PRIVATE
GUILT
Subjects experience
private guilt when they recognize themselves that what they have
done is wrong. In Hitchcock's movies, private guilt is typically expeienced
by those who committed the illegal act the hero is falsely accused of,
as well as by the hero, albeit it for other reasons.
Symbols
In Hitchcock's films, the
audience is most always told --at the very beginning of the movie-- who
the real culprit is. We can clearly see the guilt of their crimes, typically
through some small, intimate or otherwise seemingly innocent symbol.
In Dial
M for Murder (1954), a man hires somebody to kill his wife.
In Frenzy
(1972), the audience knows the real murderer
early on in the story when
he brutally rapes a woman.
Yet, the man's guilt is seen
more sharply in his eyes.
In Murder!
, the killer's guilt is betrayed not despite but
because of his turning away.
In Suspicion
(1941), a woman gradually becomes convinced that
her husband is out to kill
her. One night, when she is ill in bed,
he brings her a glass of
milk.
In The
39 Steps, the hero on the run only knows one thing
about the man behind the
spy ring: he misses part of the
little finger on his right
hand.
In Shadow
of a Doubt, Uncle Charlie is at the beginning of the movie seen
lying on a bed, smoking a cigar and with several dollar bills carelessly
placed next to him.
Consequences
Intimate symbols cannot be
shaken off easily. Like parents often tell their children to look into
their eyes when they suspect a lie, the symbols of private guilt are powerful.
They therefore often times lead to the unmasking of the real culprit.
In The
Lady Vanishes (1938), a gang of foreign spies attempt to conceal --unsuccessfully--
that they plan to steal a government secret.
In Young
and Innocent (1937), we know of the killer only the one little detail
that he has a nervous twitch in his eyes. In the end, he is caught, despite
his mask.
Among the more disturbing
consequences of the guilt on the part of the actual wrongdoer is the intrusion
into a world of harmony and happiness.
In Shadow
of a Doubt, Uncle Charlie has killed at least three women. But the
more devastating guilt on his part is that he brought his crimes to Charlie
and their family.
Private guilt is rigidly
separated from public guilt. Private guilt refers to a general code of
conduct in the realm of morality. It can therefore --and in Hitchcock always
does-- apply to everybody, regardless of public guilt or innocence.
