Hitchcock has been the mainstay of all scholastic film learning. He is the
ideal of all cinema trainees. Sir Alfred Hitchcock has all of the classical styles of the
European cinema, with the contemporary feel of the American commercialism. He has the
editing finesse of an Eisenstein, the mise-en-scene of a Pabst, the expressionism of a
Weine. Yet this is not to say Alfred didn't have his fun... Alfred Hitchcock was also a
great game player. His double entendres were famous. His humor was offbeat. He never took
himself too seriously, we can see that in his walk-ons alone. Another one of his games are
all the subliminal games that he gives us in his films. Little things the conscious does
not pick up on but the subconscious may register. Small bridges, if you will, that allude
to other things. Tugs that affect our emotional response to a given scene, mislead us,
make the viewer think what Hitchcock wants us to think.
Psycho:
Psycho is the one film that most people identify as Hitchcock. It also can be
argued that it is his finest. Filmed for under a million dollars with his TV crew for
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Hitchcock has the most of these underlying items in this movie.
The first sequence is a good starting place. We loom over the skyline of Arizona, like a
fly as Hitchcock has stated, but also if one thinks about it, a voyeur. We are peeping
toms. It is even made more realistic by first the black and white film stock (giving
gritty realism), but also by the time, date, and place given to make it seem as a
documentary. She is wearing white, virginal symbol, as we fly in the window to a
post-fornication scene.
Its' Christmas time, yet no mention of it is brought up in the film. We
start on December 11th. Marion sleeps on the side of the road, December 12th. A week
passes until Arbogast tracks the motel (four days after Marion doesn't show up to work,
plus Sunday, plus two days looking at motels), December 19th. Lila and Sam take a day to
get to find out what happened to Arbogast and talk to the sheriff, December 20th (no tree
I might add). They figure out and capture Norman, December 21. No christmas, no christ, no
god. We do not look at Marion as a sinner for sleeping with a man (who is married) or
Norman as a monster for murdering. Again, I believe this is because Hitchcock wanted us to
sympathize with Norman (and Marion for that matter), to put aside our religious beliefs
that we most likely would have had in 1960's American suburbia.
Yet strangely, in the godless world Hitchcock makes, Sam and Lila meet the
sheriff at the church, right before they visit the hotel. From then the viewer seems to be
on a crusade with Sam and Lila to catch Norman, our sympathies lie with them, not Norman
who our allegiance was dedicated to. Once again it is the swaying of the viewers feelings.
Marion takes the money. She is mostly naked again, but wearing black, a
symbol for evil. Marion and Arbogast get out of the left side of the car, the incorrect
side, not the "right side of the bed". When Marion is in the car and the
soundtrack is overdubbed with the Monday's conversations, she doesn't blink once. Is this
perhaps to add more of a macabre feel? How about when it starts to rain, her eyes blink to
the beat of the music, particularly the strong violins. This adds to the mystery and
uneasiness of the scene.
Sex is a big topic for Hitchcock, and Psycho is notorious for its'
sexual undertones. There is sexual tension between Marion and Norman, it is even blatant
when we overhear the conversation of Norman and his mother. Mrs. Bates talks about
"cheap and erotic" uses of Marion.
This would make the "virgin" cringe, the good girl would realize
what is thought of her and how to avoid being thought as such. But Marion curiously seems
to be flirting with Norman, nibbling at her cheese sandwich and sipping at her milk. The
pictures on the surrounding walls where Norman "spends most of his time" is
filled with many nude paintings, in fact the one where he voyeristically peers (as well as
we do) at Marion getting into the shower is of a seemingly rape scene between a nude woman
and a wolf-man. There is not one shot in the scene in the office where Norman and Marion
are framed together, which adds to the sexual tension between the two. When Marion leaves
to clean herself, Norman checks the hotel register... If you look there are two
breast-like protuberances staring up at him. This is perhaps why the shower murder seems
more like a sexual climax than a brutal killing.
If we look at the scene with this viewpoint, we can believe that there is
a certain release when Vivian Leigh gets naked for us. When she is showering, we are
aroused. When she is getting stabbed (a metaphor for intercourse), we peer at her body in
an awkward, taboo, perverted gaze. We perhaps are too wrapped up in the climax to notice
that Hitchcock uses an out-of-focus shot of Marion's breasts right before she collapses.
Clean-up time of the carnage that just unfolded gives the viewer time to
relax. Notice the newspaper says "okay" as if to soothe us. The release sequence
takes a total of ten minutes as we catch our collective breaths. Norman tends to every
detail. We are swayed into his psyche, to side with him; the poor, tortured boy of his
mothers wrath. When the car goes into the swamp and pauses we feel just as much anxiety as
Norman does. This is because we side with him unconsciously as Hitchcock masterfully tugs
the strings of the viewer, once again playing with our underlying subconscious with
subliminal motivations.
Norman's identity is wonderfully displayed to the audience in one shot. I
am not sure if it was direction or Anthony Perkins real walk, but when Norman walks up the
stairs to put his mother in the fruit cellar, a little feminine sachet is captured in the
film. Is it the mother or Norman walking?
Two things were shown to me by Professor John Mainente (as well as some of
the other subliminal in Psycho, for which I am indebted) which made me realize how
deliberate Hitchcock is with every aspect of the films he made. These two sound bites are
so astounding that is hard to believe any of the other persuaders are coincidental. The
clincher is when Lila descends into the fruit cellar, she asks "Mrs. Bates" to
which a reply "Yes" is heard very faintly. She touches the corpse, it turns...
