Tarot Decks in Film, Literature and Song.

Hey all,
I just thought I'd start a thread about the occurence of tarot/oracles in film, literature and song, just incase anyone was interested in that kind of thing.

So far, I'm aware of the following;

The Ninth Gate [Film]
The Da Vinci Code [Book -- the illustrated version in particular features some card images from the Oswald Wirth tarot, but theyre reprints, not originals...i think.]
Machina/The Machines of God; Smashing Pumpkins [CD insert has some tarot-like images and symbols. if anyone is interested in this I can scan the images and post a link.]
The Gift [Film]

tarot totes has dedicated a section of their site to tarot in movies and television...

http://www.tarottotes.com/item.asp?IID=36

i also remember seeing the cards in a few early 80s sitcoms (perhaps it influenced my young mind...?) and on the ever-ridiculous soap opera "passions". oh, and on the hbo show "carnivale"... they use the cards on the show, but they also use them in the opening sequence.

There's the book, "The Channel", by Aeclectic's very own lawguy51.

I just saw Ocean's Twelve last night, and the RW 5 of Wands was featured, which was great since the whole film is about a battle of wills.

The Masque of the Red Death uses tarot cards in its main title but not sure if they feature in the film at all - I've never seen it all the way through.

Off the top of my head:

- Italo Calvino's The Castle of Crossed Destinies, which features the Visconti (in part 1) and the Tarot de Marseille in part 2. It's a great book of stories made up from a succession of tarot cards.

- There was a James Bond film that famously featured tarot and Jane Seymour reading - You Only Live Twice, I think (it took place partly in the Carribean).

- Carmen sees her death in the tarot cards of the gipsy.

- The Wasteland, of course, though no-one has been able to identify a card called "The Drowned Phoenician Sailor" (or have they?)

- Arcane 17, André Breton's song to the Star- actually to freedom and love. He identifies the Star with a woman he loves passionately, and, poet ever (though this is a prose text), knits the two closely: XVII- The Star, is "the soul that links matter and spirit" and a feminine symbol of consolation - he sees the Tarot Star as a light in the dark tunnel of war and nazi tyranny -but also a key to his own state of mind, as an unhappy exile from occupied France in 1944, but deeply in love with his own star.

They've been on multiple tv shows--Buffy (several episodes), Roswell (several episodes), Charmed, two Simpson's episodes, etc.

And that metallic hexagon set used by the captive Reverend Mother in the made for tv movie Dune (latest movie, not the first one).

(NOT in Love Potion #9, that was a palm reading at the beginning.)

Did Big Fish have a tarot reading at the start?

This is a weird one, perhaps someone knows something about it.

I have a memory from when I was very young of a TV series, possibly a kids series called 'The Ace of Wands'.

I must have been about 6, so that would have been 69/70.

I remember wanting to watch it, but not being allowed to.
That memory has stuck with me all my life.

Does anyone recall it, or what it was about?
Or is it just a figment of my childish imagination.

Also;
'Tales of the unexpected' had the 1JJswiss tarot in the titles.

SongDeva said:

I just saw Ocean's Twelve last night, and the RW 5 of Wands was featured, which was great since the whole film is about a battle of wills.

Click to expand...

Love that! Very hip. I recall a "Simpsons" episode - I believe it was one of the Halloween ones - where a gypsy read cards. There was another episode where Lisa wanders into a fortune teller's tent, but I'm pretty sure that was a crystal ball situation.

I also remember the Jane Seymour reading in the Bond film - Bond was so sllick all the cards were the Lover! Of course, Bond might not have realized that the Lover card doesn't necessarily guarantee love/sex!

My all-time favorite X-Files episode, "Clyde Bruckman's Last Repose" featured the Tarot of the Witches (yep, the same deck as was used in the James Bond movie). The X-Files episode was all about a serial killer who stalked the prognosticators of Minneapolis-St. Paul. His M.O. was to seek out a reading (crystal ball, tea leaves, and Tarot) and end the reading by killing his victim. One of my favorite scenes is toward the end when Scully picks up one of the cards at the crime scene. It's a Page (I think Cups, but I don't remember.) She looks at the card and has a flash of insight... the killer's day job is as a busboy!