Friday, April 23, 2010

Tarot in Film

Here's a little video on tarot card symbolism in movies. Some movies directly reference Tarot cards and sometimes there's a scene which appears to be inspired by them. It's just one of those things I would have liked to see, but since no one else made a video like this I had to get off my lazy ass and do it. There's plenty of scenes I didn't get around to using or couldn't put in since many of my movies are in VHS format still.

Some scenes are a bit more subjective than others, but I think they fit well enough. ;) Even though I wasn't going for a synchromystic video this time, there's still a couple of synchronicities among these movies. Johnny Depp walks in on a "Hanged Man" in The Ninth Gate, only to be the "Hanged Man" in Pirates of the Caribbean. And Heath Ledger is hung by one leg in The Dark Knight and is the "Hanged Man" in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.



There are some other interesting connections to be made. In the original black and white Metropolis, the female robot takes on the form of a resistance leader in order to subvert her influence. She then becomes a sex object for the ruling elite. And in the scene where she is performing for them, she rides atop a beast with many heads like in Revelations, but also like in the final engraving from The Ninth Gate or Crowley's Thoth deck where Strength was turned into Lust and depicts a similar scene.



The mad scientist who makes the robot stands in front of her with the leader of the city in a mirror the The Devil card which has a figure surmounted with a pentagram with two other figures standing below and on either side. He also has a single gloved hand which is how some people interpret the colored hand of The Hermit tarot card from the Marseille's deck:

13 comments:

aferrismoon said...

Michael Jackson also was fame dfor one glove [ I think], leastways he was a bit of Hermit [Her Mitt?. mitt short for mitten a fingerless glove]

Lee Marvin in Prime Cut walks through the Sunflower fields on his way to kill Ma.

Via carlo Suares' Tarot order the final card is the High Priestess and films tend to end when the protagonist has pierced the veil, and often starting off as fool.

Perhaps the Tarot was the inspiration for 'moving pictures'

cheers

Unknown said...

Nice post and vid, ViolatoR. I'm really interested in tarot. I read quite a bit about them in a book called "Secrets in the Bible" by Tony Bushby. Apparently they're an ancient teeching tool created by the jews' Kabbalistic sect, who are like the mystics of Judeism. They were created to teach about normal mundane things to children as well as give a deeper understanding via divination for the initiated.

The major arcana actually represent, each, one of the 22 letters of the hebrew language, and the language itself was created out of the 22 different shapes that can be made by a glass pyramid when light shines through it.

It's an interesting read anyway, that book. I'm actually starting it again.

He has two other books called the Bible Fraud and the Crucifiction of the Truth too, which are both very forefront stuff that are critically acclaimed as being better than a lot of the stuff they've got in universities.

Nice post anyway.

Alex Robinson said...

Excellent production & the music fitted wonderfully. Aferrismoon's suggestion of Tarot as movie inspiration was magic - when creative minds work & play together truth seems to leap off the page.

Was going to mention about the man with one glove, but the Iron Man (who may or may not Moon-walk), got there afore me. My personal sync with that Tarot card is that I'm currently researching the work of a non-singing 'Michael Jackson' - so was interesting to see yet another image that had echoes of the 'Bad' one.

cheers

Anonymous said...

Very nice, Mr. Violator. I am going to steal that section about the hanged man for my next video (whilst crediting you, of course). That is, unless you would rather I not, in which case you can email me:

kyle@infowars.com

A Few Shots to Shaman said...

Great...

Unknown said...

aferrismoon, Yeah, there's a few one-glovers in music, there's also 2 more cards that have the one blue hand as well. Her-mitt, hah nice. Hmm sun-flowers, didn't think about that one. Heh I wonder, Jodorowsky talks about how The Fool and the Unnamed card XIII/"death" have a similar posture, maybe flipping through a deck would be like a cartoon :D

Sam, I've read that book by Bushby, and mention it in a few posts from time to time actually. Keep in mind in the intro he talks about being under two secrecy oaths. Plus he seems to have deliberately messed up the gematria of BACON to = 33!? So I would take his theories with a grain of salt, since it's clear he occluding at least as much as he's revealing.

Alex Robinson, Thanks! Yeah I love how the lightning hits the clocktower in that one song. This is the first video where I tried to sync the music since before the audio would lag too much to do it. Doesn't Dr. Strange(g)love have one glove?

Bearded Wonder, Thanks. And be my guest - steal away!

Will, hi, thanks ;)

aferrismoon said...

Also the 'grid' that we often get in the movies as part of the set resembles the grids on Crowley's Hanged Man and High Priestess cards.
Together they make MTh which in the 'brew means 'die'

Taro and Rota - the spinning reels

cheers

Occult Mosaic said...

good stuff.

and i could not help myself but this has Palin writin all over it.

In the original black and white Metropolis, the female robot takes on the form of a resistance leader in order to subvert her influence. She then becomes a sex object for the ruling elite. And in the scene where she is performing for them, she rides atop a beast with many heads like in Revelations.

Unknown said...

aferrismoon, ;)

Terry, Haha, maybe it was my subconscious, though Joey Fatone might agree with you.

Immortallywounded said...

Great job Jeremy, my favorite one of your films yet, well, from a technical standpoint. I liked the splicing and dicing, also looked cleaner than the others. What you got cooking up next?

Unknown said...

Immortallywounded, thanks, yeah it really came together well with the music and the other stuff.

I'm starting to get the hang of the video program though it's on Linux which isn't known for video editing, so it's not capable of the really fancy stuff. :/ Plus it's really pushing my computers limits at times, maybe if a few more people donate I can get that increased RAM I've been waiting on (my birthday's coming up!).

I'm going to try to get started on my own feature length video (coincidentally The Celtic Rebel is also working on a long video project too). I might do at least one more Tarot video later down the line. Other than that I'm waiting on a couple of collaborations to get going, though with possible Jury duty this week I'll probably wait until I'm in the clear to start those!

pause said...

that is so mystic! i love all these kind of things! :D awesome blog! :)

marcelasimonetti@gmail.com said...

Very interesting post, and very nice video!Thanks!

Psychopomps

What are you saving up to be.. Jewish?