Cinema
Black Narcissus
Synopsis
Sister Clodagh and four Anglican nuns are given by General Toda Rai the palace of Mopu, which his father had built to house his women, perched at some eight thousand feet in the Himalayas; they are to open a school and a dispensary there. The wind never stops blowing. Mr Dean, the General's English agent, who goes about in shorts, predicts that they will have left before the monsoon. Clodagh finds herself reliving the Ireland of her youth, and Sister Ruth, of frail health, becomes a worry.
Context
The film comes from a novel by Rumer Godden published in 1939. It was shot in the studio, at Pinewood, with a few exteriors in the gardens of Leonardslee, in Sussex: no image comes from India. The mountains are painted backdrops and glass paintings, designed by the art director Alfred Junge and executed by W. Percy Day. The cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, said he took his lighting from Vermeer and Van Gogh. In the United States, the Catholic Legion of Decency obtained the cutting of the flashbacks on the superior's life before her vows. The novelist detested the film, which she found false from beginning to end.
Who it is for
One hour forty, in colour, shot entirely in a studio in England, without a single shot taken in India.
Prizes and reception
Two Academy Awards in 1948, for colour cinematography and colour art direction; Martin Scorsese has often cited its work on colour.
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