Adam O’Rourke
Meta Horror
Val Lewton’s Cat People came at interesting time in cinema history. By 1942, the Hollywood movie industry was well organized, and pumping out slick, marketable, and formulaic films. The reason for this was the Motion Picture Production Code, a rather exhaustive set of rules all Hollywood studios were compelled to follow. It set guidelines for what sorts of things can and cannot be shown on screen, and generally tried to make movies adhere to ‘good Christian values’. Making a horror film under these constraints seems impossible, but many studios worked around it to produce some of the most profitable films of the era. One of the most interesting is Cat People. RKO Studios’ Citizen Kane was a total flop, and in an effort to remake revenue money, RKO turned to B movie horror. Cat People is interesting for a lot of reasons, but it’s self-awareness is easily the most entertaining aspect.
Often the film seems to be making fun of itself, and the production code. One of the most obvious of these comes when Oliver and Alice are up late working in the office all alone. Once they realize that panther-form Irena is in the room with them, they back into a corner. The straight edge rulers on the walls are engulfed in light and resemble burning crosses. Oliver grabs one as a weapon and calls out, “In the name of God, leave us in peace”. This is immediately followed by a shot of their silhouettes on the wall, the straight edge transformed into a cross. This scene feels somewhat at odds with the film’s dark Gothic style, so why is it here? I think it’s Lewton mocking the production code. Broadly speaking, the code calls for Christian solidarity and triumph, and this scene seems to take that directive to the limit. Lewton needed the voice of Christianity in the film, so he might as well do it in the most ironic way possible, right?
One of the other more obvious instances of the films meta nature comes from the scene where Oliver, Alice, and the doctor are waiting in Irena’s apartment for her to return. At the start of this scene, a fittingly mellow track is playing in the background, but it turns out the music is coming from a record player in the room, not a soundtrack. This movie has no soundtrack, and yet the track from this scene seems to fit so perfectly we forget that it’s out of place. However, when Oliver turns the music off, we are made immediately aware of our mistake of thinking that this was just a soundtrack, not something the characters could hear. Lewton is playing with audiences expectations here, and seems to be calling the viewer’s attention to the strangeness of the movie soundtrack.
There are a number of other meta scenes sprinkled throughout. In the swimming pool scene, the word ‘DEEP’ can be seen written in tile at one end of the pool, in frame alongside Alice. Perhaps this is an attempt by Lewton to prod the audience, “Hey, this scene is intense isn’t it?”. Just after that, Alice chats with the doctor about what happened. The doctor decides he must talk to Irena, but Alice insists that would be too dangerous, “Oh, you want me to carry some means of protection, a gun perhaps. With a silver bullet”. Lewton seems to be making reference to the absurdity of monster movies.
This film mocks the audience too. The obviousness of symbolism in this film seems to attract the viewers attention to the absurdity of symbolism and movie trope. The connection between Irena and cats is the most obvious of these. She is often framed alongside imagery of cats, usually panthers. She visits the zoo constantly, and her drawing at the beginning of the film indicates there is turmoil between her and the panther. After Irena tells Oliver the story of the cat people from her home, it becomes blatantly obvious that Irena is one of said cat people. Keys are another source of brain-dead symbolism. They are featured throughout, and after the dream sequence it becomes clear that that the point they are there to make is that something is locked up inside Irena, further pushing the audience towards the conclusion that Irena is a cat person. The characters themselves are just shallow stereotypes. Oliver is the absolute embodiment of the American Dream: he’s been happy every day of this life, and his favorite treat is American Pie. Irena is the immigrant. She’s new in town, has an accent, and is unfamiliar with American culture. Under the constraints of the production code, the embodiment of America will surely triumph. An immigrant killing the embodiment of the American Dream wouldn’t be very patriotic, now would it? All this can be read as Lewton hitting the audience over the head with symbolism and tropes. In doing so he directs the viewer's attention to the context within which this film was made, and the code by which it was governed.
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