Hell and high water to bring you my love

[sovay]

Talking about Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus (1947) on Facebook, I wrote of Kathleen Byron in her final scene: "She looks like a Fury, like a sick rose. She looks like she's dead and she looks like she'll eat you alive. In that last minute, she's never been more beautiful."

Writing that out made me realize that in the eleven years since I first saw the movie, Sister Ruth has acquired a soundtrack in my head and it's PJ Harvey's "To Bring You My Love":

I've lain with the Devil
Cursed God above
Forsaken Heaven
To bring you my love

Comments

[selkie]

Oh my God, it was in color the moment they released it? I thought the color had been added. Isn't it from 1947? It's always been that saturated and weird/lurid/fever fantasy, from new?

Were they TRYING for exotica erotica? Like, was that on the label the whole time and I'm bad at watching films?

[sovay]

Isn't it from 1947? It's always been that saturated and weird/lurid/fever fantasy, from new?

It has! Always. It made audiences gasp. I dream of someday seeing a Technicolor print.

Were they TRYING for exotica erotica? Like, was that on the label the whole time and I'm bad at watching films?

Powell has called it the most erotic movie he and Pressburger ever made. He's probably right. There's a level on which I am always surprised the source novel was by Rumer Godden, because anachronism notwithstanding, it really looks like they just filmed Tanith Lee.