Robert Eggers's 'The Witch' (2015)

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Her Head in Films. I'm Caitlin and I'm your host.

[00:00:26] On this podcast, I share my thoughts and feelings about the films I watch. They tend to be

[00:00:30] Art House and World Cinema. What makes this podcast unique is that I weave together my

[00:00:35] life experiences with an in-depth and personal discussion of films. I explore the impact

[00:00:41] that cinema has on me and why I connect so deeply to it. As I like to say, my head isn't

[00:00:47] in the clouds, my head is in films. On today's episode, I'm talking about Robert Eggers 2015

[00:00:54] film The Witch. It looks like a New England Puritan family in the 1600s that is exiled

[00:01:00] from their community. They go to live in a remote isolated area and terrifying things

[00:01:06] begin to happen. The eldest daughter, Thomason, is blamed for these events and accused of being

[00:01:13] a witch. I talk about witch hunts, the feminist aspects of this film, my very personal reaction

[00:01:19] to the ending, and much more. There are spoilers in this episode. If you'd like to support

[00:01:25] the work I'm doing, please consider becoming a patron on Patreon. You can access extra

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[00:02:18] go on. Here's my episode about Robert Ecker's The Witch.

[00:02:27] So I want to say that I probably saw this film in 2015 or 2016 around the time that it was

[00:02:48] released. It had a lot of buzz about it. Ecker's won the Best Director award at the Sundance

[00:02:54] Film Festival, so it did have a lot of buzz. It was pretty well known, pretty famous

[00:03:00] when it came out I would definitely say. And I don't usually watch a lot of horror films,

[00:03:05] but I do like historical films. I like period dramas, things set in the past. I don't

[00:03:12] watch as many as I used to. I used to really be into like the Jane Austen adaptations

[00:03:17] and all that. I haven't even seen the recent one with Ania Taylor-Joy who's also in

[00:03:23] this. I haven't even seen that adaptation of Emma, but I used to really love the

[00:03:28] Jane Austen stuff when I was younger. I need to eventually watch it. I've never been as into

[00:03:33] Emma as some of the other ones like I really love Northanger Abbey, I like Pride and Prejudice.

[00:03:39] But I should probably watch more of the Emma adaptations. I haven't done that. So

[00:03:43] when this came out it was a really big deal and this was Ania Taylor-Joy's first film

[00:03:49] that she had ever done and I do think it was a breakout role for her. People sort

[00:03:55] of knew her thanks to this film, but obviously her really really big breakout role that has

[00:04:01] seemed to put her on the map is the Queen's Gambit on Netflix. Now I have not seen the

[00:04:08] Queen's Gambit yet. I don't know if I'll watch it or not. I'm not that into TV or TV

[00:04:14] series. Like when I have extra time I tend to want to watch a film or to read. I'm

[00:04:19] not as into television as other people are. If there is a good television show I'll

[00:04:24] usually watch it with my mom, but when I'm on my own in my own free time I don't

[00:04:30] tend to watch a lot of TV. It's just a problem and I'll start stuff sometimes

[00:04:35] I'll be like oh I want to start a TV series. I never finish it. I never go

[00:04:39] back to it. For a really long time now I've been wanting to watch Twin Peaks

[00:04:44] and I know there's a big fandom around Twin Peaks. I am really interested in

[00:04:48] the film Firewalk with me. I've heard all kinds of great stuff about it, but you

[00:04:53] really shouldn't watch it unless you watch the first two seasons of Twin Peaks.

[00:04:57] And I keep wanting to try, but then I'm like what's the point in me watching the

[00:05:02] first or second episode and then never going back to it and never actually

[00:05:07] finishing it? Because years and years and years ago I did try to watch

[00:05:10] Twin Peaks. I think I watched the pilot or some of the pilot. I never

[00:05:14] stayed with it. It's not because I wasn't interested. It's just there's

[00:05:17] something about television. I don't know. I just don't get into it the way that

[00:05:22] other people do unless it's like a true crime series or something like that. Or

[00:05:26] if it's a limited series, a mini series, I love Sharp Objects. Recently I

[00:05:31] really loved Mare of Easttown. I also like a lot of British television shows

[00:05:36] because there are fewer episodes and they tend to be longer. So there

[00:05:40] might be four episodes in a British television show or for the season

[00:05:45] whereas with a lot of American television shows particularly in the past,

[00:05:49] you could have 20 episodes in one season and I just can't do it y'all. I can't do

[00:05:54] it. When I was in college I started watching Felicity with Carrie Russell on

[00:05:59] it and I fell really in love with that show. I watched like the first two

[00:06:03] seasons and then I just stopped. I just, I will start a series and then

[00:06:09] I will never finish it and then I'm haunted. But like what happened on Felicity?

[00:06:15] What happened? I have no idea. I don't know because I never finish it. So will I

[00:06:22] watch the Queen's Gambit? I don't know maybe. Maybe I'll watch it with my mom

[00:06:27] one day and we will experience it but that's been a really big show for

[00:06:32] Anya. Like that has put her on the map. I think Emma helped as well. It

[00:06:37] seems like people have really responded to Emma and have really loved it. So her career

[00:06:43] recently has really taken off and I think she's, she's really good in The Witch. The

[00:06:48] Witch is the only thing that I've actually seen her in. So this film was really big

[00:06:53] when it was released. I just want to give a little bit of like behind the scenes

[00:06:57] making of information. I want to talk about a documentary about the persecution of women

[00:07:04] under the guise of witchcraft and the witch hunts in Europe. Then I will talk about the film

[00:07:09] itself but I think all of this information is really important and it helps inform

[00:07:14] the way that I see the film and the way that I interpret it. So I just want to give some

[00:07:18] facts about the making of the film like some little tidbits. Sometimes I like to do this

[00:07:23] on episodes. I did a lot of research for The Witch. Even research that I'm not even

[00:07:28] going to use in this episode, I wanted to do as much as possible because I just

[00:07:32] wanted to know my stuff and I wanted to know about the film, about the period that it's set

[00:07:38] and all kinds of stuff like that because it's set in the 17th century as we all know.

[00:07:42] Thomason, the character that Ania plays, was based on a real teenager in Salem. That's what

[00:07:48] Robert Eggers said. And I, I read a lot of interviews that he did. I watched The Extras

[00:07:55] on the Blu-ray and all of that will be in the show notes if you want to see any of

[00:08:00] his interviews or I mean like read them for yourself. He talks about the film in a really

[00:08:06] fascinating way and I will incorporate quotes and stuff like that. I thought it was interesting

[00:08:11] that Thomason was based on a real girl in Salem. She had fits and she believed that she was

[00:08:17] possessed by the devil. I thought that was a really interesting thing to come across.

[00:08:21] Interestingly enough, historians in Salem, Massachusetts who have watched The Witch,

[00:08:27] they have said that it's extremely accurate, that it's probably one of the most accurate films about

[00:08:33] the period that they've seen. On The Blu-ray for The Witch there is a Q&A that takes place in

[00:08:41] Salem, Massachusetts. They showed the film there I guess in 2015 like when it came out

[00:08:46] and they had this panel. Ania was there, Robert Eggers was there and then some historians

[00:08:51] were there and the historians talked about how impressed they were with the detail and how

[00:08:57] Robert Eggers really got it right. He wanted everything to be made the way that it would have

[00:09:03] been made in the 17th century. This wasn't even a big budget film. I think I read that it was made

[00:09:10] for three million dollars maybe. I mean that's not a big budget film right? But it has the feel

[00:09:17] of I think a good budget like it doesn't feel low budget to me. It does not feel

[00:09:24] cheap. It feels handmade. It feels like a lot of care and attention were put into the film

[00:09:32] and you can feel it. And I think the historians saying that says a lot that this is a very accurate

[00:09:38] film they felt. They said usually they'll watch films set in the 1600s and they'll notice all

[00:09:43] kinds of details that are not correct but when they were watching The Witch that it wasn't like

[00:09:48] that at all. Eggers says in that Q&A on the Blu-ray he talked about how he wanted the shots to be

[00:09:55] really personal. Almost as though these were his memories of his Puritan childhood and in a lot

[00:10:01] of the interviews he brought up the same metaphor. He wanted the shots to be personal almost like

[00:10:07] he was like when he was a child in the cornfield with his father and he could smell the

[00:10:12] corn and he could see the mist and all this stuff. He wanted the film to have that kind of feel

[00:10:17] that this is like a real Puritan childhood and I think he accomplished that. The thing about this

[00:10:23] film is that I think when you watch it the first time it doesn't really blow you away. Maybe for

[00:10:29] some people it blows them away the first time. For me that wasn't the case and I've actually

[00:10:35] heard this from a few people where the first time they liked the film but it didn't like

[00:10:41] blow them away. It took like a second or third viewing and I've heard that from multiple people

[00:10:46] and it's the same for me. I'd only seen it once when I chose to do an episode about it so I just

[00:10:51] rewatched it for this episode. So this is my second time seeing it. It really just it knocked

[00:10:59] me out this time. Like this time I was like oh wow. The ending definitely had stayed with me

[00:11:05] and I love the ending and I'll be talking a lot about the ending in this episode but

[00:11:10] other parts of the film had maybe not stuck with me for some reason. I wasn't that like

[00:11:16] blown away like I said. I wasn't just really amazed by it the first time. I think maybe because

[00:11:23] you don't know what's happening and it's very spare. I think it's a very spare almost minimalist

[00:11:30] film. There's not a lot of dialogue for instance. All of the dialogue is from the period. It's

[00:11:37] taken from transcripts and books and it's very accurate. I think maybe it's a very foreign world,

[00:11:44] the world of the Puritans. It's so acidic. It's so bare. It's so without pleasure or joy at all.

[00:11:53] It's a rough world. It's a brutal world of the Puritans in New England at that time. The film

[00:11:59] is just really intense but it's bleak and he's mixing realism with the supernatural. I think

[00:12:07] that's really interesting about this film. The way he mixes like really deep realism,

[00:12:13] the wood, the way the houses are built, the clothing, all of this realism with the supernatural

[00:12:20] folklore thing of the witch right? Of the witches and all of that. Something that

[00:12:27] lived in the Puritan imagination and he's bringing that to life and making that very horrifying. He's

[00:12:33] bringing this Puritan nightmare to life and he says that in interviews. That's what he was trying to do.

