Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison on a train, she looking optimistic, he looking skepticalalr

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Screening on Film
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
US, 1947, 35mm, black & white, 104 min.
English with Portuguese subtitles.
Print source: Cinemateca Portuguesa

Possessed of immeasurable charm, of a light and gentle yet irreversible dive into the world of dreams, of solitude and of death. This choice celebrates the many discoveries I made in the 1980s during the great American Film Cycles at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon. What a pleasure to see and review this movie about a Norwegian captain, a ghost in love for whom "the midnight sun is impossible light, but it is his only light.” Lucy—the prodigious Gene Tierney!—is not frightened by the presence of Captain Gregg's lost soul who tells her, "Everything you see is an illusion."

Of all the arts, cinema is the most oneiric, they say. But in this movie, oneirism is the element. I recall the sea, the mists, the wind, and Keats: “Was it a vision, or a waking dream?” And I recall the ironically enchanting voice of Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison: “What you have missed Lucia, by being born too late to travel the Seven Seas with me! What I have missed too …” – RA

--------------------------------------------

De um charme incomensurável, um mergulho leve e suave, mas sem retorno, no mundo do sonho, da solidão e da morte. Uma escolha em celebração das muitas descobertas que fiz nos anos 80 durante os grandes Ciclos de Cinema Americano da Gulbenkian, em Lisboa.

Que prazer ver e rever este filme sobre um capitão da noruega, fantasma apaixonado para quem “o sol da meia-noite é luz impossível, mas é a sua única luz”. Lucia – prodigiosa Gene Tierney! – que não se assusta com a presença da alma penada do capitão Gregg que lhe diz: “tudo o que vês é ilusão”. 

De todas as artes o cinema é o mais onírico, dizem. Mas, neste filme, o onirismo é o elemento. Lembro o mar, as névoas, vento e Keats: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? E lembro a voz ironicamente encantadora de Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison, “What you have missed, Lucia, by being born too late to travel to the Seven Seas with me! What I have missed too ...” – RA

Part of film series

Read more

Música de Câmara. The Cinema of Rita Azevedo Gomes

Other film series with this film

Read more

The Complete Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Psychedelic Cinema

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Novo

Read more
sepia photo of Artie Freedman in silhouette with a video camera at show

Boston Punk Rewound / Unbound. The Arthur Freedman Collection

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a mausoleum that looks like a miniature Spanish cathedral, next to a variety of others, against an evening sky

The Night Watchman by Natalia Almada

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil