Gerald's Game - Eclipse
Thoughts On: Gerald's Game (2017)
A wife is chained to a bed when her husband dies of a heart attack during an intimate moment.
Whilst the title is somewhat unsuiting, Gerald's Game is a rather excellent film. More a character study than a horror or a thriller, or even a survival film, Gerald's Game deals with a fundamental and tormenting rift between one woman's conception of her male counterparts in life and her egoic self. As most will know, this is about a middle-aged woman in a deteriorating marriage who, when her and husband try to spice up their relationship with handcuffs, is left tethered to a bed once he has a heart attack.
The thematic conflict underlying this drama concerns our main character's, Jessie's, past: she was sexually abused as a child by her father and so has found herself with a partner who bounds her to silence like her father did. Her partner is not her core conflict. Rather, it is something within her that saw change after being abused, something that saw her cultivate and then stay in a bad relationship. This difficult to describe inner conflict is symbolised by an eclipse. (Jessie was abused on the day of an eclipse). This solar event, of course, sees the moon move across the sun, blotting it out. Symbolically, one can see this event to be attached to a Jungian syzygy, a Logos and Eros. The sun, in such a case, would be light, would be the Taoist yang; that which makes unambiguous life, that which illuminates existence. Traditionally, the sun and Logos is linked to the masculine. Conversely, the moon and Eros are linked to the female; yin, darkness and chaos of a fertile character. Staying in this Jungian realm of psychoanalysis, we can infer that the sun and moon come to embody archetypes in the psyche of Jessie. When the moon moves over the sun, Eros comes to suffocate Logos. This would mean that a force in human nature that bonds (Eros) would overcome a force in human nature that distinguishes (Logos). This symbolic and elemental act is transposed onto reality. Instead of speaking (an act attached to the symbolic masculine), instead of splitting her family apart with the truth after she is abused, Jessie then stays silent and keeps all in the dark and quiet where all may remain the same (a negative act that is symbolically feminine). What is so damaging about this imitation of Logos and Eros in Jessie is the fact that her father becomes an embodiment of masculinity that is silencing, that is abusive, that uses 'light' for evil and to exploit darkness and unknowing. Furthermore, Jessie's mother becomes an embodiment of an inert Eros--Jessie doesn't feel loved by her and can never identify strength with her mother. So, whilst Jessie is possessed by Eros, her conception of both Eros and Logos as archetypes (her mother and father; anima and animus) become corrupted.
In the same respect that the an unknown and dark moon covered the sun, a twisted and dehumanised mode of femininity ultimately covers Jessie's true self. Instead of having a balance between masculine and feminine within herself, she can be seen to imitate feminine over masculine too often, and a version of femininity that is not matured and genuine. We see this with the fact that Jessie knows her husband has been doing something behind her back, but decides to let her insight (the light with which she sees) be eclipsed by darkness and a will to sustain the marriage. There is something coincidental and tragic about this conflict between masculine and feminine in Jessie, too. The first tragic conflict came via abuse; it was not Jessie's personal imagoes of masculine and feminine that caused this conflict, rather, it was her father. There is a more subtle coincidental tragedy in the film, however. Seeing a stray dog, Jessie opts to help him, to imitate Eros in bonding with nature. However, the dog betrays her. As she is trapped on the bed, the dog enters the house and begins eating her husband - and even tries to eat her. So, coincidentally, her 'feminine' act of helping the dog, which was opposed to her husband's 'masculine' refusal to help it, came back to, literally, bite her. Such reveals something symbolically tragic; a gendering kind of fate having something against Jessie.
This Jungian symbology breeds drama that essentially wants to see Jessie walk under the sun. That is to say, Jessie must re-work her conception of femininity and re-establish a bond with her own masculinity; this will see the moon cease to shadow the sun and a natural cycle between day and night emerge. And such, it is important to note, is the final image of the film. Whilst the eclipse is our primary recurrent image, Jessie ultimately wants to escape this and does so when she can walk away from us at the end of the film under a brightly shining sun. And we think her to be more powerful in this moment, we think of her not as a man, but as having embodied the masculine element of the universe that pierces darkness. Her walking away is then a symbolically masculine act that demonstrates a reconciliation with Logos. It is important to also recognise how Jessie also aligns herself with the feminine, however. The feminine is darkness and night, which is ruled by the moon. Jessie is haunted at night by a man who she says is made of moonlight. Her mastering of femininity comes with her confrontation of this moonlight, of the man who she gave her wedding ring to, he who hides within himself her father and husband, which is to say that this entity is the distorted sense femininity that saw Jessie live in silence with an evil father and terrible husband. Eros is re-defined with Jessie's out-reach to young girls like herself. As she councils other abused girls, she imitates Eros above all else, but also uses Logos, her speech, to evoke the truth once she has welcomed girls into a safe place.
