In making GONE TO EARTH Powell built on his childhood memories of rural England. The finished film owes a lot to Christopher Challis' superb photography and Brian Easedale's music.
But it owes even more to Jennifer Jones' portrayal of an adolescent girl in tune with the prechristian countryside: her love for a tamed fox symbolizes this special relationship with the pagan past.
She was 30 years old when she romped over the Shropshire hills and the Shepperton studio but she has the energy and bodily rhythms of a 16-year-old as she plays her pagan princess. This doomed princess has the ironic fate of being forced into relationships with two contemporary masters of the present-day Christian landscape: one is a mother-haunted cleric, the other a bodice-ripping squire.
Playing these stereotypes is not easy and the two actors, Cyril Cusack and David Farrar, make an ill-balanced pair.
Like Powell's earlier BLACK NARCISSUS, this film works on a symbolic and psychological level; but both story and dialogue have painful weaknesses made worse by censorship and the dreadful U.S.commercial cut.
Avoid older versions of GONE TO EARTH: they usually contain censorship cuts which change the rhythm of several scenes and mutilate the climax. See the whole film - now available on DVD - on the largest screen you can obtain. Then you will appreciate Powell's skill in capturing the colours of the English countryside and projecting Jennifer Jones' energy as the pagan princess.
But it owes even more to Jennifer Jones' portrayal of an adolescent girl in tune with the prechristian countryside: her love for a tamed fox symbolizes this special relationship with the pagan past.
She was 30 years old when she romped over the Shropshire hills and the Shepperton studio but she has the energy and bodily rhythms of a 16-year-old as she plays her pagan princess. This doomed princess has the ironic fate of being forced into relationships with two contemporary masters of the present-day Christian landscape: one is a mother-haunted cleric, the other a bodice-ripping squire.
Playing these stereotypes is not easy and the two actors, Cyril Cusack and David Farrar, make an ill-balanced pair.
Like Powell's earlier BLACK NARCISSUS, this film works on a symbolic and psychological level; but both story and dialogue have painful weaknesses made worse by censorship and the dreadful U.S.commercial cut.
Avoid older versions of GONE TO EARTH: they usually contain censorship cuts which change the rhythm of several scenes and mutilate the climax. See the whole film - now available on DVD - on the largest screen you can obtain. Then you will appreciate Powell's skill in capturing the colours of the English countryside and projecting Jennifer Jones' energy as the pagan princess.