What we do in the shadows – Following a trace in I Walked with a Zombie

The con­cern with this par­ti­cu­lar shot must have crept in at some point after having wat­ched Jac­ques Tourneur’s I Wal­ked with a Zom­bie’s per­plex­ing last four minu­tes for the 13^th time. It was part of the pro­cess of get­ting pre­pared for that won­derful weekly gathe­ring at which we dis­cuss the films of Val Lew­ton in an extre­me­ly fri­gid buil­ding. If I was expec­ting to find the tools to encrypt the film’s last minu­tes, I am very glad to say that I did not. I Wal­ked with a Zom­bie remains to me as beau­tiful­ly ambi­guous as before.

Nevert­hel­ess, some­thing about the com­po­si­ti­on of this par­ti­cu­lar shot trou­bled me. The rocks sur­roun­ding, the exit to the sea, the figu­res seen from behind, all see­med somehow fami­li­ar. I sud­den­ly thought of Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead and, though it may be ridi­cu­lous, I did not at that moment ask mys­elf why I recal­led this par­ti­cu­lar pain­ting with such ease.

Put­ting the images side by side (they had by then mul­ti­ply muta­ted – I had para­ly­zed the shot from I Wal­ked with a Zom­bie into a screen­shot and I had picked out an image of one of Böcklin’s ver­si­ons of the pain­ting online) first­ly resul­ted in sheer dis­ap­point­ment. In my attempt to compa­re them, I was loo­king mere­ly at the shapes. Yet then I rea­li­zed that loo­king out from the shore (a chan­ge of per­spec­ti­ve, the coun­ter-shot), the exit from the Isle of the Dead would look very simi­lar to what can be seen in the shot that con­cer­ned me so. (If this is an attempt to escape from the Isle of the Dead, does it suc­ceed? Is this abso­lu­ti­on or dam­na­ti­on? Is the ending the vic­to­ry of the ratio­nal or the irrational?)

My com­pre­hen­si­on of the con­nec­tion bet­ween the set­ting whe­re the ‘action’ of Zom­bie is sup­po­sed to take place and the isle of the dead was by that time per­haps long due. First­ly becau­se the pain­ting (a repro­duc­tion the­reof) can be seen ear­lier in the film, second­ly becau­se, of cour­se, Lew­ton pro­du­ced, a few years after the com­ple­ti­on of Zom­bie, Isle of the Dead, which deals more expli­cit­ly with Böcklin’s painting.

Though the island of St. Sebas­ti­an in the West Indies, the die­ge­tic set­ting of I Wal­ked with a Zom­bie, does not seem to exist as an iso­la­ted island, the­re is an island cal­led San­ta Cla­ra which apper­ta­ins to the Spa­nish muni­ci­pa­li­ty San Sebas­ti­an and it was to this island that the peo­p­le of San Sebas­ti­an infec­ted by the pla­gue were trans­fer­red to in order to keep the infec­tion from spre­a­ding. In Lewton’s Isle of the Dead the island is also pre­sen­ted as a place gover­ned by the plague.

After having final­ly got­ten a grip on the con­nec­tion bet­ween I Wal­ked with a Zom­bie and Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead, it still see­med a bit far-stret­ched to accre­dit this awa­re­ness to the com­po­si­ti­on of this par­ti­cu­lar shot I had star­ted from. I con­side­red con­sul­ting the script and ended up doing it. The sce­ne was not shot as descri­bed and, when I found the appro­xi­ma­te spot I was loo­king for, the­re was no refe­rence to Böcklin’s pain­ting. I faced dis­ap­point­ment once more. Yet loo­king en pas­sant at the fol­lo­wing pages, I stumb­led upon this

I did find some com­fort in the con­fir­ma­ti­on for Zom­bie tur­ning to (Böck­lin) pain­tings to draw inspi­ra­ti­on for the com­po­si­ti­on of the shots, so I con­tin­ued fol­lo­wing the trace. Once more, the sce­ne had ended up being shot dif­fer­ent­ly than descri­bed. My super­fi­ci­al search for a Böck­lin pain­ting named And the sea gave up its dead was futi­le, alt­hough the pain­ting might very well exist. Howe­ver, the­re is a pain­ting by Lord Leigh­ton Fre­de­ric entit­led “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it” (and having this Bible-quo­te to put in rela­ti­on to the film did give me some satis­fac­tion). I had cho­sen an image to fit the appro­xi­ma­te spot descri­bed in the script, put the two images side by side and was, once again, disappointed.

I kept scrol­ling through images of the pain­tings of Böck­lin until stumb­ling upon seve­ral por­tray­ing Tri­ton and (a) Nere­id and assu­med that it was one of this pain­tings that was inten­ded to ‘some­what influence the com­po­si­ti­on of this sce­ne’. I also assu­med that ‘this sce­ne’ ended up in the film as this dis­sol­ve that makes my heart skip a beat.

I found a con­nec­tion bet­ween Tri­ton, mes­sen­ger of the sea and Car­re­four, also a mes­sen­ger (but of what?). And then I ima­gi­ned having found a con­nec­tion bet­ween Triton’s trident and the tools the fisher­men use when loo­king for Jessica’s body, tools that the script descri­bed as spears and ended up being very trident-loo­king. It also see­med natu­ral for this scene’s equi­va­lent of a Nere­id, a pro­tec­tor of fisher­men, to be found by fisher­men. If nere­ids are usual­ly repre­sen­ted as beau­tiful bare­foot girls wea­ring silk gowns, it see­med only natu­ral for Jes­si­ca to be pre­sen­ted in the same man­ner. (If the Nere­ids sym­bo­li­ze ever­y­thing that is beau­tiful and kind about sea, does Jessica’s death put an end to the put­re­s­cence pre­vious­ly asso­cia­ted with the sea? Is the death a death?)

At that point I, rea­li­zing that I will not find enligh­ten­ment, I stop­ped fol­lo­wing and remain­ed blissful­ly per­plex. Of cour­se, the­re is also this and per­haps much more: