directed, filmed & edited by nelli mooney performed by mitchell strong
Prior to the late 19th century there were a number of derogatory terms used to describe homosexuals at the time, but there did not exist a specific category to define the sexual identity of a person attracted to their own sex (Sharma, N.). Those negative terms and labels were hostile, and therefore stigmatised homosexuals themselves. (Weeks, J., 1977). This, in turn, had the ‘concept of guilt deeply embedded in the experience of being a homosexual’ (Weeks, 4).
Now, the concept of guilt is what has been the ‘driving force’ in my adaptation. I believe that the spoken motif for the killing of the ‘old man’, the glass eye, was just something the character had to come up with so he could continue to lie to himself and ‘disown’ his identity:
“I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture, a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold. And so, by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever!”
Poe, E.A., 1843: 1
Indeed the eye was odd enough a cosmetic feature to pinpoint as a point of irritation, however, I have always refused to accept this as a reason for murder. No, there was something more; what did the eye represent? Did the eye see through the protagonist’s soul? I was prompted to make the eye as an abstract feature: a white spotlight that, whenever the main character steps into it or even (in a very vampire-like manner) touches it, it makes him sick to his stomach. Because when the spotlight isn’t there and it is just this terrifying red wash that fills the space, the character can be his slick and arrogant self. But when the spotlight hits him, it can indeed see his nothingness!