The Jungian underpinnings of this narrative, or rather, the elements of this narrative that are attached to male and female and can be best understood through Jung, are, I believe, its strongest elements. There is a conflict between reality and fantasy that isn't always handled well, however. For example, this film could have done well in not making the man made of moonlight into an actual criminal in the real world. He serves his purpose without having this double-character, both symbolic and literal.
This dichotomy of the literal and the fantastical plagues much of Gerald's Game, usually creating a tension between realist exposition and surreal symbolism. We this this most in the bedroom scenes where Jessie's projection of herself and her husband emerge and begin talking to her. These figures can be best understood via a merging of Jung and Freud. They are then archetypes or imagoes of herself and her husband, but their character is very conscious. We could then associate them with the Freudian superego as they constantly play the role of being over-conscious, doubtful, over-analytical and even paranoid. This is more true of Jessie's projection of her husband - her projection of herself forces her to introspect. Whilst we are using Freudian terminology, we could also think of the dog that is slowly eating Jessie's husband to be an embodiment of id - base desire.
These three characters are, in a complicated way that I haven't fully understood, bound to the thematic exploration of masculine and feminine. The projection of the husband is self-consciously and obviously a piggish man. This is not the true husband, rather, it is the truth that Jessie unconsciously sees in him; she did not know her husband, but can think of him only as a pig. Her projection of herself is her own known/unknown strength and ability. This projection embodies a balance between masculine and feminine, Logos and Eros, and so is an ideal persona that Jessie must come to imitate and then transcend - and eventually she does just this. The dog, which is the most complicated figure is an encapsulation of id. It also has a dark character, and so may also be thought of as the Jungian shadow - it is hard to be precise in suggesting this, however. The dog is said to be masculine: all of the corrupt and evil men that Jessie has ever known. However, he is also said to be innocent and genderless; he is just an animal that is doing what he must to survive. It is hard to know exactly what this dog represents and how it effects the cinematic space as a symbol. I sense, however, that the dog embodies a conundrum; he is the bitterness of nature that calls out for a feminine hand. The dog is then the coincidence and tragedy that betrays Jessie's femininity personified. Simultaneously, however, the dog is a reminder that the world is not kind, that gender in many senses is built to be betrayed, to be challenged at the very least. After all, we are not singularly the Jungian archetypes of male and female, just like we aren't our Freudian mother and father. The true person is an individual bound to these objects and concepts, but nonetheless autonomous. The dog as fate confronts gender, confronts Jessie's yearning to associate him with all men, yet also dares one to see the raw drives in nature and humanity, dares Jessie to see humanity in acts of darkness. It is only in overcoming the dog that Jessie overcomes the torment of masculine forces around her and comes to accept and transcend the base destruction, the shadow, of humanity as to confront it. (If I were to be objective, I would say that this symbolic set of actions is not dramatised and presented very well; the dog lacking a coherent effect on the narrative). This act of overcoming the corrupt masculine archetype and accepting nature is what Jessie repeats in understanding that her father was evil--human and her father, but evil nonetheless--and moving past him. The final step of this, which we have discussed, is peeling the feminine protection she hides this truth in; is seeing the man made of moonlight as a feminine skin hiding the corrupt men in her life.
Having delved quite deeply into the Freudian elements of this film, we have neglected our initial point. Though these projections, the dog, Jessie and Gerald's double, are functional symbols, the words they speak and the words that are spoken about them too often solidify and explain the meaning of their place and presence. Through expositional dialogue, the cinematic space of Gerald's Game takes on an uncanny character that cannot balance the fantastic and the real. Without so much exposition and a little more ambiguity, the best realistic scenes and the best surreal scenes would have complimented each other better. The incredibly real moment where Jessie escapes the handcuffs with the glass - which was more than hard to watch - would have then sat well next to visions of a blood red eclipse. This would be thanks to a subtle symbolic act of Jessie using sanitary pads to bandage her wound; the idea of a period and escape from the chains ambiguously yet expressively bound, indicating Jessie's step into a second puberty, a second phase of maturation. Let us end both analysis and criticism here, however.
In total, Gerald's Game is not perfect, but it is a brilliant film that is mentally and emotionally affecting in a variety of ways. Thanks to Jake for the recommendation. I recommend this to anyone who hasn't yet seen it.