[00:12:39] So it's such an interesting mix in that way and I think maybe when you watch it the first time

[00:12:44] you're not sure what to make of it. I don't even know if I know what to make of it

[00:12:49] now that I've seen it a second time but I do think it's very scary and I think it's

[00:12:53] very powerful. I don't know if I want to call it feminist. I don't know. I don't know what it means

[00:12:59] to call a film feminist to be honest with you. I am a feminist but I'm always uncomfortable when

[00:13:06] I'm calling a film feminist. I think there are feminist themes in it and he says in interviews that

[00:13:11] that just kind of organically happened. I think whenever you're talking about witches and

[00:13:16] witchcraft and the persecution and oppression of women, I think feminism is gonna come to

[00:13:23] the surface in that. I don't know if it's a feminist film but it made me feel a lot of things as a woman

[00:13:29] particularly the ending but also looking at the life of Thomas and her mother Catherine and I'll

[00:13:35] dig into that as I go on. What I'm trying to say is that with this second viewing more things jumped

[00:13:42] out at me, more things resonated with me, I connected with certain things, I noticed more,

[00:13:48] I had more feelings about the film. You know, I have things that I want to say about it in this

[00:13:54] episode obviously so it's one of those films like if you're listening to this episode and maybe you've

[00:13:59] only seen it once, I mean maybe you already see the brilliance of the film. I definitely think

[00:14:05] it's worth watching it again and you know in this era of the Puritans the real world and

[00:14:11] the fairy tale world were very much the same in people's minds and Eckers says that in

[00:14:16] interviews and that's what he's trying to bring to life in the film I think. Witches were real

[00:14:23] to these people, witches were as real as another person right in front of them. Witches did not

[00:14:30] inhabit some kind of imaginative realm or like they weren't real, they were. They were like

[00:14:37] material beings to the people who lived during this time and they were seen as supernatural beings

[00:14:43] Eckers is trying to bring that to life for sure. He wants to transport us to the 17th century and it's

[00:14:50] set in New England and Eckers himself is from southern New Hampshire so I thought that was

[00:14:55] interesting. It's set in New England but it was not really filmed there, much of the film was

[00:15:01] done in Canada in Ontario, I think it was in northern Ontario. It took five years to get

[00:15:07] the film made and four of those years were spent writing, researching and trying to get

[00:15:13] financing for the film. It was a journey for him but he wanted the research to be deep and extensive

[00:15:20] and he did I mean he learned everything he could about that period and he also learned about

[00:15:25] the witch hunts in Europe and the witch trials in Salem and all kinds of stuff to create

[00:15:32] the film and I think it shows in the period detail and in the attention to detail that you see in the

[00:15:38] film and you don't often see that. This is the only Robert Eckers film that I've seen so far,

[00:15:43] I know he's become a big deal. A lot of people seem to love The Lighthouse, I've had it recommended

[00:15:49] to me, I haven't watched it yet but it does look interesting. I know a lot of people like it

[00:15:54] and maybe I'll explore it one day. What's interesting is that this film was basically

[00:15:59] shot in natural light so the cinematography is very, I thought it was really powerful. I noticed

[00:16:06] it much more when I watched the film the second time. Everything is in natural light outside

[00:16:12] and then when they do the interior shots that's the candle flames and you know stuff like that

[00:16:19] but they didn't use any kind of artificial lighting. All of it was natural both inside and out.

[00:16:24] The music, the soundtrack is by Mark Corvin and after I watched the film I actually went and listened

[00:16:30] to the soundtrack on Spotify and I love the soundtrack. It's it's dark, it's dissonant,

[00:16:36] it's just perfect. I think it perfectly captures the era. Robert Eckers said that you listen to

[00:16:42] a lot of 17th century music and that he wanted to use that in the film and then they have

[00:16:47] that original soundtrack with the singing and the voices. It's a dark soundtrack but I like

[00:16:53] it. I'm recording this in October of 2021 so we are in the autumn season and I really love when

[00:17:01] autumn comes around. This is like my favorite season for sure. I love witchy music and so I have had

[00:17:07] the witch soundtrack going a little bit. I made a playlist. I always have to make playlists.

[00:17:13] This is all I do now. I should be doing so many other things with my life and instead

[00:17:18] I just end up making a bunch of playlists all the time. I make a playlist every day.

[00:17:24] I find a theme and I've got to go with it. My recent playlist is the witchy playlist so I was

[00:17:30] putting together all kinds of witchy songs that I love and enjoy and the witch soundtrack was

[00:17:37] definitely on there. Eggers was very inspired by The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's film. I

[00:17:44] actually watched that for the first time this year. I wasn't thinking a lot about The Shining as I

[00:17:49] watched the witch but maybe people who are more obsessed with The Shining and have watched it

[00:17:54] a lot maybe they'll notice those parallels. I've only seen The Shining once and it was months ago

[00:18:00] so I wasn't really paying attention to a lot of the parallels between the two films but it

[00:18:06] was a big influence for him. And Eggers has many influences as a filmmaker and you see them

[00:18:13] in this film. He's inspired by The Dutch Golden Age, by Flemish painters, by Visconti Kubrick,

[00:18:21] Carl Theodore Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman and the painter Goya. So you see all of that in here. I

[00:18:28] absolutely saw The Dutch Golden Age because I myself love The Dutch Golden Age. I love

[00:18:34] Vermeer and Rembrandt and in those interiors of the house and with the candlelight and all

[00:18:41] of that I think you could absolutely pick up on The Dutch Golden Age. And sometimes when the family

[00:18:47] was at the table eating and they were just illuminated by the lamp light, it was very reminded

[00:18:53] of a painting by Vincent van Gogh in his early period before he went to the south of France

[00:18:59] and had this explosion of color on his canvases. He had darker canvases when he was younger,

[00:19:07] when he was starting out. And he has one called The Potato Eaters and it's sort of a group of people

[00:19:12] they're eating and I think they're illuminated by like candlelight or kerosene lamp or you know

[00:19:19] whatever they used back in those days in the eight that's the 1800s. The film is set in the 1600s

[00:19:25] but it did remind me of that painting by van Gogh for some reason. Something about the light

[00:19:31] and the darkness. The film is filled with the darkness that's what this film is really about.

[00:19:38] These dark recesses of our own minds and the mythology and the folklore and the demons and

[00:19:45] the nightmares that we have created as a culture, the way that we've taken this idea of the witch

[00:19:51] and constructed all of that you know constructed what it means to be a witch. What is a witch?

[00:19:57] It wasn't just an idea to people. It was a true real physical threat and danger in their lives.

[00:20:06] It was as real to them as heaven and hell. Heaven and hell were very physical back then too.

[00:20:12] People believed these things were real. It was all they knew and it was what they were tall

[00:20:16] and that is the key to understanding the film and to understanding the history of what happened

[00:20:24] with the killing of women who were accused of witchcraft and Eggers made a good point in one

[00:20:30] interview where he was like yeah it was about fearing women's power of course that is part of

[00:20:36] the the mythology of the witch or the narrative of the witch right of women's sexuality and their

[00:20:42] power but it was more than that. It was that the witch was a real being. The witch was a true

[00:20:49] danger and threat in the physical world. She didn't just exist as an idea she existed as a

[00:20:56] reality for the people living back then and for hundreds and hundreds of years because the witch

[00:21:01] trials and the witch hunts of Europe lasted for for several centuries and that's what I want to

[00:21:07] talk about now. I love this documentary. This documentary is the reason that I chose to

[00:21:14] talk about the witch. Earlier in 2021 I got interested in this documentary called The

[00:21:21] The Burning Times by Donna Reed that was done in 1990. It's part of a trilogy about women and

[00:21:28] spirituality and I highly highly recommend this trilogy. I've started to get really

[00:21:34] interested in feminist spirituality with the ideas of like the sacred feminine, the divine

[00:21:40] feminine. I'm not going to go on about it but it's tied to sort of pre-Christian times, the times of

[00:21:47] paganism, the time before monotheistic patriarchal religion took over. We're talking about thousands

[00:21:54] and thousands of years ago before Christ you know before Christianity and before these

[00:21:59] monotheistic religions. There were there was a time before this patriarchal culture took over

[00:22:07] this trilogy on women and spirituality by Donna Reed goes into all of that. There's no way I could

[00:22:15] summarize it in this episode but it is about goddesses, about the worship of goddesses in

[00:22:21] pagan times and about the way that women were revered in you know thousands of years ago

[00:22:28] before Christianity and all of that came along. So the first part of the trilogy is

[00:22:34] called The Goddess Remembered and I love it. It's so fascinating to learn about the worshiping of

[00:22:40] goddesses and the way that women were respected and revered in more pagan times and then the second

[00:22:47] part of the trilogy is the Burning Times which is about the witch hunts in Europe that took

[00:22:53] place for hundreds of years and then the third film in the trilogy is called Full Circle and

[00:22:59] it talks about modern feminism when it was made in the early 1990s about the issues facing women

[00:23:06] under patriarchy and living in a patriarchal culture. It's a wonderful trilogy made in the early early

[00:23:13] like the late 80s early 90s still relevant it still resonates and I highly recommend it.

[00:23:20] I think I'm always searching for some kind of spirituality in a weird way. I'm not religious

[00:23:28] I've talked about this a lot on the podcast I am an atheist. The thing is is I'm not religious but I

[00:23:34] am in search of spirituality and that's hard to explain maybe. I don't believe in anything supernatural.

[00:23:40] I don't believe in like energy or I'm not even into astrology really I'm not into crystals and

[00:23:48] all that. I feel like when you talk about spirituality it's always attached to the

[00:23:52] new age stuff and I'm not judging anybody who's into that stuff. I'm saying for me personally

[00:23:58] it's not something that I think a lot about or that I'm into but I am always searching I guess

[00:24:03] for like some kind of spirituality and so earlier this year I came across this idea of feminist

[00:24:09] spirituality which is tied to like pagan times and learning about the goddesses and

[00:24:17] learning about women from history and it's about being more connected to nature and to yourself.

[00:24:24] I don't know it's just really interesting the whole idea of the divine feminine and the way that

[00:24:28] women were revered in in the past before everything just went to shit, before the monotheistic

[00:24:35] religion started and the patriarchy really started and capitalism and just all these

[00:24:40] terrible things that have oppressed and harmed women for centuries now and so

[00:24:46] I've gotten interested in it. I just wanted to mention it in case it interests other people.

