for film, art and culture. About Lena
The Tell-Tale Heart
(Das verräterische Herz)
Kathrin Told
Battitude Arts
FH Salzburg
“True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.”
- E. A. Poe
Title Intro,
Poster
& Film Props
This title sequence introduces the main protagonists with ghostly animations and sets the mood for the film's atmosphere. The subtle movements are reminiscent of a cat sneaking up on its victim - just like the younger man in the short story.
Based on the tragic short story about a gentleman who, fearing the wrong eye of his older companion, murders him one night and hides the body under the floorboards, the strategic placement of the title suggests a cross-section of a room.
Pluto the cat, a protagonist of the short story The Black Cat (1843), also appears here. The Gothic-style lettering and the illustration, which resembles a pen and ink drawing/etching, refer to the classification of Poe's works as "Gothic" literature.
Death and decay are represented here in colour by a cold green, while the strong red represents life on the one hand, but also the manic, paranoid behaviour of the younger man.
In the film, the painting can be seen above the old man's bed, watching over him like a harbinger of death.