Parallels Between Mother and Katrina
There are many parallels between Lady Crane and Katrina in the film which are also noted in the Peter Lerangis novelization and The Art of Sleepy Hollow. The novelization goes into the greatest depth, often mentioning details that are changed or cut from the final film/script draft.
An interesting variation found in the novelization is of Ichabod's first dream, the one in which he sees his mother blindfolded just as Katrina was the first time they met. In this version, it seems as though young Ichabod is interacting with Katrina, who later turns into his mother.
"They had left him there to stamp out the fire. Only Gunpowder had stayed with him. Now he is safe in his room at the Van Tassels'. Katrina is in the house too, sleeping in her room. Not far away.
In his dream she is even closer.
She's blindfolded, the way he'd first seen her in the parlor. But she isn't there or in the Van Tassel manor at all. She is standing in a kitchen doorway - his family's kitchen, in the house in which he grew up. She is holding her arms wide.
And he's running toward her, across the yard. His legs brush against the high grass, and he realizes he's not a man anymore. He's a boy again, maybe seven years old, and in his hand are wildflowers that he has picked. For her. Always for her.
When he runs past Katrina into the kitchen, she's laughing. Blundering around, following him with her arms outstretched, the Pickety Witch.
He tries not to laugh himself. Be quiet. That's the game.
But the anticipation is so strong. The fear that she'll catch him. The hope that she'll catch him. He wants to squeal.
"Aaaaah!" she screams, lunging.
She has him now. He shrieks with glee.
Her arms are so long, so full of love and comfort and protection. She kisses him and takes off the blindfold.
She isn't Katrina at all. She's Mother. Young and beautiful and kind, the way he always remembers her. He gives her the wildflowers and she exclaims with delight, pulling one out to put in her hair, her lustrous, perfect hair.
And then, just as he's about to float away on a gust of joy, she flings the flowers away into the hearth fire. They burst into flames, sending tendrils of smoke into the room, but this does not upset him.
She crouches by the fire and beckons Ichabod forward. Her eyes close as she inhales the aroma, sweet and intoxicating. Then, picking up a twig, she begins to draw strange, magical designs in the ashes.
They are enchanting, but they are dangerous. He must not look at them."
The same moment from The Art of Sleepy Hollow:
He reflects a moment, then turns to watch Katrina crouching by the hearth. She has put a flower in her hair.
KATRINA:
I used to play by this hearth. It was my first drawing school and my mother was my teacher.
Unwittingly, Katrina is mimicking Ichabod's dream. She picks up a twig and starts "drawing" on the hearth stone. Like Ichabod's mother in his dream.
Ichabod's blood runs cold but she is unaware of him. Then he notices that a few small wildflowers are growing in the old fireplace. Ichabod feels short of breath, he leans against the stones for support.
In the novel, The Art of Sleepy Hollow and information provided by the Inkworks Trading Cards, Ichabod gave Katrina his childhood toy, the spinning disk after displaying for her its 'magic'. The scene originally ended with Katrina spinning the thaumatrope, perhaps meant to echo Ichabod's dream. Sadly, we are only able to see Ichabod spinning it in the finished version of the film.
Another section of the novelization has Ichabod thinking of the loss he and Katrina share in their both having lost their mothers.
"All words, all paths of thought, led to Katrina, He allowed himself to imagine holding her, comforting her, whispering that he knew. That she needn't say a thing, but he knew.
And as he thought of her face, another merged with it - similar in some ways, kind and lovely - opening the wound and letting the darkness out of his own forbidden corner.
His mother's face . . ."
When Ichabod is wounded by the Headless Horseman, Katrina tends to him at his bedside (visually similar to the scene of Ichabod's mother calming him as a child). And it is only after Ichabod drinks Katrina's sleeping potion that he is able to recall the circumstances surrounding his mother's death. Prior to this, he would wake himself before discovering the secrets behind the red door.