[00:24:50] My entry point and my gateway for it was this trilogy and learning about goddesses, learning

[00:24:57] about the way women were respected in the past, the way that women were murdered when they were

[00:25:03] accused of witchcraft and all of the way that witchcraft was used to kill and oppress

[00:25:08] women by accusing them of it. You know women were often accused of witchcraft because they

[00:25:13] were deviant in some way. Many of these women were midwives or they were involved in women's

[00:25:18] health care, they were poor sometimes or old or widowed or unmarried. These were often vulnerable

[00:25:25] women in that way so all of this is from the burning times and I do want to talk about some

[00:25:29] of this because I think it's relevant, I think it's fascinating. You can always fast forward

[00:25:34] if it's not interesting. Women were often branded witches by the Christian church because

[00:25:39] they were healers. Often it was very connected to women who were healers or who were involved in

[00:25:45] something connected to women's bodies and health. Many of these women who were healers,

[00:25:51] they were continuing the traditions of the pre-Christian days, the days of paganism and the

[00:25:58] church found this very threatening and so they ended up going after these women. The word

[00:26:04] witch, I thought this was really interesting in the documentary. I don't know how accurate this

[00:26:09] is, this is what the documentary says. The word witch comes from the Anglo-Saxon root wick,

[00:26:15] which means to bend or shape. This is according to a woman named Starhawk in the burning times

[00:26:23] and she talks about how witches could bend or shape consciousness and then they could shape

[00:26:28] events in the real world and this is what made them dangerous right? Is that witches were

[00:26:34] active participants in the world? They were healers or they were often involved in women's

[00:26:40] reproductive health or women's everyday lives as midwives, healers and I just thought that was

[00:26:46] really interesting that it is connected to women who are seen as having some kind of weird power

[00:26:52] or strange dangerous power. In the Middle Ages, the witch hunts really ramped up and 85%

[00:27:00] of those who were killed were women. There were men accused of witchcraft and who were killed for it,

[00:27:05] but the vast majority, 85% were women. Between the 15th and the 17th centuries, thousands of

[00:27:13] women were burned at the stake for the crime of witchcraft and anybody could really accuse anybody.

[00:27:20] There was no rhyme or reason for it. A lot of people were accused. It's hard to know the

[00:27:26] exact numbers of how many women were killed during these witch hunts. Some say up to 9 million. I don't

[00:27:33] even know if that's accurate, but possibly millions of women were murdered because of the

[00:27:38] witch hunts and they were accused of something that they weren't as we know in the modern period

[00:27:45] now in 2021, witches are not real, witches don't exist. These women were not witches,

[00:27:51] they were just women who happened to be midwives or healers or widows or old or unmarried or whatever

[00:28:00] and they were murdered. They were burned at the stake for that because there was something that

[00:28:05] they did that was deemed dangerous. Often these women were even revered in their villages

[00:28:12] and the priests felt very threatened by them. Think about it, the midwives were lessening

[00:28:18] women's pain and childbirth, but the documentary says that that pain was supposed to be a punishment

[00:28:25] for what Eve did for the sin of Eve. They didn't want women taking away other women's pain during

[00:28:31] childbirth. These women were intervening in sexual reproduction by giving birth control

[00:28:38] and abortion to women. These were dangerous women, particularly the ones that were involved

[00:28:43] in healthcare for women. New laws were introduced that said if a woman tried to cure, if she tried

[00:28:49] to be involved in healing but she had not studied, she was a witch and she had to die. Now a lot of

[00:28:56] women, most women were barred from universities so this is how the medical profession or the medical

[00:29:03] establishment started and how it got so dominated by men is that they kept women out of these

[00:29:09] universities and this made it so that the medical profession would be dominated by men. I mean this

[00:29:16] really happened. The rise of the witch hunts, it's not totally clear what caused it but the play came

[00:29:23] in the 1500s. There were lots of epidemics for the next few hundred years in Europe. People did

[00:29:29] go to women for help during this time and the female population started to increase from the 15th

[00:29:36] to the 16th century. Maybe because more men were dying in war, women were out living and outnumbering

[00:29:43] men which means more women weren't finding husbands. They were becoming more independent

[00:29:49] and this was threatening. Now women didn't have rights to property or inheritance at this time.

[00:29:54] They relied on charity for the most part but if a woman did have property they immediately

[00:30:00] became suspect. They were also suspect if they were old, if they were widows, if they were spinsters,

[00:30:07] all of these women were vulnerable to being accused of witchcraft. They were easy scapegoats

[00:30:15] for the plague and for the diseases and epidemics that were ravaging a lot of rural villages

[00:30:21] and the witch hunts happened exclusively in rural areas of Europe. That's where it was taking

[00:30:26] place. These women were being attacked in the rural areas. Institutions just felt very threatened

[00:30:32] and it was easy to blame these women. It was easier to blame witches than the pope or the

[00:30:39] bishop or the priests or the religious establishment for all the woes, for all the

[00:30:45] horrible things that were happening in Europe during those centuries. So the witch became

[00:30:51] a scapegoat. The witch became something to blame anytime bad things were happening. That's why I'm

[00:30:57] talking about this because this is what happens in the witch, in the film, is that bad things are

[00:31:03] happening in this family and the witch becomes the blame, the witch becomes the scapegoat and

[00:31:10] Thomason becomes the scapegoat particularly since she's going through puberty and she has started

[00:31:17] her period and she's going from a young girl into a woman, right? It's always a transition phase for

[00:31:23] women when they start their periods. She becomes the scapegoat when all of these bad things start

[00:31:29] happening. So in a way this family is a microcosm of something that actually happened throughout

[00:31:36] Europe during the witch trials and the witch hunts is that when bad things happened women,

[00:31:41] women and witches got blamed for it for sure. And that's what happens to Thomason. And not all the

[00:31:48] women who were burned as witches were old, women of all ages were killed and some were even children.

[00:31:54] That's heartbreaking as well. Something I learned from this documentary that was so interesting to

[00:31:59] me is that hag, the word hag, it used to mean a woman who had sacred knowledge. Now it's a

[00:32:06] put down, right? It's used to attack women who are older, who are not seen as attractive or desirable.

[00:32:14] Women I guess who are unpleasant in some way, they're called hags. But what a lot of people

[00:32:19] don't realize because a lot of this knowledge was buried once Christianity became so dominant in

[00:32:25] Europe, so much of the pre-Christian world has been buried. So much of this knowledge

[00:32:32] about goddesses, about the way that older women used to be revered, all of it has been buried

[00:32:39] because of the dominance of Christianity. I mean the victor tells the story of history and that's

[00:32:46] what's happened with this is that so many people don't even know that oh hag used to mean a woman

[00:32:53] with sacred knowledge. I mean isn't that beautiful? That we used to respect women who had knowledge?

[00:32:59] We used to respect women who were healers and who were continuing the knowledge and they

[00:33:04] were handing down knowledge. They were continuing the traditions that they had learned and they

[00:33:10] were helping other women and like isn't that beautiful? And we don't even know any of that.

[00:33:15] That's why I love that trilogy by Donna Reed. Goddess remembered the burning times in full

[00:33:21] circle. All of them are on YouTube, find them and watch them. It was mind-blowing

[00:33:27] and it was beautiful. That's what I'm loving about this feminist spirituality is just connecting to

[00:33:32] myself as a woman and connecting to all the other women who came before me in history,

[00:33:39] including these women who were murdered in Europe for witchcraft. These are our ancestors as women.

[00:33:46] It's so beautiful to connect with that knowledge and to connect with that history and to know

[00:33:52] what happened to these women because their stories haven't really been told that much and it's really

[00:33:57] beautiful to know that oh there was a time before patriarchy. There was a time when women were

[00:34:03] not treated this way, were not oppressed and dominated and seen as sinful and less than

[00:34:10] and that they were created from Adam's rib. Like the Adam and Eve story is very powerful

[00:34:16] where a woman, where women are blamed for the downfall of the world and we have

[00:34:22] shouldered that for centuries now. Millenia since Christianity began or since the monotheistic

[00:34:28] religions began right? The Old Testament and Genesis and all of this. This is what women

[00:34:34] have lived with. This is what's been put on us and the witch, the witch is the perfect

[00:34:40] embodiment of the oppression and persecution of women but also our power and our knowledge

[00:34:47] and that's also what's so threatening. The witch is scary but you're also drawn to the witch.

[00:34:53] The witch is outside of everything in a way. You know she's outside of desire, she's outside of

[00:35:01] all of these constructs of what a woman should be. The witch breaks all the rules.

[00:35:06] The witch is deviant. Her deviance is the reason she was targeted or the women were targeted

[00:35:11] because they were single or they were widows or they were old or this or that. They broke the

[00:35:17] rules in some way. I mean these are the rebels of history, some of these women because they

[00:35:22] didn't fit the mold and they didn't play by the rules all the time and I just think this

[00:35:27] knowledge is a beautiful thing and these women were murdered. They were killed and no one

[00:35:32] kept their story going. So many of these women will never know their names and they were killed

[00:35:38] because they were women pretty much and they were dangerous and they were scary because of their

[00:35:44] power. They were seen as powerful in a frightening way. They could heal or they had property

[00:35:51] or whatever. They were old and that was dangerous because they were outside the bounds.

[00:35:57] They defied what was expected of women. Old women were revered back in the pagan times

[00:36:04] because they passed down ancient knowledge to other people. I love it and it is true that

[00:36:09] women did used to meet in groups in the forest. I thought that was really interesting when I was

[00:36:14] watching the documentary is that that's what happens in the witch at the very end. That

[00:36:19] did happen. Women would meet in the forest to talk, to share knowledge, to be together I

[00:36:26] guess for whatever reason. They would perform rituals, they would share news all kinds of stuff

[00:36:32] that gradually that started to be turned into something evil for women to gather together

[00:36:37] in the woods and you see that fear come to life in the wood of like oh my gosh a group of women

[00:36:44] together. Oh my lord right often the women in this film are isolated so it is very powerful

[00:36:51] to see all those women to see the witches gathering together at the very end and being

[00:36:57] together in front of the fire. There's something very powerful about that I think. What a lot of

[00:37:02] people don't know about the witch hunts is that they were a business and the same happened in

[00:37:06] Salem when the witch trials happened. This was profitable. That's the missing thing that a

[00:37:12] lot of people don't understand. These witch hunts and the attacking of witches or attacking

[00:37:18] of women under the guise of witchcraft. There's a lot of reasons for it but there was also a profit

[00:37:23] motivation involved here. There was bookkeeping, there were charges, the lawyers made money,

[00:37:30] the judges made money, the people who locked up the witch who fed her, who escorted her to

[00:37:36] the courthouse. All these people made money off of this. People made money and often the

[00:37:42] witch herself had to pay for her own trial. They would take her property, her assets and she would

[00:37:48] be expected to pay the bill for her own execution, her own murder. A lot of people don't know this.

