Robert Wise, “The Haunting”: Film History Series

Robert Wise, “The Haunting”, 1963, Cinematography Davis Boulton, Music Humphrey Searle, Producer Argyle Enterprises, Metro-Golden Mayer

Robert Wise’s 1963 “The Haunting” is a British psychological thriller film, an adaptation of American novelist Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel “The Haunting of Hill House”, that is widely considered one of the best-written ghost stories. This film chronicles the experiences of several people invited by a paranormal investigator to study the ninety-year old Hill House, an allegedly haunted mansion in Massachusetts.

Wise read Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” during the pre-production phase of “West Side Story”, his current project for United Artists. Impressed by the novel, he gave the book to his colleague, screenwriter Nelson Gidding, who had earned an Oscar nomination for his treatment of Wise’s 1958 “I Want to Live!”. Gidding wrote a full- story treatment and later crafted a screenplay which focused primarily on the psychological interactions between psychiatrist John Markway and patient Eleanor Vance. A meeting between Wise, Gidding and Shirley Jackson led to an increased focus on the supernatural aspect which was contained in the original story. It was Jackson who offered the film’s title, “The Haunting”.

Gidding’s screenplay took six months to write. A solitary worker, he did show Robert Wise some of the work as it progressed. Gidding cut the number of characters in the film and shortened the back-story. Most of the supernatural events were kept off-screen and, in order to emphasize the feeling of claustrophobia, the majority of the action was confined to interior spaces. Gidding’s final screenplay was completed just as Wise was finishing his directorial work on “West Side Story”.

Robert Wise presented the finished screenplay to United Artists; however, they declined to take the project. He next offered the project to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as he still owed the studio one last film under an old contract. MGM accepted the project but would only finance the film for one million dollars, an amount Wise knew was insufficient. Understanding that it would be less expensive to shoot the “The Haunting” in England, he approached Borchamwood Studio, MGM’s British subsidiary. The studio’s support plus the financing and tax breaks through Britain’s film subsidy program, the Eady Levy, enabled Wise to make the film he envisioned.

Wise chose American theater actress Julie Ann Harris to the role of the lead character, the psychologically fragile Eleanor Vance. Stage and screen actress Claire Bloom was selected for the role of psychic Theodora (Theo). Richard Johnson, a Royal Shakespeare Company actor who was already signed with MGM, became the choice for the paranormal investigator, Dr. John Markway. The choice of Bloom and Johnson, in addition to the quality of their acting, enabled Wise to fulfill one of the requirements of the Eady Levy. The role of Luke Samerson, the next heir to Hill House, was given to American actor Russ Tamblyn who, under contract with MGM, had earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in the 1957 film “Peyton Place”.

The exterior shots of Hill House were done on the grounds of Ettington Park (now the Ettington Park Hotel) located in the West Midlands county of Warwickshire. The interior sets, designed by English art director Elliot Scott, were constructed at the Borchamwood Studio. Decorated in a Rococo style, these interior settings were constructed to be brightly lit, without dark corners or recesses. Although most film sets forgo ceilings, all the rooms constructed had ceilings to create a claustrophobic atmosphere. As per contract, “The Haunting” was shot in black and white film; however, Wise also used infra-red film to create a more sinister appearance to the physical structure of Hill House.

Robert Wise understood that which is not seen is more fearful than things people can see. He chose early in the production stage of the film to show little of the supernatural on the screen. Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton decided to use low-angle shots and employed an anamorphic, wide-angle lens to distort distances. A plan to keep the camera constantly in motion employed unusual horizontal swivels and tracking camera shots during many scenes. To enhanced the acting, a pre-recorded soundtrack of voices and noises was played during the acting of tense scenes. Many of those pre-recorded sounds remained in the film after the final editing.

Wise’s “The Haunting” opened in Los Angeles and New York on the eighteenth of September in 1963 to mixed reception. Although many in the audiences found it frightening, reviews were mixed; many critics gave it a good review but did not think the film was outstanding. Shirley Jackson, after seeing the film at a premier, thought it was a poor movie which altered the plot of the book radically. Since its original release, “The Haunting” has been reappraised and given good reviews, especially regarding its technical quality. Robert Wise was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director due to his work on “The Haunting”.