Previous post:
Medium Cool - In Search Of Cassavetes
Next post:
Crazy Rich Asians - Something Familiar
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
A wife is chained to a bed when her husband dies of a heart attack during an intimate moment.
Whilst the title is somewhat unsuiting, Gerald's Game is a rather excellent film. More a character study than a horror or a thriller, or even a survival film, Gerald's Game deals with a fundamental and tormenting rift between one woman's conception of her male counterparts in life and her egoic self. As most will know, this is about a middle-aged woman in a deteriorating marriage who, when her and husband try to spice up their relationship with handcuffs, is left tethered to a bed once he has a heart attack.
The thematic conflict underlying this drama concerns our main character's, Jessie's, past: she was sexually abused as a child by her father and so has found herself with a partner who bounds her to silence like her father did. Her partner is not her core conflict. Rather, it is something within her that saw change after being abused, something that saw her cultivate and then stay in a bad relationship. This difficult to describe inner conflict is symbolised by an eclipse. (Jessie was abused on the day of an eclipse). This solar event, of course, sees the moon move across the sun, blotting it out. Symbolically, one can see this event to be attached to a Jungian syzygy, a Logos and Eros. The sun, in such a case, would be light, would be the Taoist yang; that which makes unambiguous life, that which illuminates existence. Traditionally, the sun and Logos is linked to the masculine. Conversely, the moon and Eros are linked to the female; yin, darkness and chaos of a fertile character. Staying in this Jungian realm of psychoanalysis, we can infer that the sun and moon come to embody archetypes in the psyche of Jessie. When the moon moves over the sun, Eros comes to suffocate Logos. This would mean that a force in human nature that bonds (Eros) would overcome a force in human nature that distinguishes (Logos). This symbolic and elemental act is transposed onto reality. Instead of speaking (an act attached to the symbolic masculine), instead of splitting her family apart with the truth after she is abused, Jessie then stays silent and keeps all in the dark and quiet where all may remain the same (a negative act that is symbolically feminine). What is so damaging about this imitation of Logos and Eros in Jessie is the fact that her father becomes an embodiment of masculinity that is silencing, that is abusive, that uses 'light' for evil and to exploit darkness and unknowing. Furthermore, Jessie's mother becomes an embodiment of an inert Eros--Jessie doesn't feel loved by her and can never identify strength with her mother. So, whilst Jessie is possessed by Eros, her conception of both Eros and Logos as archetypes (her mother and father; anima and animus) become corrupted.
In the same respect that the an unknown and dark moon covered the sun, a twisted and dehumanised mode of femininity ultimately covers Jessie's true self. Instead of having a balance between masculine and feminine within herself, she can be seen to imitate feminine over masculine too often, and a version of femininity that is not matured and genuine. We see this with the fact that Jessie knows her husband has been doing something behind her back, but decides to let her insight (the light with which she sees) be eclipsed by darkness and a will to sustain the marriage. There is something coincidental and tragic about this conflict between masculine and feminine in Jessie, too. The first tragic conflict came via abuse; it was not Jessie's personal imagoes of masculine and feminine that caused this conflict, rather, it was her father. There is a more subtle coincidental tragedy in the film, however. Seeing a stray dog, Jessie opts to help him, to imitate Eros in bonding with nature. However, the dog betrays her. As she is trapped on the bed, the dog enters the house and begins eating her husband - and even tries to eat her. So, coincidentally, her 'feminine' act of helping the dog, which was opposed to her husband's 'masculine' refusal to help it, came back to, literally, bite her. Such reveals something symbolically tragic; a gendering kind of fate having something against Jessie.
This Jungian symbology breeds drama that essentially wants to see Jessie walk under the sun. That is to say, Jessie must re-work her conception of femininity and re-establish a bond with her own masculinity; this will see the moon cease to shadow the sun and a natural cycle between day and night emerge. And such, it is important to note, is the final image of the film. Whilst the eclipse is our primary recurrent image, Jessie ultimately wants to escape this and does so when she can walk away from us at the end of the film under a brightly shining sun. And we think her to be more powerful in this moment, we think of her not as a man, but as having embodied the masculine element of the universe that pierces darkness. Her walking away is then a symbolically masculine act that demonstrates a reconciliation with Logos. It is important to also recognise how Jessie also aligns herself with the feminine, however. The feminine is darkness and night, which is ruled by the moon. Jessie is haunted at night by a man who she says is made of moonlight. Her mastering of femininity comes with her confrontation of this moonlight, of the man who she gave her wedding ring to, he who hides within himself her father and husband, which is to say that this entity is the distorted sense femininity that saw Jessie live in silence with an evil father and terrible husband. Eros is re-defined with Jessie's out-reach to young girls like herself. As she councils other abused girls, she imitates Eros above all else, but also uses Logos, her speech, to evoke the truth once she has welcomed girls into a safe place.