[00:37:55] That's why this documentary if you love this film and you like say you like other films about

[00:38:00] witches I do. I love I Married a Witch and Bell Book and Candle. I just watched Bell Book

[00:38:06] and Candle a few months ago or a few weeks ago. I liked a lot of it. I didn't love the

[00:38:11] ending but I really loved Kim Novak in it. I said I'm married a witch right? A lot of people love

[00:38:16] practical magic or the witches of Eastwick. There's all kinds of witchy films out there. Well if you

[00:38:22] like witches and you're interested in them and all of that then watch this documentary. I learned

[00:38:28] so much. I thought it was interesting when they talked about the torture of women who confessed

[00:38:34] to witchcraft. They often did confess because they were tortured terribly in horrible, horrible

[00:38:40] ways and there was no way you could withstand the torture. You just couldn't and these women would

[00:38:45] confess about saying that Satan came to her and that they knelt before a goat. I thought that

[00:38:52] was interesting. Apparently the goat is associated with the devil and with Satan and you see that

[00:38:58] in the witch with black Phillip. The goat becomes this symbol of the devil and once the devil

[00:39:04] became this popular concept there also became this idea that women were allied with the devil.

[00:39:11] That fed this mythology too about witches or this folklore. I'm not sure what to call it. I guess

[00:39:17] folklore would be the only way to talk about it right? Women were seen as being more vulnerable

[00:39:25] to Satan because we're irrational and we're emotional and also we're sexual. We are

[00:39:32] seen as not having control over ourselves. That is the way that women are oppressed or these ideas,

[00:39:39] these very harmful ideas that were too emotional, were sexual, were sinful and were therefore dangerous

[00:39:46] and when a woman signed a contract with the devil it was said that she would perform a sexual

[00:39:52] act with him and this is what women confessed to but really women weren't really confessing.

[00:39:58] There was a handbook that a lot of the people who interrogated these women had and they would have the

[00:40:05] women confess to these stories about having sex with Satan and all kinds of stuff right? And that's

[00:40:12] how these stories were created. It was through this handbook. It's not like these women were

[00:40:17] really confessing to anything. They didn't do any of this stuff but they were told to say these

[00:40:22] things. There were books about how to burn witches as well. It's horrifying. I mean millions of women

[00:40:29] probably died this way because they were accused of witchcraft and yet there are no monuments

[00:40:35] to these women. There are no memorials to all the women who were murdered during the witch

[00:40:41] hunts in Europe for several centuries. Thousands and thousands of women, possibly millions,

[00:40:46] we don't know for sure. We have really no memory of them. Like their stories are not told. They are

[00:40:53] reduced to a caricature. That's why I really like the witch because the witch is like it goes beyond

[00:40:59] the stereotype or the caricature of the witch and it gives us what the Puritans really thought a

[00:41:06] witch was. That is what this film is. It is an Edgar Statham in an interview. It is like

[00:41:11] the Puritan nightmare come to life and that's what he did. This is what they really thought women were

[00:41:18] doing who were witches. They were bathing in baby's blood. They were on a broom. Their hair was long

[00:41:24] and stringy. They were old or they were hags. They were frightening. They were monstrous and

[00:41:30] grotesque. Like all of this stuff and it's brought to life in this film like the ultimate horror,

[00:41:36] the ultimate fear of what they imagined these witches were and what these women were really

[00:41:42] doing at night. The terror that they were creating. These people lived in fear of this

[00:41:49] thing they created, this idea of a witch. That idea was so powerful that it led to the murder

[00:41:57] of so many women for centuries and it still is with us today. All of that misogyny and all

[00:42:04] of that sexism is still with us today. This idea that women are too emotional and they're sexual

[00:42:09] and they're sinful and they're dangerous. All of that's still with us to some extent. Not as bad

[00:42:15] as the 1600s but it's not easy being a woman in the world. So I wanted to talk about all of that.

[00:42:22] I think that documentary is fascinating and now I'll talk about the film The Witch.

[00:42:27] I'm going to talk about the film directed by Robert Eggers as we all know released in 2015.

[00:42:53] Anya Taylor Joy plays Thomason. Ralph Inneson is the father William. Kate Dickey is the mother

[00:43:00] Catherine. Harvey Scrimshaw is Caleb. Ellie Granger is Mercy and Lucas Dawson is Jonas.

[00:43:09] So it's about this family that is exiled from their community. They lived on this plantation

[00:43:15] or in this community in New England, mother, the father and five children, right? And there's Baby

[00:43:22] Sam who vanishes early on. He's the first child to disappear. And so this family's exiled from

[00:43:29] their community and they go to live on their own in this remote isolated part of New England

[00:43:36] in the wilderness and they only have themselves to rely on. And as soon as they get exiled

[00:43:43] and they're in the wilderness basically, that's when crazy stuff starts to happen

[00:43:48] and disturbing things start to happen that they can't make sense of and they start to

[00:43:54] create some kind of sense or to try to understand it through blaming the witch,

[00:44:01] blaming a witch. And then they start to blame Thomason and believe that she's in league

[00:44:08] with the devil, with the witches, and Thomason starts to get blamed for this stuff as well.

[00:44:13] And she's present for quite a few of the things that end up happening. Whether it's Sam

[00:44:20] disappearing or when Caleb vanishes and then reappears, she's present for all of that.

[00:44:28] And she becomes the scapegoat in a lot of ways. It's a simple story. It's a very simple story in

[00:44:35] that way. I think Eggers and Interviews talked about how it's also about a family. I mean at its

[00:44:40] heart, that's what this film is about. It is about a family. And I think it's about a family

[00:44:46] really falling apart and disintegrating. Instead of being there for each other, supporting each

[00:44:52] other, they turn on each other because life, their life is so hard and so difficult. I think it's hard

[00:45:00] for us to imagine in the modern period that we're living in what life was like back then. But I do

[00:45:06] think that a film like The Witch gives us insight and it gets us as close as we're probably ever

[00:45:13] going to get because we don't have photos, we don't have video, we don't have any kind of proof

[00:45:19] like that or evidence of what life was like back then. But this film through its verisimilitude and

[00:45:25] its historical accuracy gives us something. It gets us closer to the truth or the authenticity

[00:45:33] or the reality of what life must have been in the 1600s. I mean think alone about the darkness.

[00:45:40] You don't have electric light, you don't have street lamps, you don't have any lamps at all.

[00:45:45] You have candlelight and you have the sunlight. And everything else is darkness when you don't

[00:45:51] have those things. So it had to be a scary time. You have people dying very young from illnesses.

[00:45:59] There's a lot of death, there's all kinds of things. This is a time in history that it's

[00:46:03] scary to be alive and it's hard to be alive because you don't understand things the way

[00:46:09] that we understand them now. You do not understand what is going on and they are searching for something

[00:46:18] to blame. They're searching for a way to understand it and the witch becomes the figure, the witch

[00:46:24] becomes the scapegoat, the witch becomes the thing to blame, to fear and to blame with

[00:46:31] all of this. So I wanted to start with something a little bit personal before I

[00:46:36] talk fully about the film. I briefly lived in New England for about five or six months during the winter.

[00:46:44] It was brutal for me. I'm from the south. In the south we're not used to that kind of winter,

[00:46:51] we're not used to feet and feet of snow, we're not used to constant snow, we're not used to

[00:46:57] any of that. We're not used to the kind of cold that you have in the northeast and in

[00:47:03] New England. There would be cold advisories that if you were outside too long in those temperatures

[00:47:11] you could get frostbite. There's nothing like that in the south. We get snow every now and then.

[00:47:17] It's not a constant thing at all. We do not go much lower than like the 20s or 30s and in New

[00:47:24] England when I was there, I think snowmageddon happened when I was there too. That was fun,

[00:47:30] not, not really. I still have nightmares about my days in New England for like six months.

[00:47:37] It was terrible. I was so miserable. I think that was one of the most miserable times of my life.

[00:47:43] I hated it there. I'm, I really do apologize to any of you who live up there and you love it.

[00:47:48] The fall was pretty when the leaves changed but the snow and the cold, the darkness, oh

[00:47:56] that was a dark time in my life when I was living there. So I have really negative feelings about it

[00:48:02] but what I wanted to say is that something that stays with me about my brief time in New

[00:48:09] England are the woods and we lived, me and my family for them few months that we were there,

[00:48:14] we lived in an apartment and there was like the apartment and then there was a field and

[00:48:20] then there were woods. Now growing up in the south, I love the forest. I've always been an outdoors person

[00:48:27] in that way when I was growing up. I loved being outside. I loved being in nature. I loved being

[00:48:33] in the woods and the forest. They were a magical beautiful fun place to be and I always loved

[00:48:42] being in the woods with my friends when I was a little girl running around and picking up the

[00:48:48] leaves and all kinds of stuff. I loved it. The woods in New England in the winter time at least

[00:48:55] were absolutely creepy and eerie and spooky and I remember I had my dog Boomer at that time.

[00:49:03] Boomer died earlier this year in May. That was really sad. I've talked about it a little bit

[00:49:08] in some past episodes but he passed away. We had him for 10 years and he was a really sweet

[00:49:14] dog and so when I was in New England, I would take Boomer outside to use the bathroom and usually

[00:49:21] there was snow all over the ground and ice in the parking lot. That was fun. I was miserable

[00:49:27] and so I would take him outside in the snow and I would stand out there in the dark usually,

[00:49:33] sometimes under the moonlight. I still remember standing outside looking at the woods on these

[00:49:38] snowy evenings and it was like the hairs on my body stood up. Those woods felt so haunted and dark.

[00:49:48] I still can't put what I felt into words when I would look at those woods. It was palpable.

