In Media Res
For this Esoteric Saturday (and yes, it’s Saturday in my time zone) I’d like to draw your attention to the vast and fascinating topic of hypnosis in the media.
As hypnotists, of course, we often cringe at the way hypnosis is portrayed in movies such as Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Office Space. Or we can appreciate the effort that goes into the (very) occasional more realistic portrayal, such as Derek Jacobi in Dead Again or Goran Visnjic in Close Your Eyes. It’s sort of an occupational hazard, just as those in any other profession can cheer or jeer at how that profession comes off in a movie or TV show. (Don’t even get my sister Connie started on the medical fidelity of House!)
I bring this up because a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Terry O’Brien, owner and architect of the Hypnosis In Media Wiki. Terry has spent years chronicling, documenting, and studying the portrayal of hypnosis in movies, television, and print media. The wiki is a work in progress, with only a fraction of Terry’s collection of material actually posted to this point, but what he has is fascinating. This is scholarly website, organized to be easy to search through, and it’s very easy to spend more time than you ever intended clicking through the pages.
As an example: the photo at the top of this entry is a still taken during production of the 1960 horror film The Hypnotic Eye. The man in the photo is Gil Boyne, one of the best known hypnotists of the 20th century. Terry learned in his research that Gil Boyne actually hypnotized the people who were to be part of the stage hypnosis shows in the movie, so that they would truly look and seem hypnotized during the filming of those scenes. So while the movie’s portrayal of the power of hypnosis is as hokey as we tend to expect, that one aspect of the film is surprisingly, intriguingly real.
So if you’re in the habit of sipping your morning coffee at the keyboard, why not pay a visit and see what you can learn about hypnosis in the media?
<MR>
March 30th, 2008 at 11:16 am
The image above is Gil Boyne himself hypnotizing Allison Hayes, who plays one of the antagonists, the hypnotist’s assistant. Note the ‘hypnotic gesture’ employed. This was one of several publicity stills that Gil obtained during shooting and send to me for the website.