ABSTRACT
Cinema using fairy-tale stories, characters, names, images, motifs, and themes dates from film’s earliest history. This chapter explores mainly live-action films for adults, which look at the more serious side of fairy tales. I use as examples two “Hansel and Gretel” films: The Night of the Hunter (directed by Charles Laughton, 1955) and Criminal Lovers (Les Amants Criminels) (directed by François Ozon, 1999). They address issues of family and community, including the very quotidian nature of harms against children, in ways that destabilize normative expectations not only for fairy tales, but also for society.