[00:49:54] It was this physical darkness that I still can't even put into language. There was something

[00:50:01] threatening about the woods for me. I would wonder what lurked inside of all those tangled

[00:50:08] branches. What could come out of that deep foreboding darkness? It's never left me that

[00:50:15] feeling. It felt haunted. That land felt haunted. I was not in Massachusetts. I was not in Salem

[00:50:21] so I can't say that I felt the spirits of the women who were murdered, right? The women

[00:50:27] who were killed in the witch trials or something, but I felt history. I felt something very dark on

[00:50:35] that land and there could be people who come to the south and feel the same. We have a very bloody

[00:50:42] violent history of racial murder of lynchings and all kinds of things and you could see that in

[00:50:48] the landscape or you could feel it in the landscape. I don't know what I felt in New

[00:50:53] England. I don't know what I felt in those woods, but it was dark and it was intense and it's never

[00:51:00] left me. And so rewatching the witch, it just stayed with me. It just absolutely stayed with me.

[00:51:06] It was very weird to be in New England because I've always been interested in the Salem witch

[00:51:11] trials and stuff. I think Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is one of my favorite writers. I love

[00:51:17] The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I believe she wrote a short

[00:51:22] book about the Salem trials. So I remember reading that book by Shirley Jackson. I remember reading

[00:51:28] The Crucible when I was in school, even though they say that's not really historically accurate,

[00:51:34] but the Salem witch trials have always interested me a bit. I don't know as much as I'd like to.

[00:51:39] So to be in New England was very interesting. To be in that landscape, I don't know. I feel

[00:51:45] like history haunts that place. I think it, I think history haunts those woods in some way.

[00:51:51] I don't know why, but I felt that. So I do feel like in this film, Eggers is,

[00:51:57] he's looking at the darkness that lurks in the past. And I do, I'm surprised there are not more

[00:52:03] horror films set during the Puritan times because it's such a dark time and it's scary

[00:52:10] and it's intense, right? People believed this stuff was real and it was a creepy time, I think.

[00:52:17] There's no light. Life is really difficult. There's a lot of death. It does surprise me,

[00:52:23] we don't have more films or more horror films set during like the Puritan days or the Salem

[00:52:30] witch trials or something. We have films about witches, but we don't necessarily have

[00:52:35] historical films about the witch trials. So I think it was a pretty scary time.

[00:52:40] So I want to talk about the idea of the witch in this film. What does the witch embody?

[00:52:45] What is the witch doing? She is the thing that haunts the film, this, this witch or multiple

[00:52:53] witches that we see throughout the film. And Eggers talked about the figure of the witch in a lot

[00:52:59] of interviews. He did an interview with the AV club and he says that the witch quote embodies

[00:53:06] men's fears and ambivalences and fantasies about women and female power. In that period,

[00:53:14] in this extremely male dominated society, the evil witch is also women's fears and ambivalences

[00:53:21] about themselves and their power. I think that's really interesting where he brings that up in

[00:53:28] interviews where it's not just about the witch doesn't just embody men's fears of women,

[00:53:35] but perhaps women's own fears of themselves and what they've been taught to fear.

[00:53:40] That's the thing is that women back then were taught that they were sinful. They were taught that

[00:53:45] they were inferior, that they were not on the same level of men, but they were also taught that they

[00:53:52] had had this sexual power over men. But they didn't necessarily know what to do with that, right?

[00:53:59] And they felt ashamed of it. And so I thought it was interesting that he brought up that the

[00:54:03] witch could embody both of those things, not just men's ideas of women, but women's own ideas and

[00:54:12] women's fears of what they are. And this internalized maybe internalized misogyny or something that like,

[00:54:20] oh I must be evil. It reminds me of a scene early on with Thomason where she's praying to God

[00:54:26] and she's talking about all her sins and all the terrible things that she's done. She talks

[00:54:32] about how she deserves to be punished for it. So women themselves at this time, they believe what

[00:54:39] they're told about themselves that they are evil, that they are sinful, that they lure men, right?

[00:54:47] Or they, you know, they do all these things to men. So I thought that was just an interesting

[00:54:52] thing to think about that maybe the witch could embody that as well, not just how men feel,

[00:54:57] but how women have been taught to feel about themselves. And maybe the witch is also a figure

[00:55:03] of like what happens to you if you step out of line. In a lot of ways, the film, what the film

[00:55:08] is doing and maybe this is, to me this is what makes it unique and so unexpected, is that it's

[00:55:14] taking the whole idea of the witch seriously. And I feel like Eggers is saying, what if

[00:55:20] witches were real? What if these witches were real? What would they look like? What would

[00:55:25] they sound like, right? What would they do? And he's bringing, like I said earlier, the whole Puritan

[00:55:31] nightmare, the whole Puritan imagination. He's like getting into the Puritan imagination

[00:55:37] and saying and bringing to life what they truly feared about the witch. And that's who we see in

[00:55:45] the film. He's taking us into that nightmare. And what we're seeing in the film is like these

[00:55:50] tales come to life. These nightmares made real. They really believed that women covered themselves

[00:55:56] in blood, that they had sex with Satan, that they flew on broomsticks, that they would go in the woods

[00:56:02] and dance naked and all of this stuff. This is the Puritan nightmare come to life. And that's

[00:56:09] what he gives us in the film. The ultimate villain is this witch. I think what's interesting

[00:56:15] is the way the film mixes the violence of the witch and the liberation of the witch.

[00:56:22] Because it is a violent film. It is a bloody film. It's a terrifying film. But at the end of it,

[00:56:29] the witch is actually the path to freedom for Thomason. Or you could argue the devil is,

[00:56:36] that Satan is, that she signs the contract with. He's her access to freedom possibly.

[00:56:42] But I think the other women that she joins, they're her path to freedom. And so it's interesting to me

[00:56:50] all these contradictions that the witch embodies. The witches both sexualized and demonized.

[00:56:57] You know witches were often seen as hags and old women. But then they were also very sexualized.

[00:57:04] And there was something very sexual about their representations. They're naked.

[00:57:09] They never have clothes on right? Their bodies are always exposed. But their bodies are not

[00:57:14] necessarily beautiful. You know they don't look like models or something like that. But they are

[00:57:20] naked and they are sexualized at the same time that they're seen as like hags and gross and

[00:57:26] grotesque. I think that's an interesting contradiction. The witch is seen as both ugly

[00:57:32] and alluring. So I think people projected all kinds of things onto the witches. All these

[00:57:38] terrors and desires, all these fears about the female body, about female power. Think about

[00:57:46] when Caleb goes into the woods right? And the witch is this voluptuous woman who seduces him

[00:57:54] and then suddenly turns into the old hag figure. The witch in the film embodies all of these

[00:58:01] things. Terror and sexuality, the grotesque, the horrific, but also the sexual. And I personally

[00:58:10] just find that fascinating because people are contradictory. I mean we're filled with all kinds

[00:58:15] of contradictions aren't we as human beings? And the film brings those contradictions to life

[00:58:21] just in the figure of the witch and all of the ways that she's constructed and thought about.

[00:58:28] Witches really were an explanation for the inexplicable. They were the scapegoat, the ones who got

[00:58:34] blamed for when these frightening and really terrible things would happen. And I think something

[00:58:40] that's really terrifying about this film is how small the human beings are in it. How little

[00:58:46] control they have over their lives. They can't control the weather or nature or what happens to

[00:58:52] their crops. The women have no control over what happens to them in any way. And they're exiled

[00:58:59] from the community and they go into the wilderness basically. And I love the way the film composes

[00:59:05] the shots of the woods. I didn't talk about that earlier. The shots of the woods are fascinating

[00:59:10] to me where they take up the entire screen. I mean they're so massive right these trees.

[00:59:15] And often the family, like you'll see one member of the family contrasted against all these trees.

[00:59:24] And they look so small against the woods. The wilderness looks vast and the trees in the

[00:59:31] woods look massive. And the family members, they look so tiny and so small. And really the woods

[00:59:39] become a site of terror. That's what's also interesting about New England. Like I said,

[00:59:43] when I was growing up in the South, I loved the woods. I love playing in the woods. But in this

[00:59:49] film the woods are a place of mystery and terror because it's in the woods that all these bad things

[00:59:58] happen. The baby vanishes, baby Sam vanishes, Caleb gets seduced and abducted. So the woods

[01:00:06] become a very terrifying place where inexplicable things can happen at any minute. And

[01:00:13] Catherine, I think Catherine shows the mother. Catherine shows a fear of the woods she doesn't

[01:00:19] like when William takes Caleb into the woods if I'm correct at like at some point in the film.

[01:00:26] She doesn't really like when they go into the woods because she sees them as a very dangerous

[01:00:32] place for the children. And they are dangerous. They are a dangerous place and they're also where

[01:00:38] the witch ostensibly lives. And we see at times this some woman in a red cloak in the woods

[01:00:46] after baby Sam is kidnapped, we see the little old lady in the in the red cape going through the

[01:00:52] woods. And so the woods are also like the home of the witch it seems like, right? And

[01:00:59] they're encroaching on her territory. They have come out to this place to the wilderness to live

[01:01:07] and they have to share that space with whatever is out there. And they don't have control over

[01:01:12] anything. They certainly don't have control over the crops because they're struggling to even grow

[01:01:17] anything. They're basically like starving. They have very little food and they had no control

[01:01:24] over their lives, no control over the weather or nature or anything like that. And that's scary.

[01:01:29] That's like really, really scary. That's part of the fear in this film for me personally is like

[01:01:36] not having any control over your life. And the women live that for sure.

[01:01:42] Thomas and Catherine, they don't have any control over their lives. Thomas is controlled by her

[01:01:47] parents and what they tell her to do. She doesn't have any real freedom and Catherine is controlled

[01:01:53] by William. You know, William makes the decisions in the family and she doesn't get a say in it.

[01:01:58] So there are several times in the film when we see the witch, we actually see her. I thought

[01:02:03] this was a fascinating part of the film too where I guess Eggers could have just left it

[01:02:08] more ambiguous. He could have left it to our imaginations and not shown the witch at all.

[01:02:14] And he could have implied that there was a supernatural explanation for things or maybe

[01:02:21] there was a rational explanation for things. He doesn't do that. He absolutely shows us

[01:02:27] the witch. He brings that Puritan nightmare to life. We first see her when Thomas and is playing

[01:02:33] peek-a-boo with Sam and the baby disappears. And then we see the baby being touched by,

[01:02:42] and we see an elderly woman's hand. And then we see the little old lady in the red cloak

[01:02:48] running through the woods. After that there's a naked woman from behind with very long hair.

