COMPANY OF WOLVES
UK, 1984, 95 minutes, Colour.
Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Graham Crowden, Stephen Rea.
Directed by Neil Jordan.
Company of Wolves is based on stories by Angela Carter (The Magic Toy Shop). Angela Carter's novels were mixtures of thriller, fable, psychological and symbolic narratives. Here she collaborates on the screenplay with director Neil Jordan (Angel, Mona Lisa, High Spirits, We're No Angels, The Miracle).
Neil Jordan creates an extraordinary atmosphere of fable, the world of Red Riding Hood, echoes of Beauty and the Beast: a 17th or 18th century fairytale world full of charm as well as sinister symbols and realities.
The film takes its theme from the mythology of wolves, the transformations, the animal and basic instincts, especially in men (hairy on the outside as well as hairy on the inside). The wolves are also deceitful and destructive of women - of Alice, of Granny, of Rosaleen in her dreams.
The film is full of complexity, of sinister fairy tale, of Grimm Brothers villages and forests, as well as of psychological depths and psycho-sexual insight. The film uses the conventions of the horror story but transforms them into a psychological fable.
1.The work of Angela Carter, mystery and imagination, horror, psychology and symbols? Her co-writing the screenplay?
2.Neil Jordan and his work, his evocation of the world of the fairy tales, happy and sinister? Innocent and vicious? The basic framework of the Red Riding Hood story?
3.The modern setting, the transition to period? The fairytale world, the forests, the village, the houses? The sinister symbols, the wolves in the forest, the dark, their eyes, marauding and destructive? The literary and cinema tradition of wolf stories, werewolves, savage beasts - animal instincts?
4.The film as a nightmare, the recurring motif of Rosaleen stirring in her bed, dreaming? The stories? The stories within stories? The demands made on the imagination of the audience?
5.The parents in the modern story, their concern about their daughters? Alice and Rosaleen dreaming her dead? Her own disturbed dreams? Her parents and herself in the fairytale world? Relationships, the father and his work, the mother keeping house? The death of Alice, the grief, the funeral? Rosaleen's childish behaviour? The young boy and his faces? Granny and her wisdom?
6.Angela Lansbury's presence as Granny, at the funeral, cheery, cheering Rosaleen, taking her to her house? The stories and warnings about wolves? The comparison with her mother's warnings? Granny warning her not to stray from the path, dangers in the forest? Her favouring Rosaleen, knitting the red shawl? Her intervention and telling the story about the young woman on her wedding night, her husband's disappearance before the consummation, his absence, her marriage and children, his return and transformation as a werewolf? Granny's place in the village, her criticisms of the vicar and his children, his hearing her comments? Her return home - and the irony that Granny is killed by the huntsman, the huntsman wanting to give Rosaleen a kiss (instead of Granny at the house)?
7.Rosaleen's dreams, her stirring, Alice and the destruction by the wolves and the toys, the funeral and her grief, learning through her life in the village, her relationship with the village boy, the hunting party? Rosaleen's story to her mother about the banquet, the vengeful woman, the spell and transforming the guests into werewolves? The hunters and their return from the hunt with the wolf's paw, becoming the human hand? Rosaleen and the advice from Granny and her mother, about wolves, hairy on the inside as well as the outside? Enjoying Granny's company, listening to her stories? In the vicar's yard? The hunter, the encounter and her wager of the kiss? Granny killed? Her shooting the hunter (the hunter from her story told to her mother)? Her telling him the story of the young woman in the village, the vicar, naked, the wolves passing through and the girl going out into the forest? The people coming to Granny's house and finding two wolves?
8.The story of the young woman, her marriage, the consummation of the marriage - the nakedness and admiration? The husband answering the call of nature - irony? His disappearance? Her grief, remarriage, the children, managing the household? The husband's return, his confronting her, transformation in horror effects into a werewolf?
9.Rosaleen's story, the peasant woman, her seducer, the banquet and its lavish presentation of costumes, decor, food-filled tables? Her laughter as everyone was transformed into wolves and ran away in a pack?
10.Rosaleen's story about the young girl, the vicar's yard, going into the forest with the wolves?
11.Rosaleen, her parents' concern, the search in Granny's house, the two wolves?
12.The visuals, editing and pace, the motion of the pack of wolves tearing through walls, destroying interiors as well as preying in the forest? Their rampaging through Rosaleen's dreams?
13.The background characters of this tale: the parents, the people in the village, the boy and his attraction to Rosaleen, his parents, the vicar? Making the fairy tale authentic?
14.The psychological overtones and undertones of the story: archetypal stories, the shadow, animus and anima, symbolic animals, sexual overtones, innocence, virgins, married women, animal men, hunts, destruction?
