Saturday, November 17, 2007

Gentlemen and Players and the subtle art of gaslighting

At book club last night I mentioned that J. Snyde was gaslighting Roy Straitley. My reference was pretty obscure so I looked it up in Wikipedia today and here's their definition:


Gaslighting, a form of psychological abuse coined as a reference to two similar films of the same name:
Gaslight (1940 film), directed by Thorold Dickinson and starring Diana Wynyard, Anton Walbrook, and Frank Pettingell
Gaslight (1944 film), directed by George Cukor and starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer
Gas Light (1938) the Patrick Hamilton stage play upon which the films were based.

We all really enjoyed this book by Joanne Harris. I wonder how it would translate into a movie - it would be pretty hard to keep the secret going until the very end.

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