Odd Comforts in Del Toro’s “Crimson Peak”
The marriages were for money, of course. But the horror… the horror was for love.
As the New Moon in Libra approaches and the dust of a hectic September settles around me, I again (finally) allow myself to relax into the dark, twisted, and gutwrenchingly romantic world of Del Toro’s Crimson Peak. If you haven’t seen it yet, consider this your spoiler alert, as the film was released in 2015 and we are nearing the beginning of 2022 so I claim absolutely no responsibility if you haven’t seen the film yet before reading this piece.
As such, let this function as your official spoiler alert. There will be spoilers throughout this piece.
I have many thoughts on Del Toro’s Gothic masterpiece. What he has done is create a truly original Gothic text for the big screen. He shows a mastery of the history and conventions of Gothic romance (and I would classify this film romance as opposed to horror, as the core of the story is the romance), and absolutely nails the aesthetic of the genre. His technique as a director supports the eerie, unsettling nature of the film through absolutely brilliant set design (there were two sets of furniture made for the film, an oversized set used to show Edith as weak and a regular set used when Del Toro wanted her to seem like she was in control), and the washes of rich colour and deeply symbolic plant and animal life make it a joy to watch every time.
The entry way of the Sharpe Mansion, in all its Victorian splendour.
The performances from Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, and Mia Wasikowska are breathtaking in their subtlety and their depth. I’ll get more into the scenes that break my heart the most as we dive into more of the plot-based elements of the film, but before that, I’d like to take a moment to honour the work the costume department did on this film and how those talented costumers allowed the characters to really shine through in this landscape.
Tom Hiddleston as Sir Thomas Sharpe (left) and Mia Wasikowska as Edith Cushing (right) at a dance in America, near the beginning of the film.
Jessica Chastain as Lady Lucille Sharpe facing a mirror in the Sharpe mansion.
With the pain, grief, loss, and love at the core of Crimson Peak, I feel that the best way to tackle my feelings on it is to approach this piece from three angles: the academic, the aesthetic, and the romantic.
As such, let me give a brief warning for sexual abuse in the following post, and let’s dive in.
A Perfectly Scholarly Inquiry: Why the Incest?
I think this was probably the first question my parents asked me after I finally convinced them to watch the film. Incest is a pretty well-known trope in Gothic literature, and it has become so for a variety of reasons, some simple, some complex. The threat of incestuous sexual assault dates back to early Gothic novels like The Castle of Otranto, and it has had a ripple effect through the genre ever since. Incest is frowned upon in many (if not most) societies save for exceptional circumstances (see: royalty) and the societies that produced the Gothic were no different in this regard. Incest is an extreme taboo, it is something considered so shocking and so insidious that it makes sense that it would be employed, liberally, in a genre whose main intent is to shock and discomfit its reader. There is a branch of psychoanalytic criticism that tries to untangle the web of incest that appears in Gothic tradition, but I won’t go there right now, mainly because I need a stiff drink in me before I go down the long, dark road to psychoanalytic incest criticism on a bright weekday afternoon, and a stiff drink I do not have.
As Crimson Peak portrays a specific instance of sibling incest with the (quite frankly abusive) dynamic between Thomas and Lucille Sharpe, I’ve chosen to highlight scholar Jenny DiPlacidi’s insight from her book Gothic Incest: Gender, Sexuality and Transgression (2018). In her chapter on sibling-based desire, she states:
“Genetics, though not labelled as such at the time, of course, is always at play within the Gothic. The bloodlines that are so integral to the novels’ plots, convoluted and complex as they often are, are essential [to] the incest thematic...”
The bloodline, as DiPlacidi states, is integral to Lucille Sharpe’s motivations in the film. To keep the house they need money, to get money Thomas must marry, but Lucille’s desire to keep the bloodline pure disallows Thomas from pursuing sexual relationships outside of the family. This, I’d argue, speaks to Del Toro’s understanding of the nuance of the Gothic mode and the reason these tropes exist, as that call to keep the bloodline pure is an echo of discourse from centuries past that continues to resonate with contemporary readers and viewers of Gothic films.
