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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.20.31.211
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 09:12 am:   

I watched A PASSAGE TO INDIA last night for the first time in ages and was struck by its almost supernatural atmosphere. What other films have a similar mood without slipping over the line into the explictly ghostly?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 09:16 am:   

Picnic at Hanging Rock
The Cars That Are Paris
Walkabout

A lot of Aussie films have this; it must be an element of their cinema culture.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 09:17 am:   

The Cars That ATE Paris...(give me an edit button, please!)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.145.36.243
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 09:36 am:   

The Passage to India film (as I reacall it) simply reflects (in a good way) the book in the way you suggest.

All films for me have the presence of ghosts (perhap the cameramen and crew whose shadows can be often glimpsed or imagined (in a bad way)).

Many black and white films carry viruses of haunting, some intentional others not.

'Death In Venice' is probably the best example of a film that carries a supernatural soul that is not obviously fabricated by the film-makers.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.20.31.211
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 10:08 am:   

Yeah, Howards End (book and film) has a deliciously mysterious line: "I feel we're all part of that woman's mind."
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.167.124.163
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 11:46 am:   

The Remains of the Day- full of ghosts. It also has one of the greatest performances ever put on film by Hopkins.
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Niki Flynn (Niki)
Username: Niki

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.32.69.29
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 02:48 pm:   

Exotica, directed by Atom Egoyan. Filled with psychological ghosts.

And I couldn't agree more about Remains of the Day. One of my favourite novels and one you'd have thought was impossible to film, given the subtleties of the unreliable narrator. But Hopkins manages to convey the character's cluelessness brilliantly. Thompson's no slouch herself. Powerful, gut-wrenching stuff.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 03:11 pm:   

Most of Bergman's films possess this atmosphere, Gary. I've been saying for years that his films are ghost stories without ghosts.
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.173.94
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 10:35 pm:   

Zed: right about Bergman.

James Joyce's "The Dead", both book and film, could be said to be ghost stories where the ghost never appears.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.145.36.243
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 10:48 pm:   

'A World of Love' (AWOL) by Elizabeth Bowen (a novel) is effectively a great ghost story (it's novella length I'd say) where the ghost has to be inferred for the story to make sense. Beautifully atmospheric and textured.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.211.103.83
Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 11:11 pm:   

That description lends itself to much of the Gothic. I'm thinking of 'Rebecca' and 'Don't Look Now' by Du Maurier.

I think a lot of Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro's work is like this too.

There's something about Venice which tends to blur the line when it comes to ghosts.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.241.143
Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 08:53 am:   

Joel once said to me that Venice is like the place where all the ghost stories originated. That stuck with me.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.230.171
Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 08:55 am:   

Recall that E.M. Forster wrote "The Story of a Panic"; I've always viewed A Passage to India as yet another story of a panic, which may be more overtly sexual in this case.

I agree about Death in Venice. Possibly the ghost is old Mann himself, seeing as the tale is based on solid fact. This original story has so many sequiturs they all become entangled in a most delightful and unique manner.
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Giancarlo (Giancarlo)
Username: Giancarlo

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 85.116.228.3
Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 12:59 pm:   

What about Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures"?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.198
Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 01:39 pm:   

Speaking of Venice, has anyone read Nick Royle's new novella The Enigma of Departure? Excellent, it is.
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Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan)
Username: Matt_cowan

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 68.249.107.227
Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 04:18 pm:   

Algernon Blackwood's short story "The Whisperers" might fit here. At least there isn't the ghost of anythging that was ever alive.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.243.75.134
Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 09:14 pm:   

I have a recommendation for a great non-ghostly yet very sinister short novel that seems bathed in supernatural atmosphere: "The master of the day of judgement" by Leo Perutz. It's about a mysterious suicide plague...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.252.36
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 03:44 pm:   

Here's another I've just come across, the near definition of a ghost-story-with-no-ghosts flick - DRAGONWYCK (1946), starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price. Apparently this has only become available on dvd within the last few years: before that, from what I gather (?), it had never even been released to video. It's delicious gothic melodrama; and for any fans of Vincent Price (me!), you have here the seed of all his later Poe-esque mind-spiraling madman roles. Recommended....
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Stephenw (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.20.22
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 05:30 pm:   

The short story 'Seaton's Aunt' by Walter de la Mare has no ghosts but certainly is haunting.
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John (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 07:47 pm:   

Rebecca would be the first one that springs to mind for me.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.20.31.211
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 07:48 pm:   

Yes, indeed. A lot of Hitch's films are ghostly. Especially Vertigo.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.20.31.211
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 07:50 pm:   

And hell, did I forget the greatest of all: Les Diaboliques.

Or is it ghostly?
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John (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 08:09 pm:   

Good call, indeed.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.197.106
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 10:32 pm:   

CLOSER
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.197.106
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 10:35 pm:   

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.197.106
Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 10:38 pm:   

ISLAND OF THE DEAD
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.224.197
Posted on Sunday, April 12, 2009 - 01:05 am:   

The short story 'Seaton's Aunt' by Walter de la Mare has no ghosts but certainly is haunting.

If it's stories, certainly "The Demon Lover," by Elizabeth Bowen - the only Bowen story I've read so far, but one I won't forget - who was it that alerted me to the existence of Ms. Bowen?... Was that you, Des?... If so, thanks!
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.145.36.243
Posted on Sunday, April 12, 2009 - 09:23 am:   

Craig, Elizabeth Bowen is one of my very favourite writers. If I say so myself, I'm a leading authority on her work overall.

(Indeed, I'd describe much of her work as either ghost stories or ghost stories without ghosts).
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Stephenw (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.20.22
Posted on Sunday, April 12, 2009 - 12:55 pm:   

What was the Elizabeth Bowen story with the couple throwing a party in their newly bought house in which a grisly murder was committed? They all spend the night talking about it and terrible things begin to happen. That one stuck in my mind and I'm sure it was her.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.145.36.243
Posted on Sunday, April 12, 2009 - 01:36 pm:   

'The Cat Jumps'?
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Stephenw (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.20.22
Posted on Sunday, April 12, 2009 - 09:39 pm:   

Yes that rings a bell! I'm only aware of having read that story and 'The Demon Lover' of her's. The first has no ghosts at all but the haunting knowledge of what happened in the house while the second couldn't have a more tangible entity. Great stuff indeed.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - 09:06 pm:   

I believe there's a line in Straub's Ghost Story in which a character describes Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage as "a great ghost story in which the ghost never appears."

Because I read Courage in high school and read Ghost Story well after that, I can't recall enough about Crane's book to confirm the accuracy of that description. I've never forgotten Straub's line, though, and its essential truth has always resonated: even if that description doesn't fit Crane's book, it certainly fits others.

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