Upon learning the horrifying truth of a past long kept hidden, Ichabod wakes with a start, sitting up in bed, sending him into Katrina's awaiting arms. He now sees Katrina's face, knows her embrace, where seconds before his mother had been falling toward him.
Katrina and Lady Crane both make symbols of an eye in their designs. We know the former used the spell to protect Ichabod. I would say it's safe to assume the same of Lady Crane. She may have been using it to protect both she and her child.
Oddly enough, Ichabod condemns Katrina for using the "evil eye" just as his father condemned his mother for creating the image of an eye in ashes, both of them ignorant to its true meaning.
In The Art of Sleepy Hollow, there is a costume design I used to think was of Katrina, but after recently examining the drawing in more detail, I noticed the designs along the hemline match those in Tim Burton's drawing of Lady Crane. Katrina's hooded cape is reminiscent of the one shown in the design.
Katrina and Lady Crane are in a television advertisement shown as the same woman.
One can only guess what all of this means.
An interesting variation found in the novelization is of Ichabod's first dream, the one in which he sees his mother blindfolded just as Katrina was the first time they met. In this version, it seems as though young Ichabod is interacting with Katrina, who later turns into his mother.
"They had left him there to stamp out the fire. Only Gunpowder had stayed with him. Now he is safe in his room at the Van Tassels'. Katrina is in the house too, sleeping in her room. Not far away.
In his dream she is even closer.
She's blindfolded, the way he'd first seen her in the parlor. But she isn't there or in the Van Tassel manor at all. She is standing in a kitchen doorway - his family's kitchen, in the house in which he grew up. She is holding her arms wide.
And he's running toward her, across the yard. His legs brush against the high grass, and he realizes he's not a man anymore. He's a boy again, maybe seven years old, and in his hand are wildflowers that he has picked. For her. Always for her.
When he runs past Katrina into the kitchen, she's laughing. Blundering around, following him with her arms outstretched, the Pickety Witch.
He tries not to laugh himself. Be quiet. That's the game.
But the anticipation is so strong. The fear that she'll catch him. The hope that she'll catch him. He wants to squeal.
"Aaaaah!" she screams, lunging.
She has him now. He shrieks with glee.
Her arms are so long, so full of love and comfort and protection. She kisses him and takes off the blindfold.
She isn't Katrina at all. She's Mother. Young and beautiful and kind, the way he always remembers her. He gives her the wildflowers and she exclaims with delight, pulling one out to put in her hair, her lustrous, perfect hair.
And then, just as he's about to float away on a gust of joy, she flings the flowers away into the hearth fire. They burst into flames, sending tendrils of smoke into the room, but this does not upset him.
She crouches by the fire and beckons Ichabod forward. Her eyes close as she inhales the aroma, sweet and intoxicating. Then, picking up a twig, she begins to draw strange, magical designs in the ashes.
They are enchanting, but they are dangerous. He must not look at them."
Lady Crane recreates a moment of importance to Ichabod first created by Katrina.
Ichabod is searched for and found by his mother and Katrina. Both reward him with a kiss.
Later, when Ichabod and Katrina visit the ruins of the cabin she lived in as a child, Ichabod is unsettled as he witnesses moments from his dream made reality, his mother's actions recreated by the woman he loves.
From the novel,
"I used to play by this hearth," Katrina said. She crouched by the bricks and faced him, twining a flower into her hair. "It was my first drawing school and my mother was my teacher."
Picking up a twig, she began drawing in the dust. As Ichabod watched, he noticed wildflowers growing through cracks in the flame-blackened floor of the old fireplace. He felt a sudden light-headedness at the sight, at the extraordinary similarity to ... to what? The flowers, The drawing. The hair.
"Oh, look!" Katrina exclaimed, wiping the rear wall of the fireplace with her sleeve. A carved figure emerged, a man with a bow and arrow. "I'd forgotten this! See? Carved into the fireback, the archer. This was from long before we lived here." My dream.
