The Haunting

Robert Wise's The Haunting - adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House by screenwriter Nelson Gidding - examines a vague supernatural force as interpreted by a human conduit, in this case Julie Harris' Eleanor. Locked into an abusive co-dependence with her infirm mother at an early age, Eleanor has been left a lonely fantasist; a brittle person who has retreated, almost completely, into a simplistic interior space. Her thoughts and daydreams echo on the soundtrack, overpowering all exterior cues to create a bubble around Eleanor's stunted ego. Attempts at communication are repeatedly drowned out by Eleanor's inner-monologue, a circuitous disassembly of the polite interactions she has recently fumbled through. Easily offended and prone to sobbing outbursts, Eleanor is a pitiable soul, an outsider undone by parental neglect who has grown into adulthood never having felt loved or even comfortable. 

Recruited for a study into paranormal activity in a mouldering old house, Eleanor jumps at the chance, eager to impress Richard Johnson's urbane Dr Markway. Gentle but ultimately manipulative, Markway's sympathetic approach to Eleanor is misconstrued by the young woman, taken as a romantic interest. Brutally speaking, Markway's relationship to Eleanor is that of a technician surveying brilliant but temperamental equipment. Whatever force is at work in Hill House, it is Eleanor who draws it out, her presence a lightning rod for paranormal activity. Eleanor does make an actual human connection though, one with Claire Bloom's confirmed bachelorette Theo, a woman with a closely guarded psychic ability. Whereas the doctor's dealings are inherently distanced, Theo is genuinely curious about Eleanor, seeing her as a person rather than an object. She doesn't fawn over the newly liberated shut-in though, Theo challenges, even needles Eleanor. It's a higher form of flirtation that Eleanor cannot quite parse, one dependent on a confidence that utterly eludes the frail participant.