Notes: In 1990, Ted Turner began his controversial colorizing of black and white motion pictures. While touring Turner’s facilities as a member of the Directors Guild, Wise learned that “The Haunting” was to be colorized. The film has remained in its original black and white format due to Wise’s contract with MGM that specified that the film could only be in black and white.

Front Row Features has a 2023 article by writer Judy Sloane that includes a 1995 conversation between Sloane, Robert Wise and Julie Harris on the filming of “The Haunting”: https://frontrowfeatures.com/features-category-of-interviews-and-spotlights/in-retrospect-robert-wise-and-julie-harris-converge-on-hill-house-33927.html

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Robert Wise, Set of The Haunting”, 1962-63, Gelatin Silver Print, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Archives

Second Insert Image: Davis Boulton, “Julie Harris and Claire Bloom”, 1963, “The Haunting”, Film Still, Director Robert Wise, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Third Insert Image: Davis Boulton, “Clair Bloom, Julie Harris, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn”, 1963, “The Haunting”, Film Still, Director Robert Wise, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Bottom Insert Image: Davis Boulton, “Julie Harris and Richard Johnson”, 1963, “The Haunting”, Film Still, Director Robert Wise, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer

Bernard Guillot

The Photography of Bernard Guillot

Born in the Rhine River city of Basel in 1950, Bernard Guillot was a French photographer and painter who traveled extensively in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. He divided his career primarily between Egypt and the French highland region of Massif Central. Guillot was renowned for his expressive fusion of painting and photography that was heavily influenced by his dual life in those two countries.

Guillot was introduced to painting during his childhood by his mother and his godfather Antoine Mislin, both of whom were Anthroposophists, members of an early twentieth-century religious movement founded by Austrian esoteric Rudolf Steiner. After three years of medical study in Paris, Guillot entered the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts from which he graduated in 1975.

From 1975 to 1977, Bernard Guillot resided in New York City where he began to engage with photography. He created his series “Twelfth Avenue” during this period; this collection of images later became part of the 2010 exhibition “Mixed Use Manhattan”. Throughout his career, Bernard Guillot worked on several photographic series in France and Egypt. Between 1977 and 1996 in the French city of Nice, he created a photographic chronicle of his life at a house allegedly haunted by the presence of curator emeritus and poet Claude Fourmet.

In Egypt between 1977 and 2003, Guillot decisively defined both his life and inspiration. In Cairo, he wandered the spaces of the aging Hôtel Maffet Astoria and created a chronicle of photographs which centered on the themes of appearance and disappearance. Guillot revisited the hotel’s rooms every night until that last night when the hotel was finally closed and permanently sealed tight. This succession of images was published by Ides Calendes as “Hôtel Maffet Astoria, Le Caire” in 1999.

In Cairo, Guillot created the series “Cité des Morts (City of the Dead)” between 1977 and 2017. The series examined Egypt’s oldest Muslim cemetery that was also the oldest necropolis in the Middle East. Stretching more than ten kilometers, it is characterized by the coexistence of the living and the dead, as about one million Egyptians live among the tombs. Guillot’s images are sparse in people and concentrate on the effects of time upon the city and its spaces. Limited to two hundred-fifty copies, this photographic edition contained text in both English and Arabic.

Around the turn of the century, Bernard Guillot began combining painting with photography. He used Chinese ink and sometimes acrylic to paint directly onto the gelatin silver print, confusing and interfering with the original image. Through this process, Guillot sought to bring what was present, but not visible, in the external world to the surface. It is this understanding of reality as being more than the present, the seen or the known that informs much of Guillot’s works. Several photographs in the “Cité des Morts” series were altered by this process. Other series linking photography with painting include “Le Cap Blanc-Nez”, “Le Cimetière Juif de Berlin”, and “Mauer Park”.