She screams... Her mouth closes but there still is a scream. Shot of Norman. He screams in
a mumbled voice "I-I-I-IAmNormanBates." It is such a strange sequence. Norman
yells right before he attacks that HE is Norman Bates. Why? I suppose to make us feel the
torment that he felt inside him, the dichotomy of his being.
The ending of the film has light bulbs over the psychiatrist's head to
make him look like a moose, mickey mouse, or as if he had an idea, obviously a poke at
psychiatric profession. Then we see Norman/Mother in a cell. She says, "She wouldn't
even harm a fly," then a quick flash-dissolve of the corpses smile, to add even more
"sinisterness" to the Perkins character. It might even be thought to show that
it is just Norman/Mother who is a psycho, it couldn't really happen to you, could it?
Rope:
Rope is a terrible movie for most people. I love it. I have always liked it. I find
the bad acting extremely amusing. The horrible dialogue just adds to an already strange
movie. The thought of a film as one continuous shot is very intriguing to me. But as I
looked at it a second time, with thought that there was a pedophiliac relation between the
two characters and headmaster, I extract even more from the intent of the film.
Now, back in the forties, you couldn't even mention the word sex, let
alone homosexual. Hitchcock, from what we can gather, has always been "into"
sex, so we can certainly believe that it was his intent to put in double-entendres into
the film. One of the centerpieces of the film is when the schoolmaster Rupert says that he
saw Philip "choke the chicken" which upsets Philip. Brandon also relates about
how he and Rupert used to stay up late night at school and talk. When Rupert calls up and
says he has left his cigarette case up in the apartment and asks what is wrong with
Philip, Brandon says he "is just a little hard tonight." Strange phrasing, would
you say?
Now this case is weak, granted, but the fact that Philip and Brandon are
gay, is not. They live with each other, alone. The murder itself alludes to a sexual
climax, and the two lover/murders ask each other what the other felt at the moment of
truth. As Brandon tries to open a champagne bottle (an obvious symbol of masturbation),
this conversation transpires:
"How did you feel, during it," Philip says.
"I didn't remember feeling anything, until his body went
limp... and then I knew it was over," Brandon says.
"And then?" Philip exclaims.
"I felt tremendously exhilarated... H-h-how did you feel?"
Shadow of a Doubt:
There are two hidden ideas behind this film. One is an incestuous relationship between
Uncle Charlie and Charlie. The other is of a vampire motif. Both are barely understated as
we look, but we are diving backwards in Hitchcock, and perhaps his technique and finesse
is not as developed as in later films for its' "craftyness".
Shots of Uncle Charlie in the beginning of the film liken him to
Nosferatu: lying down prone, hands place on his chest, in shadow, disturbed when the
blinds are lifted and the daylight hits his body. The FBI follow him but he mysteriously
ends up on top of a building, escaping from his trailers, and if you study the mythology
of the "creatures of the night", a vampire can arrive and leave in the blink of
an eye.
More references come along in the movie... Charlie invites Uncle Charlie
over to the home, and as we all know vampires can't enter the home without an invitation.
When the train arrives black smoke pours from the caboose. Very often he is wrapped in
smoke billows from his cigars. Uncle Charlie has never been photographed (presumably
because he can't be), and is almost always never seen during the day.
The incestuous side of the relationship is understated and only really
felt by watching the film. Charlie seems to linger around Uncle Charlie in a flirtatious
way, the way they interact are likened to lovers, particularly the scene when Uncle
Charlie gives Charlie the ring in the kitchen. It almost seems like an engagement, and if
we think about what a ring symbolizes in Christianity, a metaphor for sex. The ring has
been through the ages a symbol for the breaking of the hymen in the woman, the ring being
a vaginal symbol, the finger being a phallic symbol.
Other Moments Too Short To Detail:
This section are just the random views of underlying connections that are not consistent
and only glimpses of ulterior meanings gleaned through various films. When the two main
characters in Vertigo embrace for the first time, the waves crash and looks
extremely staged perhaps because their relationship does not last and is false. In Rope
towards the end when Rupert is accusing Brandon, Brandon has red light falling on his face
from the neon sign outside the building to show us that he has "been caught red
handed". In The 39 Steps the main character whistles a tune here and there
which is repeated now and again to subconsciously prepare us for the "Mr.
Memory" show which bookends the film. Rebecca has a glass of milk that seems
to be glowing (which it is, as Hitchcock points out in Hitchcock/Truffaut) to make us more
wary of his character.
These all are characterizations which are more felt by the viewer than
anything else. Hitchcock obviously put much thought into his films, for they are rich with
subtext. This subliminal jargon adds to the mystique of the films. They are most likely
intentional or it wouldn't be so consistent in his work. These hidden statements can make
us more frightened, remind us of key points which are important, sway feelings toward
certain characters, and explain otherwise unexplainable actions. Horrific actions can be
justified, or heightened through the use of subconscious conditioning. Most of these items
are not new, but they are never looked at as deliberate intentions of the filmmaker. They
are just noticed and written about. Purpose is never the issue, which I think some time
should be spent. Why go through all the trouble of hiding these items if they are not
overtly noticed on first viewing of the movie? The only speculation is that they are not
meant to be really noticed but to be stored away in the unconscious. Alfred Hitchcock is
not only a cinematic genius, but a psychological master. Why else would he construct such
intellectual mazes for the audience to go through? Being knowledgeable on the human
psyche, he can directly control our reactions. Hitchcock knows how to frighten us by
tapping into our minds and fears directly. This is why he is so damn scary...