surfaces, settings, or landscapes. Both on a set and
on location, light is controlled and manipulated to
achieve expressive effects; except in rare instances,
there is no such thing as wholly “natural” lighting
in a movie.
The cinematographer Stanley Cortez said that
in his experience only two directors understood the
uses and meaning of light: Orson Welles and
Charles Laughton.^11 Both directors began their
careers on the stage in the 1930s, when theatrical
lighting had evolved to a high degree of expressive-
ness. One of the great stage and screen actors of
the twentieth century, Laughton directed only one
film, The Night of the Hunter(1955; art director: Hil-
yard Brown), an unforgettable masterpiece of sus-
pense. For his cinematographer, he chose Cortez, a
master of chiaroscuro—the use of deep gradations
and subtle variations of lights and darks within an
image.
Cortez once remarked that he “was always cho-
sen to shoot weird things,”^12 and The Night of the
Hunteris a weird film in both form and content. Its
story focuses on Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum),
an itinerant, phony preacher who murders widows
for their money. His victims include the widow of a
man who stole $10,000 to protect his family dur-
ing the Depression, hid the money inside his daugh-
ter’s doll, and swore both of his children to secrecy.
After Harry marries and murders their widowed
mother, the children flee, ending up at a farm down-186 CHAPTER 5 MISE-EN-SCÈNE
Stark black-and-white lighting emphasizes a
struggle between good and evilIn these images from
The Night of the Hunter, which film critic Pauline Kael
correctly calls “one of the most frightening movies ever
made,” the lighting underscores universal childhood fears.
Before going to bed, John (Billy Chapin, left) is telling a story
to his sister, Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). Raised with the Bible in
a fundamentalist home, he recounts a prophetic biblical tale
that parallels the children’s current situation. Just as he says,
“The bad man came back,” we see the ominous shadow of
Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) fall on the bedroom window,
right [1]. These innocent children are deeply affected by his
dark, menacing presence in their warm, cozy bedroom. Later,
confronting——almost trapping——John in a narrow hallway,
Powell (left) informs the boy [2] that he will soon marry their
mother and become their stepfather. Throughout the movie,
elaborately staged, lit, and photographed shots contrast light
and dark to reinforce the impending evil that is to change
these children’s lives.1 2(^11) See Charles Higham, “Stanley Cortez,” in Hollywood Camera-
men: Sources of Light(London: Thames & Hudson in associa-
tion with the British Film Institute, 1970), p. 99.^12 Stanley Cortez, qtd. ibid. p. 102.