[01:02:54] She's mixing something up and she then rubs it all over her body. And I think it's supposed to be

[01:03:00] blood, obviously. So she's rubbing blood, the blood of a baby, all over her body. We see another

[01:03:07] woman, I think it's a different one, putting blood on a broomstick. She's like lying down

[01:03:14] and she's putting blood on the broomstick. I don't know if this is supposed to be,

[01:03:18] I guess maybe in the film there is only one witch, I guess. And she takes many different forms

[01:03:24] possibly or these multiple witches. It wasn't clear to me, but I was not expecting that when

[01:03:30] I first saw the film. I was expecting something more ambiguous, something more tied to the rational

[01:03:38] or to the realism of the film. And instead the film opens up and gives us something much more

[01:03:45] supernatural, unexpected in the realm of fantasy and folklore and fairy tale.

[01:03:52] Eggers does refer to the film as like a fairy tale or a folk tale until he takes us into that world

[01:03:59] and it's the world that the Puritans themselves inhabited. And it's their imagination and their

[01:04:06] ideas about what the witch would look like or what witches did look like and what they did

[01:04:13] and the rituals they performed. And that's why they were so terrified of them because they're truly

[01:04:18] frightening in this film. You can understand the fear if you truly believed that this is what women

[01:04:25] were capable of doing, who were witches, that they killed babies and put the blood all over their

[01:04:31] bodies and got on their broomstick and flew into the night. There's a scene of that I think

[01:04:37] of a woman flying. How terrifying! It's terrifying just to watch the film and we know that this isn't

[01:04:44] real. Can you imagine being a Puritan in the 1600s and this is what you believe is happening? This

[01:04:52] is what's in your nightmares. This is what you're terrified of. Later in the film Caleb and Thomas

[01:04:58] and leave the farm or leave the home and they get lost in the woods. Thomas insists on going

[01:05:05] with him to set the animal trap and then the horse gets spooked. Thomas and thrown off of the horse

[01:05:12] and the dog goes after a rabbit and later on Caleb finds the dog completely gored and then as he's

[01:05:19] walking in the woods he comes across this hut where this young beautiful voluptuous woman

[01:05:27] in this red cloak comes closer and he gets closer and closer to her and she kisses him

[01:05:33] and she puts her hand on his head and her hand transforms into an old woman. Female sexuality

[01:05:41] was a fear. It's interesting how women's sexuality was seen as dangerous and yet for you to have that

[01:05:50] sexuality you were dangerous but then when you no longer had it anymore, when you were an old

[01:05:56] woman say and you don't have that sexual desirability anymore, then you're seen as like grotesque and

[01:06:04] hideous and you're like a hag. So it's like women couldn't win. Women still can't win. So if you are

[01:06:12] young and attractive and desirable well you're dangerous for that right because you're tempting

[01:06:19] men but then if you lose your desirability and you're not attractive and you're no longer

[01:06:25] young well then you're also dangerous because you're old and maybe you have too much knowledge

[01:06:31] or you're not married or you're widowed or something and you're gross now you know you're not young and

[01:06:38] beautiful and sexual right. So again women can't win. Women are punished either way you're either

[01:06:45] too sexual or you're not sexual or you've lost your desirability and either way there's a fear

[01:06:52] either way there's a demonization of whatever you know whatever part of your life you might be in.

[01:07:00] That's what's so harmful about patriarchy. The oppression of women even today is that

[01:07:06] no matter what you do you're not enough. If you're beautiful that comes with problems.

[01:07:11] They'll attack you for being beautiful. If you're ugly then you're invisible

[01:07:17] right and men don't want anything to do with you. If you're young you're a temptress if you're old

[01:07:23] you're a hag where is there room in there for women to just be ourselves to be who we are

[01:07:30] to be all that we are. We're always some kind of like object. There's always something wrong

[01:07:36] with us and I think that's something I've been struggling with lately it's like my own

[01:07:41] feelings about all of that my own feelings about being a woman and being trapped in this world

[01:07:48] that is so sexist and so misogynistic and so painful. It's so painful to be a woman at times

[01:07:56] to be invisible to be unattractive because I've talked about this time and again I'm not seen

[01:08:02] as some beautiful woman in the world. I'm very ignored I'm very invisible and I'm not

[01:08:11] seen as desirable and attractive and living in this Instagram age where I'm constantly bombarded

[01:08:18] with this where I feel like more and more women's worth is so tied to our bodies and our looks

[01:08:25] and our desirability. I think it's even worse now. I can't imagine being a teenage girl right

[01:08:32] now looking at Instagram every day looking at filtered faces and perfect bodies. I believe

[01:08:39] that being a woman is just as hard as it's ever been and the standards that you are held to are

[01:08:46] just as bad as they've ever been and it's the beauty standards. They are suffocating. They are so

[01:08:53] destructive and harmful. The way that we are defined by our looks and our bodies it is not

[01:09:01] something that men are dealing with in the same way. I'm not saying men are not held to certain

[01:09:06] standards but it is nothing on the level that women are. It is like our only definition. It really is

[01:09:15] is our desirability. I really feel that way. I truly think social media has made it worse.

[01:09:21] You know I don't mean to sound like an old fogey or something but I'm 32 years old struggling

[01:09:26] with body image issues and self-hatred and invisibility and all of that and I just

[01:09:33] can't imagine being much younger and not knowing who you are, not having a sense of self and wanting

[01:09:41] to be found attractive and wanting to be valued and loved and cared for and knowing that so much

[01:09:49] of so much of you is is defined by what you look like and if you're seen as beautiful and

[01:09:54] desirable. It's brutal. You really are just never enough as you are. I realized recently

[01:10:02] that is a huge aspect of my life and a huge source of suffering for me is that I've always felt like

[01:10:11] I was never enough as I was. I wasn't enough for my family. I've never been enough for men,

[01:10:17] that's for sure. I've always failed these standards. I've never lived up to these standards

[01:10:22] that were expected of women. I'm not enough for this world. I'm not enough for this culture,

[01:10:28] this society. There is not a place for me where I can be valued and cared for and loved the way that

[01:10:35] I need. I haven't felt accepted, I haven't felt loved unconditionally except by my parents. I have

[01:10:42] not felt treated well in this world and I'm still struggling with the damage of it. The self-hatred,

[01:10:49] the lack of confidence, the lack of self-esteem, the lack of love, the lack of attention,

[01:10:55] it hurts to be invisible. It hurts to not be seen. It hurts for people to not want to know you.

[01:11:01] It hurts for people to not be interested in you. It hurts for men to discard you and to not even

[01:11:10] give you a chance or want to know you as a human being. All of that hurts deeply,

[01:11:15] to not be loved, to not be considered when it comes to being in a relationship.

[01:11:21] All of it hurts. You're never enough as a woman. You're just never enough, particularly when your

[01:11:27] scene is unattractive or your scene is ugly or you don't live up to those beauty standards. You

[01:11:32] will never be enough for this world. So much of our lives are defined by what we look like and

[01:11:40] the only people who say otherwise are the beautiful people and the attractive people who

[01:11:45] have no idea what their lives are like because of their beauty, because they've never known what it's

[01:11:52] like to not have it. And it comes with its own issues and complications but being seen as unattractive

[01:11:59] and being invisible in the world is pretty damn painful and it's caused a lot of suffering for

[01:12:05] me that I still struggle with. So anyways, I'm just saying that for women we're never enough.

[01:12:12] You know, we're too beautiful. We're not beautiful enough. We're young. We're old. This,

[01:12:16] that and the other. You'll never be enough. And I think the witch and the representation of

[01:12:21] the witch embodies a lot of that. So yeah, I just wanted to linger on the meaning of the

[01:12:26] witch, right? And all the things she's endowed with, all of the cultural meaning,

[01:12:32] they're trying to make a life in the wilderness but they're struggling with

[01:12:36] that throughout the film. And I thought it was interesting how like the most ordinary things

[01:12:42] can become menacing in the film, a rabbit, a goat, the woods. Everything was endowed with this

[01:12:51] meaning or something because in the Puritan imagination, like Edgar said, the real and

[01:12:58] the fantasy, the real and the fairy tale were the same because they did believe in things like

[01:13:04] witches and the devil and God and heaven and hell. There's like this weird mixture of the real

[01:13:13] and the fairy tale in the world of the Puritans, it seems like. They're trying to make meaning out

[01:13:19] of their lives. They're trying to control their lives and they don't have anything. They don't

[01:13:23] have any control over it because nature is wild. Nature is uncontrollable. That's what makes

[01:13:29] it so frightening. We're always trying to control nature and it's interesting we call it mother nature,

[01:13:35] mother earth and it's always, we're always trying to control it just like we're trying to control

[01:13:40] women but nature can't be tamed and that's what the family finds out. The longer that they're

[01:13:46] in the wilderness together, the more that they're falling apart. I mean that's what the film's

[01:13:52] about as well. It's about this witch, it's about all these things happening but it's also

[01:13:58] about a family falling apart. A family breaking down under the pressure of being on their own

[01:14:05] and they're failing. You know, they're failing at the crops. The father's failing. All he can do is

[01:14:10] like chop wood. Like their crops are terrible. They're failing at this and they're not able to

[01:14:17] provide for themselves at all. That's a part of the film as well. So I want to focus now on

[01:14:22] Thomason because I think she's such an important part of this film. She's trapped for much of the

[01:14:28] film. She has to suppress her desires. She's not even allowed to have desire and she is going

[01:14:35] through puberty. She started her period so her sexuality and her burgeoning womanhood

[01:14:41] is also frightening to the people around her I think and she starts to get blamed for the

[01:14:46] terrible things that are happening. You know, she's with Sam when he vanishes. She's with

[01:14:50] Caleb when he wanders off and then when he's also found. It's telling that almost everything gets

[01:14:56] blamed on women. We are forced to shoulder immense burdens in this world. This is what I was talking

[01:15:02] about being a woman. We are often responsible for others and we take on the blame right when

[01:15:09] something happens to them and because Thomason is present for all these things she gets blamed

[01:15:15] and also when she's milking the goat, she's milking this white goat and blood comes out of

[01:15:21] the udders. She becomes the scapegoat and the blame for anything out of the ordinary or strange

[01:15:28] or weird that happens. It's almost like her sexuality is seen as causing it that because

[01:15:35] she's going through this transition from girl into woman that that's almost seen as a trigger

[01:15:42] for these events or something like that. Her puberty, right? Her burgeoning sexuality and womanhood.

