I've always been struck by the almost funny use of the painting in this scene from Cat People. This picture is only one of several cat-themed objects in her apartment, but it is a very expressive one since the crafty kitties eyeing the bird visually "rhymes" with Irena's own bird troubles. The look on their faces is priceless.
The painting is a reproduction of a famous portrait by Francisco Goya, Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga. I'd never actually looked it up, so I decided to when previewing the film for class.
The painting is a child's portrait and it features several birds besides the pet magpie the subject is playing with (by the way, the magpie is holding Goya's calling card in his beak). There is also a cage full of finches which provides an even stronger link to a piece of action in the film: Irena's accidental killing of her own pet, a caged canary.
But look at the group of cats in the corner. These are the ones featured in the framing of Irena in the shot. It looks to me like these cat's eyes have been reworked to brightly stand out from the dark canvas, and reshaped into more sinister expressions!
3 comments:
the cats do look creepy as they stare her down haha
Or maybe just coincidental--I think they want to eat the tweedy pie...
they had the ability to do this to film in the 40s? thats interesting! hmm the girls of this period sure are charming, i saw vertigo last week, I do fancy kim novak quite much, yes
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