DOUBLING
The previous page already
introduced a central pure-cinematic device which Hitchcock resorted to
throughout many of his movies. In many scenes of Psycho the subjects are
viewed standing or sitting opposite from one another. Either they are filmed
from left and right angles respectively, or, more often and more poignantly
still, they are each positioned on one side of the screen.
Psycho (1960): The woman
and the man talk outside the motel.
The technique can be referred
to as
doubling, i.e. the splitting or dividing
in two or multiplying to two. A simple yet very effective device of pure
cinema, doubling can accomplish different things. It may separate or connect:
two antagonists yelling at each other; a man looking longingly at a woman.
Hitchcock's most striking
use of doubling is when the technique is used to convey the separation
of guilt on one side and innocence on the other. The splitting of the subjects
over the screen shows that guilt is what innocence is not, that they are
in opposition. Thus, they are connected: there is no guilt without innocence,
that they need each other.
In Psycho, the splitting
of the characters over the screen is very rigid and omnipresent throughout
the movie to clearly and repeatedly distinguish the victim from the offender,
further augmented by the black & white photography and the chilling
music of Bernard
Herrmann. The splitting obviously also refer to the split personality
of the offender and his victim. In Psycho the technique of doubling is
additionally used with mirrors,
which pop up time and time again throughout the movie. Through the use
of mirrors, doubling typically can take places with one person. The notion
is that one person has a guilty and innocent side. There is a dialogue
with one's conscious.
Guilt
v. Innocence
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In To
Catch a Thief (1954), John Robie (Cary Grant) and Frances Stevens (Grace
Kelly) are going for a ride in a car.
The two are being followed
by a couple of policemen who are after Robie, suspecting him of a series
of robberies. Robie tries to evade the police without telling the woman
of his real identity. What Robie does not know is that she knows.
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| In Frenzy
(1972), the streets of London are terrorized by a vicious sex killer known
as the "neck tie murderer."
Following the brutal slaying
of his ex-wife, Richard Blaney is suspected by the police of being the
killer.
Blaney goes on the run, the
only way to prove prove his innocence.
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Click
image for video ( ).
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The two men
in Strangers
on a Train (1951) share much of the same double identity of the young
man in Psycho.
Bruno Anthony meets famous
tennis player Guy Haines on a train. Guy is dating a senator's daughter
but still awaits divorce from his wife. Bruno wants to kill his father.
Bruno dreams up a crazy scheme
whereby he and Guy exchange murders. Guy takes the idea as a joke, but
Bruno doesn't.
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| Bruno fulfills
his part of the bargain ("criss-cross") and kills Guy's wife.
He informs Guy of his act
at the gate of his house --behind bars. In the next scene the camera shifts
from right to left causing Guy to be behind bars...
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Adding
and Blurring Boundaries
Hitchcock often uses the
doubling technique at various levels at once. This creates not just an
added dimension of splitting or separation but more often conveys an ambiguity
of guilt and innocence. Now there is --rather than a mere disassociation
of guilt from innocence-- a vagueness and ambiguity of who is guilty and
who is innocent. The just mentioned scene from Strangers on a Train is
a good example: the camera shifting from left to angle and back puts the
two men alternately 'behind bars,' conveying confusion over their guilt
for the murder.
In the movie Shadow
of a Doubt (1943), doubling is constantly present. A killer is uncovered
by his own niece. Both uncle and niece have the same name (Charlie) and
share a very close, at times telepathic bond. Even more clearly than in
Strangers on a Train, both Charlies are the same person. Throughout the
movie, the dilemma for the two is whether to love or hate, to belong or
leave, to hold or push away.
Beyond this basic duality
of uncle and niece, there is the rest of the family --the family of both
the uncle and the niece. Central to the symbolic order is the mother, the
niece's mother who is also the uncle's sister. She adores her brother.
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The niece is caught between
her uncle (her dark side) and her family and mother (her good side).