[01:15:49] Her starting her period also is going to initiate her leaving the family. Catherine tells her that

[01:15:56] she is going to have to leave and serve another family eventually and then at the end of the

[01:16:01] film they do talk about Thomason leaving. Well they're going to go back to the plantation

[01:16:06] before the ending where they all die, right? They're going to go back to the plantation and the plan is

[01:16:13] for Thomason to get with a family that she can work for. Her entire life is just being told what

[01:16:21] to do and doing what everybody tells her to do and being like in service to everybody. She

[01:16:28] doesn't get to have her own desires, her own life. Everybody else tells her what to do.

[01:16:34] She's like a maid and a servant and she's also very sexualized. I mean there are times in the film

[01:16:39] when Caleb is looking at her breasts that was really unsettling for sure to see that and there's

[01:16:45] that scene where she's by the river and mercy comes up to them. Thomason and Caleb are together

[01:16:54] by the river. They have like a very close relationship. This is when Thomason threatens

[01:16:58] her, I'd be the witch of the wood and Thomason says that she was the witch who took Sam.

[01:17:03] She says that when she's sleeping her spirit leaves her body and she dances naked with the devil.

[01:17:09] She says that she gave Sam to the devil and that she'll make any man or anything she wants

[01:17:16] vanish. And this scene was interesting to me. It's a scene of power. It's a scene where Thomason

[01:17:23] is embracing the witch out of all the people in the family. Thomason embraces the idea

[01:17:30] of being a witch. She likes the idea. She plays with it. Everybody else is terrified of the witch

[01:17:37] but Thomason is not and this could be one reason why she's allowed to live at the end. We're not

[01:17:43] really sure why the witch is killing all these people in her family. In the review,

[01:17:49] the reviewer in The Atlantic in a piece that I read said that everybody was being killed off

[01:17:55] to save Thomason. You know, getting rid of the family so that Thomason can join the witches in

[01:18:01] the woods and that is possible, right? That she's chosen for that. And also she's the only person

[01:18:08] in the family that embraces the witch that takes power in the idea of the witch. She's not frightened

[01:18:16] of it as much. Catherine and Caleb and Mercy and Jonas, they're scared of the witch. They're

[01:18:23] scared of the power of this being, this supernatural being and Thomason uses that mythology, that folklore

[01:18:32] to gain power over Mercy in that scene by the river. She uses it to get Mercy to obey her,

[01:18:39] to let her know that if you do something wrong, if you disobey me, I can hurt you.

[01:18:45] She's using the threat of violence to gain power over this little girl. She says that she'll

[01:18:51] boil her and bake her and then she actually physically attacks her in the scene. But it's a

[01:18:58] powerful moment where Thomason takes back some power. I mean, she does it over somebody with less

[01:19:05] power than her, a child, which is sometimes the only way that women have had power, right?

[01:19:11] It's over children. But she embraces the witch. She embraces the idea of the witch

[01:19:16] for her own ends and for her own power. And I thought that was really interesting and that

[01:19:20] is to me a feminist aspect of the film that Thomason resists all of this stuff. She doesn't just take

[01:19:28] it lying down as they say. They accuse her of being a witch, they accuse her of doing this stuff

[01:19:34] at different points in the film and Thomason pushes back and she insists, I didn't do this.

[01:19:40] I'm not a witch, you know, I didn't do anything wrong. She speaks up for herself,

[01:19:46] she stands up for herself. She doesn't just go into a ball and curl up and, you know, cry or

[01:19:52] something. She talks back, right? She talks back. She disobeys, she resists in different ways.

[01:20:00] And I think that's an interesting part of the film. I wanted to talk about Thomason and Catherine

[01:20:06] because this is a rare film where we see matricide and you don't often see matricide

[01:20:11] in films. And I think Thomason and Catherine are interesting figures in showing us what life was

[01:20:17] like for Puritan women back in like the 17th century. I think Catherine is a really sympathetic

[01:20:24] character. She's obviously grief-stricken about Sam and then Caleb obviously when he goes missing

[01:20:32] and then later dies. She's in a lot of emotional pain and suffering for much of the film.

[01:20:37] And Catherine feels like there's something amiss where they've gone to live,

[01:20:42] where they've moved and she thinks that they're being punished for leaving the plantation. She

[01:20:47] thinks they're cursed. She suffers a lot because Sam, the baby, was not baptized and the father never

[01:20:53] took him to get baptized so now she believes that Sam, her baby is in hell and this is

[01:21:00] something that torments her because this is something they really believed by them.

[01:21:05] Catherine wants to be home in England. When Caleb is sick and they're nursing him,

[01:21:11] she cries a lot and she says that her heart has turned to stone ever since Sam disappeared.

[01:21:17] You feel this woman's grief very deeply. You feel through her, you feel the fear and terror

[01:21:24] that is caused by these mysterious inexplicable happenings. She says that when she was Thomason's

[01:21:31] age she felt a very deep connection to Christ. I think she's saying this to William in the film,

[01:21:37] but ever since Sam disappeared she's lost her faith and she doesn't feel the same amount of

[01:21:43] love for Christ. I thought that was a bit of a bombshell because she's such a pious woman

[01:21:48] but then she admits that what's happening to them has broken her and it's taken her faith

[01:21:56] from her and I thought that was such a heartbreaking admission from her that she confesses that she no

[01:22:02] longer feels that deep faith and that deep connection. Them being exiled and them going to live in the

[01:22:08] wilderness for the father's pride he doesn't like where they were living it's like it wasn't

[01:22:15] religious enough for him or it wasn't like extreme enough for him. He has a lot of pride

[01:22:20] and because of that where they go out to live and they do this and then their children start

[01:22:25] dying and she has no power over it as a woman. She can't say oh I don't want to move out there.

[01:22:32] She doesn't get a choice, she doesn't get an option. So after Caleb dies they really accuse

[01:22:38] Thomason you know Jonas and Mercy start to act up. I think Mercy talks about the scene at the

[01:22:45] river when Thomason says that she was a witch right? You know one of the terrifying things

[01:22:51] about this film is the experience of being accused of something you have not done, of being accused

[01:22:58] of witchcraft that you haven't committed which is what happens to Thomason and it reminds us that

[01:23:03] women throughout history went through this where they were not responsible for the disease and all

[01:23:11] of this stuff that was happening in their villages but they became the scapegoat for those things

[01:23:17] and in a way to me Thomason represents a lot of these women from history. A lot of these witches

[01:23:24] who were burned and murdered for centuries being accused of crimes they did not commit

[01:23:30] and they are murdered for those crimes. Being accused of being a witch is what leads to their

[01:23:37] death interestingly enough Thomason doesn't die because she joins the witches it's actually

[01:23:45] a rebirth for her it's a new life for her that's what's so amazing to me about the ending it's

[01:23:51] so delicious right and it's a rebirth it's her actually living whereas in the past witchcraft

[01:24:00] led to the death of so many women for Thomason it's life affirming when she joins the coven.

[01:24:07] I love it, I love the power that it has I love the gathering of women the coming together

[01:24:13] of women and I'll talk more about the ending so Thomason is accused of all of this stuff that

[01:24:20] she did not do there's such a powerlessness and helplessness you know her mother thinks she did it

[01:24:27] her father comes to think she did it after I mean after Caleb's death he's questioning her

[01:24:33] and he encourages her to confess and she keeps insisting she hasn't done anything wrong

[01:24:39] and no one believes her she even blames Jonas and Mercy at one point she's that desperate

[01:24:45] to take the accusation off of her and so I think it's very frightening the idea that you would become

[01:24:51] a scapegoat and you would be accused of a crime that you didn't commit and then be punished for

[01:24:58] it potentially you know Thomason is as innocent as everyone in the family but because she's a young

[01:25:04] woman she's thought to be inherently evil and wicked and harmful it's something she has no power to stop

[01:25:11] because of the patriarchal world that she inhabits and this was part of the experience of being a

[01:25:17] woman in the 1600s you could be accused of witchcraft by anyone at any time for any reason your life

[01:25:24] was not your own your life wasn't in your control and her family turns against her

[01:25:30] not only is she watching all this happen all these horrible things happening these people dying

[01:25:37] but then they've turned their backs on her as well but like I said she resists and she fights back

[01:25:44] she says she hasn't done anything wrong she even brings up her father's hypocrisy about stealing

[01:25:50] Catherine Silvercup and lying about it she even tells him you know you let mother be your master

[01:25:57] she tells him he can't hunt he can't bring the crops in she's questioning his authority and even

[01:26:03] his masculinity in that scene near the end she is speaking up for herself she's talking back

[01:26:11] she's not letting them do this to her without a fight she's putting up a fight and he even calls

[01:26:18] her a bitch her own father calls her a bitch in that scene when she questions his authority

[01:26:24] and masculinity she accuses Jonas and Mercy of being the witches of being of having a covenant with

[01:26:31] the with the devil I think and that they've caused all of this and so then the end comes and the

[01:26:38] father's killed you know they they bury Caleb the father gets killed by black philip the goat

[01:26:45] right we see the witch again milking the goat um she has like this very old face she turns around

[01:26:52] and she cackles and all of that we see Catherine holding a bird that pecks at her breast I did

[01:27:00] not even know what to make of that imagery I will be honest but then the father is gored by black

[01:27:05] philip and is killed Catherine comes out and her and thomason start to fight and she says that

[01:27:15] thomason's a witch that she's made a pact with the devil and then she physically attacks

[01:27:19] thomason and they're on the ground Catherine is strangling her daughter she's strangling thomason

[01:27:26] and thomason has to fight back and hit her in the head and like all this blood starts just to come

[01:27:33] out and to spray everywhere thomason is covered in her own mother's blood it's this very shocking

[01:27:42] moment of violence and matricide of killing her own mother right killing this woman who

[01:27:49] has accused her of being a witch and threatening her and now thomason's completely alone the witch

[01:27:56] took the twins the father was killed by black philip Caleb was killed Sam was killed and she

[01:28:03] killed her own mother she kills Catherine and so now she's alone but really she always was alone

