Pesadillas neobarrocas en cine clásico: El reinado del terror (1949) y Cagliostro (1949). Imaginarios de la Revolución francesa al inicio de la Guerra Fría

Abstract

Films about the French Revolution often bring the tensions between the Ancien Régime and the revolutionary society into their mise-en-scène. From all of the baroque remains that meander through the films devoted to the Revolution, the tension between light and shadow is probably the most symbolic one. Overcoming the restraint of classical cinematographic lighting, Reign of Terror and Black Magic, both released in 1949, bring into play the expressiveness of low key, highly contrasted lighting, along with other resources such as aberrant angulations and a certain mannerism in their camera movements. Their shadows govern two stories about the terror of betrayal and the guillotine in the first, and superciliousness and a necrophiliac obsession in the second.