is an almost completely Christian film, and I've hardly grasped all its layers and nuances. I could probably write a dozen columns on the film, each with a different set of interpretations. There is so much I can say about this movie, and so little room to say it.
Early in the film, Powell is imprisoned for stealing a car. While in jail, he learns that his cellmate is sentenced to death for killing a man while stealing $10,000 from a bank. The money was never found, and the cellmate won't reveal where it's hidden. When Powell is released, he hunts down the man's widow, whom he marries for the sole purpose of finding the money. He infects her with religious guilt, and pressures her two children, John and Pearl, to reveal the whereabouts of the money (which is hidden in Pearl's doll). After he murders their mother, the children run away, and find shelter in the home of an old maid named Rachel Cooper (played by Lillian Gish), whose life is devoted to caring for orphans.
Powell wears his faith, rather appropriately, on his knuckles. It takes the form of two tattoos: the word "love" on the right knuckles, the word "hate" on the left (this is among the most famous images in American cinema - it has been copied in numerous films, including Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing"). He uses these tattoos as an illustrated sermon, demonstrating the constant battle between good and evil. His fingers lace and his hands wrestle each other - at first, hate seems sure to win, but at the last minute, love conquers all.
"There are veins in the right hand that flow straight to the heart of man," Powell says, inaccurately citing the long-held belief that veins in the left hand connected directly to the heart. Powell's misinformation is important and revealing. It shows on which side of Christianity Powell belongs: the esoteric, "left-handed" side. In America, such esoteric teachings are the norm, and preachers often pass personal revelations off as traditional teachings. Powell disguises his strange faith as conventional, "right-handed" Christianity...he has created a truly American faith.
Is Powell's faith valid? Is he really speaking to God, and is God really speaking back? Most people would answer a resounding "No" to these questions, but the film is silent on the matter. Upon close examination, I find Powell's views on God and scripture to be unconventional, but certainly not invalid. His faith is left-handed, yes...but not necessarily wrong. Perhaps Powell is more right than we'd like to realize, and that's why the film is so scary. After all, left-handed faith is sometimes closest to the truth - after all, those are the veins that flow straight to the heart.
The rightness and wrongness of Powell's faith could be debated endlessly. I may return to the subject in another column, after I have dug deeper into this bizarre and complicated film. But one thing is utterly clear to me: Harry Powell is American Christianity, inside and out...and if we take the film at face value, the American religion doesn't look very pretty.
Harry Powell: "Lord I am tired. Sometimes I wonder if You really understand. Not that You mind the killings...Your book is full of killings. But there are things You do hate, Lord: perfume-smelling things, lacey things, things with curly hair."
How does Powell reflect American Christianity's flaws and shortcomings? In an attempt to answer that question (a very complicated question from a very complicated film), I'll examine only the negative aspects of Powell's character - to view Powell as a positive character would require more thought and explanation than I can provide in one column.
First, there is Powell's attitude toward women, perhaps the most disturbing element of the film. He displays an almost pathological disgust toward women, manifested in his routine murders. He's not exactly a serial killer - he doesn't seem to kill for pleasure. He lures young widows to him because they are vulnerable, and uses their vulnerability to steal money and goods. He kills them afterwards, but the killings are functional, not impulsive. He can't let them live, lest they report him to the police.
Powell has a hypnotic effect on nearly every woman he encounters, which he always uses to his advantage. Once they are in his web, he violently condemns them, preaching that women since Eve have corrupted men with their flesh, that they are made for begetting children and nothing else. In a particularly disturbing scene, he is leading a rally of believers, and his new wife (the widow of a man he met in prison) gives her testimony: she blames herself and her feminine impulses for her husband's sin and eventual imprisonment. Later in the film, Powell meets a teenaged orphan girl and exchanges ice cream for information. His very presence convinces her that she is guilty of horrible sin.
Powell's attitude toward woman is part and parcel of his attitude toward sex (the same applies to American Christianity). Powell treats sex with the same disgust he has for women, and his reasons are never really made clear. As the Bible never treats intercourse as a purely procreative act, the hard-line stance against enjoying sex that plagued American Christianity for so many decades was always inexplicable.
The explanation in "Night of the Hunter" is subtle and somewhat humorous. Powell carries a knife, which he uses as a substitute for sex. In one scene, he responds to an erotic dancer by switching the blade upward. The implication: Powell is impotent, and the knife stands in for his penis. It could likewise be said that American Christianity's opposition to sexuality arose from a sort of impotence, rooted in fear or disgust. This attitude was borrowed from Augustine (who was a functional impotent during his Christian years), taken to an extreme, and disguised as righteous indignation against sin. The equating of sexuality with sinfulness is a stain in the American church's history.
Second, there is Powell's overwhelming greed, the crux of the film. If American Christianity's attitude toward sex has loosened in recent decades, its profound greed remains.
In "Night of the Hunter," Powell is driven entirely by greed. Powell's greed reminds me of the greed that stains evangelicalism to this day. Greed has become characteristic of the Pat Robertsons and Paul Crouches of our world - televangelists continually ask for money, promising the riches of the Kingdom while they fatten their purses. Countless Christians, already struggling with finances, are driven deeper into debt by the greed of their shepherds (the majority of contributions are made by individuals who can barely afford to give). Like Powell, they claim to need money "for the advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven" - but the only kingdom they advance is their own.
If Powell is American Christianity in all its diseased glory, Rachel (significantly named after the Biblical Rachel, who wept for her children) is the film's true Christian. She quotes the Bible verbatim, and practices its teachings nearly to perfection. She cares for the widow and the orphan just as Powell slays and abuses them. When Powell comes hunting for John and Pearl, she is not fooled by his façade for an instant.
Rachel is an advert for Christianity in a film that seems disposed against religion. But as admirable as her character may be, I do not identify with her as I identify with Powell - he is the film's nucleus, its beginning and end. He manages to practice Christianity by breaking all of its rules. He offends and condemns, all in the name of God. Whether his faith is right or wrong, it is undoubtedly real, and that is why he is so dangerous. He not only causes little ones to stumble, he purposely trips them.
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For more on "Night of the Hunter," read Roger Ebert's Great Movies review, as well as Michael Atkinson's Village Voice review and Edward Guthmann's San Francisco Chronicle review.