[01:28:09] at this point in the film at the ending what's left for her I mean she'll surely die on her own

[01:28:15] so when she goes to be with the witches the witch is beckoned to her with a new life

[01:28:21] and escaped to another life escaped to another world I love the ending where she she goes to

[01:28:28] the hut at night she sees black philip and he says what does thou want we hear the man's voice

[01:28:36] for the first time it's the devil it's the devil he asks if she'd like to the taste of butter a pretty

[01:28:43] dress and then he says what is the thou like to live deliciously I love that what is thou like

[01:28:50] to live deliciously I mean who doesn't want to do that who doesn't want to live deliciously

[01:28:58] I love this scene and yeah you could say oh well the devil's a man and a man is

[01:29:05] saving her or she's making a pact with the devil with a man in order to you know get liberated

[01:29:12] or something I guess right but I don't care about that as much I care about the coven

[01:29:19] I really do I think the witch in this film embodies so many things but I think she also embodies

[01:29:26] pleasure and hedonism a life of fulfilled desire a life of appetites satisfied the witch is sexualized

[01:29:35] even as she is monstrous as I said earlier she's old and ugly but strangely sexualized at the same

[01:29:43] time what this means is that she's not afraid of the carnal she delights in pleasure I think

[01:29:49] that's also what makes her so frightening the puritans were very self-sacrificing they denied

[01:29:58] themselves right they denied themselves pleasure often pleasure was seen as sinful so the witch

[01:30:05] delights in pleasure she enjoys violence and destruction as well she delights in that it's

[01:30:13] not enough that the witch is viewed as violent she also has to take satisfaction in it this is what

[01:30:19] the puritans this is how they construct her right it's almost orgasmic for her to commit violence

[01:30:27] she doesn't just kill a baby she rubs the blood on her body like that's strangely sexual I mean

[01:30:35] think about like instead of putting lotion on your body or something you're putting blood on

[01:30:39] your body she's taking pleasure in the blood and the violence so there's something about the

[01:30:45] witch that is also carnal and is also tied to pleasure even when she's doing something bad or

[01:30:51] violent she's taking pleasure in it and the pleasure is also subversive the pleasure is

[01:30:58] also dangerous to feel any kind of pleasure because as a woman you're the daughter of

[01:31:04] eve you're sinful you should be in pain and childbirth you should be punished for what you've done

[01:31:11] women should always be in pain and punished in this era right in this period so the witch

[01:31:18] represents pleasure as well yeah she's violent and scary but she's also all about pleasure

[01:31:25] and delight and that's also pretty radical and dangerous and subversive witches were women

[01:31:32] who had knowledge of women's bodies and of their own bodies and they reveled in the sensual that's

[01:31:39] also what comes through I think in these representations and so that's what the coven I think represents

[01:31:45] living deliciously feeling pleasure being hedonistic having desires and fulfilling your desires

[01:31:53] instead of denying yourself and thomason says that she would like to live deliciously

[01:31:59] who wouldn't what is thou like to see the world he asks her and black philip is now a man

[01:32:06] she removes her dress the book is put before her that she has to sign in order to make her

[01:32:12] packed with the devil and he says that he'll guide her hand in order to write her name and then

[01:32:18] in the same woods that we saw before and throughout the film these very frightening scary woods

[01:32:25] that were always a sight for something terrifying or horrible now we see thomason naked walk into those

[01:32:36] woods with black philip behind her and now the woods are a place of yes mystery but also

[01:32:45] the gathering of women and there's not just darkness now there's this bonfire and there's

[01:32:52] not just silence there's women shouting and yelling so there's light and there's life and

[01:32:58] there's women together there's a community that thomason is going to join she's no longer alone

[01:33:08] she's with other women she's in a world of women she's not in the darkness anymore she's also with

[01:33:14] all this light this bonfire this warmth right and all these women so she goes deep into the

[01:33:21] woods and she finds the coven the women around the bonfire chanting and convulsing and singing

[01:33:28] she watches them as they begin to levitate into the air and she starts to levitate too with this

[01:33:35] big smile on her on her face and she's laughing she hasn't laughed like the whole film hardly her

[01:33:42] life has been so hard there's been such drudgery and oppression and deprivation her life has been

[01:33:51] defined by deprivation she's laughing she's entering a space of freedom where being a woman

[01:33:58] is no longer sinful or dirty she's entering a space of power and pleasure and liberation

[01:34:04] that's what it felt like to me and it was beautiful to watch i was so affected by this

[01:34:10] ending in a way that i wasn't the first time maybe because of stuff going on in my life where i am

[01:34:17] struggling in my life i'm struggling with loneliness and feeling like i am invisible i'm not appreciated

[01:34:25] i have a lot of stress i have a lot of burdens i have a lot of responsibilities my life is really

[01:34:30] hard right now and i don't know how to cope with it at times or most of the time and at times

[01:34:37] i want to be free i just want to be free i don't even know what that means anymore but i know that

[01:34:43] i'm not fully free and she is free she's free of the puritans she's free of the very earth

[01:34:51] as she gravitates above it gravity no longer has any meaning for her and some primal part of me

[01:34:58] longs for this kind of thing just pure freedom from this world that oppresses me for my body

[01:35:05] and my sex and my desire a world that makes me hate myself at every turn i want to be free

[01:35:13] like thomason that's what i see in this ending is freedom it's liberation not even the earth

[01:35:21] can hold her down anymore nothing can hold her down her burdens are gone she's floating she is

[01:35:27] floating thomason is unchained and unleashed she never has to go back to the plantation

[01:35:34] or to a family that attacked and condemned her she's one with the sky she can melt into the sky

[01:35:41] she's up in the treetops she's above the treetops she can no longer be controlled or dominated

[01:35:48] she is her own now she belongs only to herself and no one can tell her what to do so to me

[01:35:55] it's just it's a scene of freedom of pure liberation and i think it it's beautiful i think it gives us

[01:36:05] possibilities or something in our own lives like maybe one day we can have that freedom that we seek

[01:36:11] i love how she's free of the earth she is free of the world she is levitating she is floating

[01:36:19] above it she's gone and so are the other women who are in the coven they're free of it too they're

[01:36:26] levitating it they're levitating above it you know in this world as women were never enough no

[01:36:32] matter what we do and i think that weighs us down a lot we never feel like we're enough

[01:36:38] and so i just loved this coven i loved her going into the woods i loved her embracing

[01:36:44] a life of living deliciously and being free right i just loved it was so liberating it gave me some

[01:36:52] kind of hope it gave me joy it just lifted me up to see that to see these women together

[01:37:02] her joining the coven and her being free free of the of the family that treated her so horribly

[01:37:09] free from a world that would burn her at the stake for anything that she had done or what they

[01:37:17] thought she did they would murder her they would murder her that's what the world would do to her

[01:37:23] and this is life this is a rebirth this is another chance for her to actually live to live

[01:37:28] deliciously instead of rotting away on the plantation as some kind of made or whatever

[01:37:37] or possibly being burned at the stake for witchcraft she is free she's free from all of that

[01:37:44] and it's so it was very feminist to me it was very beautiful more than anything it was beautiful

[01:37:50] and it took me full circle to the burning times she escapes she's not gonna be burned she the

[01:37:58] women who were burned at the stake they couldn't levitate they weren't real witches right

[01:38:03] they couldn't escape their persecution they couldn't escape their murder their execution right

[01:38:09] they could not levitate they could not save themselves but thomason is saved thomason floats

[01:38:16] above the earth and she's free of that society she's free of that violence and it just took

[01:38:22] me full circle the women who were burned the women who were destroyed the women who were

[01:38:28] silenced and here's thomason and she's reborn as a witch right and she feels powerful and alive

[01:38:38] and liberated and free with the coven and with other witches and i just love that i love the

[01:38:47] whole idea of that that she can't be burned she can't be destroyed because she's free and she

[01:38:53] escaped it and you wish that you could go back i wish i could go back all these centuries and go

[01:38:59] back to those burnings and put the fire out i wish i could open up the jail cells where all

[01:39:06] those women were kept and where they were tortured and free all of those women and even

[01:39:13] today i wish that i could go and free every woman in this world free her from physical violence

[01:39:19] from you know the the very real violence that women around the world go through and also free us from

[01:39:27] the emotional shackles the way that we feel about ourselves and our bodies and all of that

[01:39:34] and the ways that we are oppressed and hurt and kept down by the world i wish i could free

[01:39:41] all of us i wish i could take off those shackles for all women everywhere and that

[01:39:46] we could be free like thomas and we could live deliciously in a world where we were respected

[01:39:53] and revered and valued and appreciated and loved the way that those early goddesses were the way

[01:39:59] that the goddesses in the pre-christian times were worshiped the way that the women were revered

[01:40:05] for their knowledge and their healing abilities and then here comes the all this stuff to destroy

[01:40:13] that and to kill these women but they can't be destroyed we can't be destroyed we're still here

[01:40:19] we're still trying to heal we're still trying to live we're still trying to get free and we're

[01:40:25] still trying to be treated like human beings we're still trying to have freedom on this earth

[01:40:31] right we're still trying so hard as feminists to make the world a better place for women the

[01:40:37] fight never ends it never ends and a film like this the ending was just so powerful to me as a feminist

[01:40:44] and as somebody who wants real freedom and real liberation you know to just see this depiction

[01:40:51] of it this representation of it like i wanted to be her i wanted to just melt into the sky

[01:40:57] just be one with the sky i loved every minute of it almost made me cry when i watched her float

[01:41:04] into the sky i just wanted that for myself i just want to feel free i want to feel like i'm enough

[01:41:10] i want to feel loved for who i am i love this film i hope you liked my discussion of it but it just

[01:41:16] felt full circle back to the burning times back to what i had learned about all those women who

[01:41:22] were burned and murdered and thomasin escapes she escapes she gets out of it she is saved

[01:41:30] and reborn she gets another chance and she gets to escape her oppression and escape her terrible

[01:41:36] family right and to have a new life where she can live deliciously that's what i won't so

[01:41:44] yeah i've gone on long enough i'd like to give a big shout out to my wonderful patrons palina

[01:41:50] steven peter spondin ellie travis pierce amir christine jenny lane haroon thomas kelsey

[01:41:59] erin juan til jd venessa olivia jessey and michelle thank you all so much for being patrons

[01:42:07] you make the podcast possible bye for now until next time keep watching great films