The Jungian underpinnings of this narrative, or rather, the elements of this narrative that are attached to male and female and can be best understood through Jung, are, I believe, its strongest elements. There is a conflict between reality and fantasy that isn't always handled well, however. For example, this film could have done well in not making the man made of moonlight into an actual criminal in the real world. He serves his purpose without having this double-character, both symbolic and literal.
This dichotomy of the literal and the fantastical plagues much of Gerald's Game, usually creating a tension between realist exposition and surreal symbolism. We this this most in the bedroom scenes where Jessie's projection of herself and her husband emerge and begin talking to her. These figures can be best understood via a merging of Jung and Freud. They are then archetypes or imagoes of herself and her husband, but their character is very conscious. We could then associate them with the Freudian superego as they constantly play the role of being over-conscious, doubtful, over-analytical and even paranoid. This is more true of Jessie's projection of her husband - her projection of herself forces her to introspect. Whilst we are using Freudian terminology, we could also think of the dog that is slowly eating Jessie's husband to be an embodiment of id - base desire.
These three characters are, in a complicated way that I haven't fully understood, bound to the thematic exploration of masculine and feminine. The projection of the husband is self-consciously and obviously a piggish man. This is not the true husband, rather, it is the truth that Jessie unconsciously sees in him; she did not know her husband, but can think of him only as a pig. Her projection of herself is her own known/unknown strength and ability. This projection embodies a balance between masculine and feminine, Logos and Eros, and so is an ideal persona that Jessie must come to imitate and then transcend - and eventually she does just this. The dog, which is the most complicated figure is an encapsulation of id. It also has a dark character, and so may also be thought of as the Jungian shadow - it is hard to be precise in suggesting this, however. The dog is said to be masculine: all of the corrupt and evil men that Jessie has ever known. However, he is also said to be innocent and genderless; he is just an animal that is doing what he must to survive. It is hard to know exactly what this dog represents and how it effects the cinematic space as a symbol. I sense, however, that the dog embodies a conundrum; he is the bitterness of nature that calls out for a feminine hand. The dog is then the coincidence and tragedy that betrays Jessie's femininity personified. Simultaneously, however, the dog is a reminder that the world is not kind, that gender in many senses is built to be betrayed, to be challenged at the very least. After all, we are not singularly the Jungian archetypes of male and female, just like we aren't our Freudian mother and father. The true person is an individual bound to these objects and concepts, but nonetheless autonomous. The dog as fate confronts gender, confronts Jessie's yearning to associate him with all men, yet also dares one to see the raw drives in nature and humanity, dares Jessie to see humanity in acts of darkness. It is only in overcoming the dog that Jessie overcomes the torment of masculine forces around her and comes to accept and transcend the base destruction, the shadow, of humanity as to confront it. (If I were to be objective, I would say that this symbolic set of actions is not dramatised and presented very well; the dog lacking a coherent effect on the narrative). This act of overcoming the corrupt masculine archetype and accepting nature is what Jessie repeats in understanding that her father was evil--human and her father, but evil nonetheless--and moving past him. The final step of this, which we have discussed, is peeling the feminine protection she hides this truth in; is seeing the man made of moonlight as a feminine skin hiding the corrupt men in her life.
Having delved quite deeply into the Freudian elements of this film, we have neglected our initial point. Though these projections, the dog, Jessie and Gerald's double, are functional symbols, the words they speak and the words that are spoken about them too often solidify and explain the meaning of their place and presence. Through expositional dialogue, the cinematic space of Gerald's Game takes on an uncanny character that cannot balance the fantastic and the real. Without so much exposition and a little more ambiguity, the best realistic scenes and the best surreal scenes would have complimented each other better. The incredibly real moment where Jessie escapes the handcuffs with the glass - which was more than hard to watch - would have then sat well next to visions of a blood red eclipse. This would be thanks to a subtle symbolic act of Jessie using sanitary pads to bandage her wound; the idea of a period and escape from the chains ambiguously yet expressively bound, indicating Jessie's step into a second puberty, a second phase of maturation. Let us end both analysis and criticism here, however.
In total, Gerald's Game is not perfect, but it is a brilliant film that is mentally and emotionally affecting in a variety of ways. Thanks to Jake for the recommendation. I recommend this to anyone who hasn't yet seen it.
Previous post:
Medium Cool - In Search Of Cassavetes
Next post:
Crazy Rich Asians - Something Familiar
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