Later during his time in Cairo, Guillot turned photographs taken with his cell phone into unique books in the style of palimpsests. Both a symbolist and impressionist, Guillot’s photographs were characterized by a mystical and poetic approach that examined time, identity, and the period between states of existence. He utilized the interplay of shadow and reflection, and gave prominence to the enigmatic and the wonders of life.

Bernard Guillot died in Paris on the twenty-ninth of June in 2021at the age of seventy-one. He had exhibited his photographs in multiple group and solo shows throughout his career. Guillot’s photographs are contained in many private collections as well as such public institutions as the Musée d’ Art Moderne in Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Bibliothèque Nationale, American University in Cairo and the Palestinian Museum, among others.

Notes: Palimpsests are manuscripts or pieces of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced, but not completely removed, to make room for later writing. Traces of the original text still are visible. A common example of a palimpsest is reused medieval parchment, a costly writing material at the time, from which old ink was scraped to provide a writing surface for new text.

Galerie Frédéric Moisan has a short article on Bernard Guillot which includes his painted photographs, drawings, paintings and a video of Guillot at the Hôtel Maffet Astoria: http://www.galerie-fmoisan.fr/en/artist/bernard-guillot#/

The photographic archive site TINTERA has a short biography on Bernard Guillot plus a collection of images from the “Atelier du Cairo”, “Hôtel Maffet Astoria” and “Cite des Morts” series: https://www.tintera.art/bernard-guillot-1

Top Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, “Self Portrait”, July 2021, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, Untitled, 1977-2017, “Cité des Morts” Series, Hand Painted Gelatin Silver Print, 67 x 57 cm, Unique Print

Third Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, Untitled, 2004, “Cité des Morts” Series, Gelatin Silver Print, 50 x 42 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, Untitled, “Hotel Maffet Astoria” Series, (Balcony Doors), 1979-2003, Gelatin Silver Print

Mare Martin

Mare Martin, “Fire Escape (Persimmon)”, 2016, Etching with Watercolor, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, Private Collection

Born in southwestern Louisiana, Mare Martin is an artist of Cajun descent who spent her formative years on a family farm in Opelousas, a small city in the St. Landry Parish. Martin’s richly textured work, an integration of life on the land and her artistic practice, depicts the junction of nature, human spirit and the cosmos.

One of seven family members involved in every aspect of farming, Mare Martin is a gardener as well as an artist; her experiences with gardens in Spain and the southern areas of the United States are interwoven throughout her work. The last two decades of Martin’s work have been heavily influenced by German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s first major scientific work, the 1790 botanical treatise “Metamorphosis of Plants”. She was also inspired by Johann von Goethe’s methodology that encouraged a deepened awareness of form through the reinforcement of sense memory and imagination.

In her process, Martin works as closely to the source as possible. The actual plant with a name is the core idea which expands through multiple media including linen canvases, oil paintings, drawings, and ink transfers. She has more recently embraced more modern methods through technology and projections. Martin’s most recent solo exhibition, “Beyond the Botanical” was held in September of 2025 at the Hilliard Art Museum in Lafayette. The show revolved around five themes: Gardens, Landscapes and Sky-scapes, Elements, Realms, and Forces.

“It took years of drawing to realize that I wasn’t just observing. I was collaborating. Before that, I painted landscapes and general scenes. But when I began to draw individual plants over and over again, in different seasons and different stages, it brought me a unique understanding. It’s a collaboration, which means my ego as an artist has to step aside. I feel more, and then the work is more pure, closer to the truth.”

—Mare Martin, November 19, 2025, Studio Session at the Hilliard Art Museum of the University of Louisiana,Lafayette

Notes: The Director and Senior Researcher of The Nature Institute, Craig Holdrege, has written an excellent article on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s approach to science which includes the essential features of Goethe’s methodology and insight. The article “Doing Goethean Science” can be found at: https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege/doing-goethean-science

An extended interview/studio session with Mare Martin was held at the Hilliard Art Museum of the University of Louisiana. This interview, entitled “Mare Martin on Drawing, Meditation, and the Intelligence of Nature”, is locate on the museums’s site: https://hilliardartmuseum.org/stories/mare-martin-on-drawing-meditation-and-the-intelligence-of-nature/