Katrina van Tassel from Sleepy Hollow
Every October I rewatch Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, the most quintessentially Tim Burtonish of all his films (excepting perhaps The Nightmare Before Christmas). This is especially true in the visual sense. A very pale Johnny Depp, a Danny Elfman score, a queasy mixture of dark humour and traditional horror, and the beauty of grotesquery – whether it be a twisted tree branch, a beckoning hand, or a tendril of mist drifting over a 19th century pasture. The only thing missing is Helena Bonham Carter, but I think this was released before they met (Lisa Marie cameos instead).
And then there’s Christina Ricci, and all things considered, it’s quite stunning that this is the one and only time she appeared in a Burton film. I mean, this is Wednesday Addams and the girl from Casper! She slips effortlessly into his dark fairy tale aesthetic.
Like so many female characters in these kinds of movies, Katrina van Tassel is more interesting as performed than as written. When we first meet her she’s simply the demure and wholesome daughter of the town patriarch; quickly advancing to the caring and understanding love interest to Ichabod Crane – though it doesn’t take much of a genre-savvy viewer to realize there’s more going on with her.
She hides books, she makes odd comments, she seems fearless in the face of overwhelming danger. Is the whole “sweet and innocent” routine just an act?
The fact that her true intentions are hidden as part of a narrative red herring means that her guarded veneer is upheld just a little too long for us to get to know the real Katrina beneath, and the insurmountable self-possession that Ricci gives her too often slides into a sereneness that doesn’t mesh with her circumstances. She gets in one good scream and two fainting spells, but other than that, demonstrates no strong emotions throughout some pretty traumatic events.
But that reserved exterior is clearly hiding a sharp mind, and things take a turn for the sinister when she’s depicted standing over a cauldron to brew a potion, and later drawing a strange symbol on the floor of the church. For a hot second she’s the lead suspect in the case of the headless horseman… before Ichabod realizes it’s her stepmother instead.
Sadly she’s allowed no agency beyond the act of running when it comes to the final defeat of the horseman and his mistress, but that undermines her little acts of subversion and protection throughout the film: the strange symbol is revealed to be a charm of protection, her potion one of healing that guides Ichabod through his fever, and the book of spells she gives him stops a bullet that would have otherwise killed him. Unlike her stepmother, her magic is guided by love.
In many ways she and the Lady van Tassell are held up as foils: both witches practicing their craft beneath the roof of a clueless father/husband, each forced to hide behind a meek façade despite very real power at their beck and call, and ultimately each one the axis upon which the plot turns. I can’t help but wonder what might have been had the second Lady van Tassel seen her stepdaughter as an ally instead of a rival – but that would have required more of an in-depth exploration of these women than the film was willing to give them.
(For what it’s worth, the original script had more material for both of them, including some scenes of them alone together).
Katrina van Tassel is perhaps a more interesting character in theory than the script ultimately allows her to be – I would argue that thanks to her cleverness, power and proximity to the plot she veers very close to becoming an example of Trinity Syndrome – though ultimately it’s Ichabod who cracks the case and saves the day (he’s got this whole science versus superstition thing going on, whatever).
But there’s something compelling about her, and there’s so much to ponder in the gaps the script left behind: her relationship with her mother, her learning in witchcraft, her opportunities in New York… and of course, where she got that awesome black-and-white striped dress.
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