I’m choosing to keep this brief as I understand that my audience is not entirely scholarly (and, again, there’s the matter of that aforementioned absent drink…), but I thought addressing the why of this particular element of the film was necessary for people who were maybe put off by it and weren’t aware of its significance in the bigger picture of Gothic texts as a whole.
Aesthetics and the Gothic
When I speak to the slippery nature of the Gothic, this kind of categorical question is what I’m trying to get at. Is the Gothic a genre, a mode, a theme, an aesthetic, a type of architecture, or what? The answer to that is kinda “all of the above” (except for that last one, Gothic architecture was something that happened between the 12th and 16th centuries, Gothic Lit was a 17th century and beyond kinda deal with a renaissance in the 19th century, which is my niche).
The Gothic mode is something sublimely transient, something that can easily be slid into and out of when the narrative allows. The Gothic genre is something a little different—and if you ever want to hear my rants on genre studies help me get that now thrice mentioned drink and I’ll be happy to oblige. As an aesthetic, the Gothic is something intimately recognizable in its decay, its darkness, its whisperings of something previously very established that is at risk of being lost to time. That’s why I’d say the Gothic is something that can be transposed into a myriad of contexts and situations, but before I get too broad with this, let’s bring it back to the film.
An image of one of the bedrooms in the Sharpe mansion, complete with velvet, gold ceilings, a platformed bed, and a canopy.
The aesthetics of Del Toro’s masterpiece are ones that speak to a “classic” Gothic, the aesthetics of The Castle of Otranto and The Monk and other 18th century novels. I think that’s what makes this film such a joy to watch, for me, at least. I get to enjoy in 4k the kind of glorious, dilapidated mansions that only exist in my mind’s eye in the written novels of centuries past, and as someone with frankly terrible eyesight, the joy of visuals like this are not something I am likely to take for granted any time soon.
Lauryn, when you say “Romance” you’re not taking about the… the uh…
NO, I am not talking about the incest.
When I talk about the romance of this film, I’m solely referring to the connection between Thomas Sharpe and Edith Cushing.
Thomas Sharpe is my favourite contemporary example of a Romantic Hero in a Gothic context, with just the right amount of juxtapositional integrity and depravity. I’m sure my therapist would have a heyday if she knew how much Thomas and Edith’s dynamic got to me, but she’ll never find out about that so I think we’re in the clear.
As refreshing as it was to see Jessica Chastain play a villain for a change, I think one of the best, subtlest displays of character knowledge was Hiddleston’s approach to Thomas Sharpe’s character. A deeply passionate, delicately flawed, and irreversibly traumatized man, Thomas’s shift in priority from Lucille to Edith as he falls in love and begins to extricate himself from the toxic dynamic with his sister is so excruciatingly situated within the maelstrom of grief Lucilla causes Edith. The exquisite tragedy of Thomas’s love for Edith culminates in, what I think, is one of the most heartbreaking lines of Del Toro’s portfolio, delivered after it has been revealed that the Sharpe’s are the cause of all of Edith’s recent misfortune:
You lied to me!
- I did
You poisoned me!
- I did
You told me you loved me.
- I do!
Like a blow to the chest, this scene never ceases to evoke a visceral reaction from me, even after re-watching the film so many times over the years. This small exchange communicates so much love, betrayal, and regret, it truly encapsulates the tragic end Thomas and Edith were destined to meet from the first moments of the film’s overture. Three short responses foreground Thomas’s redemption and Edith’s hard-won realization that the world she has found herself in is far from kind. Their devotion to each other culminates in a blissful goodbye in the final scenes, and Edith’s kindness to Thomas’s ghost is somewhat reassuring in its sorrow… comforting in its grief.
I think that’s why I find this film so comforting, even with all its horror, blood, and violence…
There’s a certain catharsis in tragedy that I think is safer to explore when it is presented to us in a genre like the Gothic. It gives us permission to acknowledge what we might rather be left in the dark. We are meant to be distressed watching something that is meant to be unsettling, so in a way, it gives us permission to be unsettled. It is easier to admit vulnerability behind several layers of metaphor (and a few well-placed ghosts) than it is to admit vulnerability alone, exposed, and foregrounded in the light.