That's what this scene was. But now Katrina was Mother. Doing what Mother had been doing in the kitchen."
From the novel,
"I used to play by this hearth," Katrina said. She crouched by the bricks and faced him, twining a flower into her hair. "It was my first drawing school and my mother was my teacher."
Picking up a twig, she began drawing in the dust. As Ichabod watched, he noticed wildflowers growing through cracks in the flame-blackened floor of the old fireplace. He felt a sudden light-headedness at the sight, at the extraordinary similarity to ... to what? The flowers, The drawing. The hair.
"Oh, look!" Katrina exclaimed, wiping the rear wall of the fireplace with her sleeve. A carved figure emerged, a man with a bow and arrow. "I'd forgotten this! See? Carved into the fireback, the archer. This was from long before we lived here." My dream.
That's what this scene was. But now Katrina was Mother. Doing what Mother had been doing in the kitchen."
The same moment from The Art of Sleepy Hollow:
He reflects a moment, then turns to watch Katrina crouching by the hearth. She has put a flower in her hair.
KATRINA:
I used to play by this hearth. It was my first drawing school and my mother was my teacher.
Unwittingly, Katrina is mimicking Ichabod's dream. She picks up a twig and starts "drawing" on the hearth stone. Like Ichabod's mother in his dream.
Ichabod's blood runs cold but she is unaware of him. Then he notices that a few small wildflowers are growing in the old fireplace. Ichabod feels short of breath, he leans against the stones for support.
Note that the blue wildflowers beside the hearth of Katrina's childhood home match those given to Lady Crane by Young Ichabod in his dream. Also worthy of mention is the great similarity between the twigs Katrina and Lady Crane use to make their designs in the ash. They almost appear to be the same branch in distant shots.
Similar designs.
In the novel, The Art of Sleepy Hollow and information provided by the Inkworks Trading Cards, Ichabod gave Katrina his childhood toy, the spinning disk after displaying for her its 'magic'. The scene originally ended with Katrina spinning the thaumatrope, perhaps meant to echo Ichabod's dream. Sadly, we are only able to see Ichabod spinning it in the finished version of the film.
Another section of the novelization has Ichabod thinking of the loss he and Katrina share in their both having lost their mothers.
"All words, all paths of thought, led to Katrina, He allowed himself to imagine holding her, comforting her, whispering that he knew. That she needn't say a thing, but he knew.
And as he thought of her face, another merged with it - similar in some ways, kind and lovely - opening the wound and letting the darkness out of his own forbidden corner.
His mother's face . . ."
When Ichabod is wounded by the Headless Horseman, Katrina tends to him at his bedside (visually similar to the scene of Ichabod's mother calming him as a child). And it is only after Ichabod drinks Katrina's sleeping potion that he is able to recall the circumstances surrounding his mother's death. Prior to this, he would wake himself before discovering the secrets behind the red door.
Upon learning the horrifying truth of a past long kept hidden, Ichabod wakes with a start, sitting up in bed, sending him into Katrina's awaiting arms. He now sees Katrina's face, knows her embrace, where seconds before his mother had been falling toward him.
Katrina and Lady Crane both make symbols of an eye in their designs. We know the former used the spell to protect Ichabod. I would say it's safe to assume the same of Lady Crane. She may have been using it to protect both she and her child.
Oddly enough, Ichabod condemns Katrina for using the "evil eye" just as his father condemned his mother for creating the image of an eye in ashes, both of them ignorant to its true meaning.
In The Art of Sleepy Hollow, there is a costume design I used to think was of Katrina, but after recently examining the drawing in more detail, I noticed the designs along the hemline match those in Tim Burton's drawing of Lady Crane. Katrina's hooded cape is reminiscent of the one shown in the design.
Katrina and Lady Crane are in a television advertisement shown as the same woman.
One can only guess what all of this means.
Comments
Post a Comment