For Joseph Cotten’s birthday: Gaslight: His Listening Is Active

Except for a couple of brief encounters in public settings, Joseph Cotten’s Brian Cameron and Ingrid Bergman’s Paula Asquist never meet until the final scene of Gaslight. Cameron is obsessed with the unsolved murder of Paula Asquist’s aunt, and is stunned when he sees Paula (Bergman) in the flesh: she is the spitting image of her beautiful aunt. He personally a cop to walk the beat on that block and report back. He hangs around in the bushes. He watches, he waits. He figures out the husband is probably sneaking into the house from the back through a skylight. But why? He has some suspicions, but he is not sure. The wife is the great mystery. The one time Brian saw her in a public setting at a fancy concert, she had a breakdown and was led weeping from the room. Is she mentally unstable? Cameron isn’t sure who the husband is, but he has some ideas. He senses the urgency of the situation, that something truly awful is going on in that house.It is time for him to make his move.

He knocks on the door of 9 Thornton Square. The elderly housemaid says the lady of the house is not well. Brian ignores her, coming into the hallway, saying, “Oh, she’ll want to see me.”

A fearful Ingrid Bergman appears at the top of the stairs and tells him to go away. He comes up to meet her, and launches into his story, designed to show his trustworthiness, and also he has something of use to her.

It is one of the first moments when a male (or female, for that matter: but his maleness is essential in this context) treats her as someone with the authority to make her own choices. He knows he has to prove himself to her, show her something that will gain her trust, and in so doing he admits (without saying so) she has autonomy as a person, trust is something that must be earned. The burden of proof is on HIM. His behavior in the opening moments of this scene are deeply respectful of her autonomy as a person.

I am mentioning the setup because I am interested in why things are successful. All of Gaslight is successful: the set, lighting design, costumes, script, the cast … the whole thing works. It is one of the most terrifying and accurate portraits of how brainwashing works in a domestic situation. (i.e. gaslighting). This scene has many twists and turns, ending in a showdown with the husband. But it begins quietly, cautiously, in the tentative conversation on the stairway. By this point in Gaslight, Paula believes she is losing her mind, and trusts nothing about her own perception of things. She believes she cannot be allowed autonomy because she is too forgetful, too dangerous to herself. She is thoroughly brainwashed.

Cameron does not know this, although he sensed she had been duped by her husband into 1. marrying him in the first place, and 2. going mad so he could send her away. But all of his deducing happens in those opening moments on the stairwell. His body language is alert with listening and attention. Cotten doesn’t do too much. He recognizes she is not well, but he senses (knows) her unwellness is her husband’s doing. He knows in his heart there is nothing whatsoever wrong with this woman’s mind. The scene is a masterpiece of writing: Cameron doesn’t blaze into the house shouting, “YOUR HUSBAND ISN’T WHO HE SAYS HE IS.” He has to work up to it. Perhaps he hadn’t realized just how far gone Paula was, but in 2 or 3 seconds, he gets the picture.

You can watch Joseph Cotten absorb it all, with no corresponding panic or condescension. He treats her like an adult, albeit a fragile one. He speaks to her calmly, putting it all together for her, as he puts it together for himself. And please note: he never takes his eyes off Ingrid Bergman.

In many ways, Cameron is a thankless part, although crucial. He is the lone investigator who remembers Alice Alquist, he is the independent thinker who keeps searching for the answer. Most of his dialogue is exposition. He provides outsider perspective on the situation in the house.

His dialogue in this scene is mostly questions. He asks her about her husband, about the noises she hears. He listens intently to the answers. Most of their conversation is filmed in long takes, with quick cuts up to the gas lamps, flame either waxing or waning. Bergman moves restlessly through the room, the camera following her, sometimes leaving Cotten out of frame. We can still feel his listening presence off-frame. Then he follows her into the frame. The scene does not stop for him, just because the camera is not on him. His listening makes the final scene what it is.

It is not the listening of a man who knows the answers. It is the listening of a man struggling to put the pieces together, in the moment, and under the gun. It matters to him how she has perceived things because he suspects she has known the truth all along. She slowly starts to open up. Her restlessness subsides, although her eyes keep darting around. She still is under her husband’s dark enchantment. But when actual evidence emerges – the letter in the desk – understanding begins to dawn. On the heels of this realization is grief. Her entire love affair was a sham. And on the heels of the grief is rage. How could he do this to her?

Cameron handles these waves of emotion calmly. He is not put off by her hysteria. The woman has been traumatized. He does not infantilize her. He just keeps speaking, quietly and urgently, telling her No, she is not crazy, Yes, the lights have been dimming, and Yes, it is her husband doing it. He is sorry “everything has been taken” from her, but he is calmly insistent. He shows her the way out.

He does not traumatize her again.

Cotten plays the urgency as well. They don’t have a lot of time. Cameron never forgets this respite will soon end. It is dangerous here for her, for him, too. The gun is gone. The time has come.

The scene moves from room to room. Bergman sits on a chaise longue, the asymmetrical shape of the back swooping up in the foreground, covering most of her body, revealing most of him. She is lost in delusions, but is starting to come back to reality. She rarely looks at Cotten. Paula doesn’t even know his name. She is so pliable that anyone could have come along at that moment, told her anything and she would have followed. But because it is Cameron, with his intelligent kindness and calm questions, not to mention his intent listening … she shedsthe effects of the brainwashing. Cotten plays this scene to perfection.

Listening is active. Talk to any actor and they will say listening is the #1 most important thing in acting. Funny how difficult it is to do, although perhaps it is not so funny. I know very few “good listeners” in real life. Listening requires you to be 100% present in the moment.

Good listening makes a scene happen more than big gestures.

Big gestures are essential to good acting as well, and Bergman has never been better than in Gaslight. She is explosive and intense.

But without Cotten’s active listening, her big gestures would occur in a vacuum. The scene would be cliche. She would walk away with the entire scene. Easily. She has the “big moments” after all, right? She screams, laughs, rages. But he makes it possible through how he listens.

People pretend to listen all the time. They have their eyes on you, they nod at what you say, but you feel their attention is elsewhere. It’s hard to put your finger on it. Being listened to is one of the most intoxicating and unique experiences in the human race, and without it, without actors who know how to listen – most of the major famous scenes in our literature could not take place.

New actors speak of doing scenes with, say, Robert DeNiro, and how it catapulted them to a new level in their acting, not because of the ego-massage of ACTING WITH DENIRO, but because of how he listens, and how his listening sets them up to be seen in the best possible light. Good listeners make other actors better. Being listened to in a real way forces YOU to become real. This is true in life, and it is true in acting as well. The listener is support staff. But think of a pass in a basketball game that leads to a scoring point. You need the pass. Victory is not just for the guy who makes the shot.

Joseph Cotten never takes his eyes off Ingrid Bergman except for when he looks up at the gas lamp. He is always thinking, active, open, allowing her to have an impact on him, reading her gestures, hearing what she can’t yet say.

Listening like this is a powerful thing. It is the most important thing in acting, and the most under-praised.

All good actors are great listeners. There are no exceptions.

 
 
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