 |
PAGE 3
|
|
.
THE
CASE OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK
The central argument of this
essay is that the films of Alfred Hitchcock are perfectly crafte rituals
of liminality. This should be understood in a two-fold sense, referring
to the place of film in its social and cultural environment and to the
specific form that Hitchcock gave to his films and the response they were
meant to and did invoke.
Hitchcock
and Hitchcock's Audience as Liminal Personae
 Film
provides anti-structure. Movie viewing is a created environment of excitement
and entertainment in which the audience hopes to find what cannot be found
elsewhere. Film making and film watching are intertwined and Hitchcock
was very well aware of this. The audience is essential to the creative
process of the artist. Movies constitute ritual performances of liminality,
temporary but real realizations of communitas.
Hitchcock's films are manifestations
of liminality in a more specific sense. The films typically contain a basic
three-fold structure that follows the processual scheme of ritual performances
outlined by Turner.
First, there is in Hitchcock's
films typically an event that triggers the action. The filmic device Hitchcock
most preferred was the so-called MacGuffin,
something rather banal --ideally, a complete banal, hardly noticeable object--
that is introduced to move the rest of the story forward but that is otherwise
not relevant to the experience of the film. The typical example of a MacGuffin
mentioned by Hitchcock is the government secret the spies are after. The
wine bottle with uranium in Notorious
(1946), the love letter in Dial
M For Murder (1954), and the diamond in Family
Plot (1976) are examples.
In the movie North
by Northwest (1959) Hitchcock felt he had come up with the best MacGuffin
yet. In the story, a man is mistakenly believed to be a U.S. agent. The
spies chase the man across the country, because, it turns out, they are
interested in...
"oh... government secrets,
I suppose."
|
In a next phase, the Hitchcock
subjects are typically held captive in some situation of extreme danger,
involving illness, disturbances, panic, confusion, and other states --mental
and physical-- of dispair and destitude. The heroes are stripped off their
worldly status and are caught in an adventure that is not their own. In
North by Northwest, the man on the run is victimized by the spies, first
when they force him to drink a bottle of liquor.
In a final phase, the Hitchcockian
heroes return into their world. But they are not the same. They return
into the world differently, not necessarily better, not necessarily worse,
but always changed. In North by Northwest, the hero is in the end united
with the woman he fell in love with.
The
Order of Guilt and Innocence
Guilt and innocence are constitutive
principles of a society's legal and moral order. A central principle of
our system of law holds that no one can be held accountable for a breach
of law unless the perpetrator, who factually committed the crime, also
had the intention to commit the act. The mere intention to commit a crime
cannot be held as a ground for prosecution, but a 'means
rea' (criminal mind) must be present for there to be an offense
for which a court of law can declare guilt.
A central key to the understanding
of liminality in Hitchcock's films revolves around the dual nature of guilt.
There is, on the one hand, the guilt declared by society. This is what
I call public guilt. It is the branding of
a person to be accountable for an illegal act. Typically in Hitchcock's
films, public guilt applies to a person who is factually innocent, who
did not do what he or she is accused of doing. Most typically, also, the
act for which public guilt is declared is a matter of a society's formal
normative order as manifested in a system of laws.
There is also a notion of
guilt in Hitchcock's films which relates more closely to the feelings people
have about their own conduct. It is the private guilt
subjects experience when, as members of a normative order which is not
necessarily synonymous with society at large, they recognize themselves
for what they have done. They can, therefore, often no longer hide themselves
from their immediate others as who they truly are. Most typically, private
guilt in Hitchcock is rigidly separated from public guilt. Private guilt
refers not to a formal order of law but to codes of conduct in the realm
of morality and ethics. It is individual consciousness. Private guilt in
Hitchcock's universe applies to almost everybody.
|
|
Public Guilt and Formal
Law
|
|
|
Private Guilt and Personal
Consciousness.
|
The
Auteur Theory and Pure Cinema
Tthere are two technical
aspects of Hitchcock's film that need to be introduced. First, thanks to
François Truffaut and other directors and movie critics associated
with the French film magazine Les Cahiers du Cinema, the so-called
auteur theory of film making has been much
discussed in connection with Hitchcock's work. What this perspective boils
down to is that certain films --good films, Hitchcock films-- are to be
conceived as manifestations of the creative talent and vision of the director.
The director is the author of the work.
The auteur perspective has
unfortunately led some observers to view every little detail in Hitchcock's
movies as highly significant and as somehow reflective of some presumed
aspect of Hitchcock's temperament and personality. I part with this excessive
form of interpretive self-pleasure. However, it is important to remain
aware that a film is not a natural phenomenon. A film is a purposely constructed
reality. In Hitchcock's case, the control and command of the director in
assembling the various pieces that make up the movie are famous. The vision
of Hitchcock is achieved not only through the actual directing of scenes,
but also through his choice of the script, his choice of actors, his choice
of set decorations, and, most clearly, his use of story
board. Hitchcock's stature and fame gradually enabled him to fulfill
this ideal more perfectly. Additionally, the events that unfold in Hitchcock's
films are not drawn from a random universe, but derive from a deliberate
reflection of the director. Hitchcock once called his movies slices of
cake, not of life.
The unthinkable: Hitchcock
directing a method actor.
|
Hitchcock's form of film making
is called pure cinema (Truffaut 1984). The
concept of pure cinema conveys the notion that film should not refer to
any other art form but itself. A film is not a novel, not a painting, not
music, though it contains literary, visual, musical and other elements.
The typical method of creating pure cinema is montage through edits and
dissolves. Edits shift abruptly from one image to the next to indicate
continuity in motion. Dissolves gradually move one image to another to
indicate a passage of time or move to another space.
Edit within a scene |
to indicate continuity. |
|
|
Dissolve from one image
to the |
next to move to another
scene. |
Hitchcock was the master of
pure cinema. The achieved creations are not only splendid works of art,
they cannot be transformed into any other form without losing their experience.
A
NOTE ON HITCHCOCK
| Hitchcock made
many, now famous cameo
appearances in his movies, such as when he walked with his dogs in The
Birds (1963) or his cassual walk-ins for no aparent reason at all. I made
my own cameo appearance on the previous page, as a once 17-year old.
Of course, I warmly recommend
you get more acquainted with Hitchcock's many films, which can only be
through watching the work. |
|
-
You can check out some of the
online materials about Hitchcock's work and life via Google
or Wikipedia.
-
You may also want to read one
the short biographies available on Hitchcock, and view, or consult while
scrolling these pages, one or another of the lists of his films:
-
Filmography
on Hitchcock - From IMDB.
My analysis begins with
a famous scene from Hitchcock's film Psycho
(1960).
next
page 
previous page
Mathieu
Deflem
DeflemM@yahoo.com
.
.
This
page is part of Hitchcockonline.org.
|
