sign in sign up
<<
Home , Angus MacPhail, Evan Hunter, John Belton (academic), Joseph Stefano, The Wrong Man, Torn Curtain

since then, nol to mention scores of iK•^^• articles. At any rate, a quick count of books Can Hitchcock be Saved on Hitchcock currently available for sale on Amazon.com indicates eighty-seven new and old book titles. from Hitchcock Studies? Hooks on Hitchcock sell. For the past by John Belton twenty-Hve years, since the heyday of high auleuihm, university and trade presses have taken a beating on studies of film directors. But Hitchcock, partly because of his status as a cultural icon and partly because college film courses are regularly devoted to his work, has endured as a sitbiect for popular biographies and scholarly monographs. Robin Wood's hook, Hitchcock's l-ilins, sub- sequently retilled Hitchcock's Tihns Revisited, is perhaps the best exatnple of Hitchcock's enduring popularity. Originally published (in a green cover edition) by Zwemmcr in 1965, it was reissued in 1969 (in a yellow cover edition that included a chapter on ). A thirii edition came out in 1977 with a "Retiospective" on the earlier editions. In 1989, Columbia University Press reprinted it along with about 200 pages of new material. That edition was revised yet again in 2002 with a new forty-page preface and a new essay on Mamie. Wood's book holds a very special place in llnglish-language scholarship on Hitch- cock, being nol only {me of the first such books but also one of the best. At the same time, its various revisions document crucial shifts in films studies as a discipline and provide an important portrait of Hitch- cock's role, as a figure of study, in the devel- opment of critical paradigms from early (i/i/fHcism, to psychoanalysis, feminism, semiotics (of a sort), and queer studies. There are various ways of accounting for the proliferation of books and essays on Hitchcock. The most obvious explanation would seem to be that Hitchcock's oeuvre merits such attention, Sidney Ciottlieb, coeditor of a journal devoted exclusively to Hitchcock (The Hitchcock Annual) and of a recent anthology of essays from that journal, is one of the few scholars to address the phe- s Robert Kapsis ha.s noted in Hitch- cock himself and his attempt to control his nomenon of "Hitchcock Studies." He cock: The Making of a Reputation, construction as a celebrity-entertainer-artist observes that Hitchcock has been "val- A alway.s courted the in the media. But Hitchcock has been dead orized," "institutionalized," "commodified," press. From the early yeans in work- for twenty-three years now. At ihe time of and "proliferated" as a topic of study. ing for at Ciainsborough to his death, according to Jane Sloan's Alfred Although he considers the Hitchcock Indus- his final years in Hollywood working for Hitcheock: A Guide to References and Sources try to be a "mixed blessing," the fact is that at Universal, Hitchcock (1995), there were already over 540 articles Hitchcock, like Shakespeare, is a major artist attempted to produce and direct critical and books on Hitchcock, including a hand- in an art form—the cinema—that has response to himself and to his work. One of ful of essays by Hitchcock himself, numer- becotne the major artistic medium of the Hitchcock's favorite screenwriters, Charles ous interviews with him, and other pieces last century. To ensure the continued viabil- Bennett, told stories of Hitchct)ck spending \spawncd' by ihe director's efforts al gener- ity of Hitchcock Studies, Cottlieb then his entire weekly salary on elaborate (self-) ating publicity. We can, perhaps, 'blame' makes a series of recommendations de- promotional parties for 's film crit- Hitchcock for some of this material. signed to prevent the field from becoming ics back in the early iy3()s. Hitchcock lUu he is nol to be held entirely responsi- yet anolher instance of cultural commoditl- remained actively engaged in the publicity ble for whal happened after iiis death. Lroiii cation, instrunientali^ation, and reiflcation. for and promoliun of his films throughout then (April 28, 1980) to his centennial in One of his recommendations could be .said his career, personally conducting national 1999, more than sixty-four new books and to describe the best of recent work on press tours. 371 new critical essays were published. Hitchcock; it involves "de-centering" Hitch- It is possible, in other words, to trace the C'livcn that the 'Hitchcock Industry' really cock—that is, exploring the various "con- 'Hitchcock Indtistry,' the proHfciation of took off during the lODth anniversary of his texts of his work," "...his collaborators, his essays, articles, trade press, a)id academic birth (1999), one could guess that another historical milieu..." press books on Hitchcock, back to Hitch- tweniy-or-so books had been published A more cynical commentary on llitch-

16 CINEASTE, Fall 2003 cock Studies comt's from Peter Conrad, written hetween 1969 and 1979, as well as a author of The Hitchcock Murders. Conrad Books Reviewed in This Article 1980 piece on D. W. Griffith's The Lonedale refers to scholarly work on Hitchcock as Vertigo Operator. Wood prefaces the new edition of "bogus cerebration, a means of securing aca- by Charles Barr. London: his book with an extended discussion of his demic jobs." To some extent, the rise of (Distributed in the U.S. by University of Califor- life as a critic, focussing on his own intellec- Hitchcock Studies mirrors the rise of filtn nia Press), 2002. 96 pp., illus- Paperback: $12.95. tual, sexual, and ideological development studies as an academic discipline. This The Analysis of Film from his first essay on Hitchcock's Psyeho explanation iy complicated, I would argue, by Raymond liellocir. Edilcd by Conslana* Pen- for Cahiers du cinema in 1960 to his most by the appropriation of Him as a topic of ley. Bluominglon and Indiali.ipolis, IN: Indiana recent work on Mamie, published in the academic study by scholars (like Conrad) University Press, 2002. 328 pp., illas. Canadian journal CineAction in 1999. The who know little or nothing about film itself. Hardcover: S49.95 and Paperback: $19.95. new material is not what makes this book As David Bordwcll has suggested, Hitchcock the best book on Hitchcock, but, for those is the perfect object of study for English pro- The Hollywood I Knew: interested in Wood as a critic, this revision fessors {see Jotiathan Freedman and Richard A Memoir, 1916-1988 provides a certain sense of closure to the by Herbert Coleman. I.anham, MD: Scarecrow Miilington's Hitchcock's America, 1999). Press, 200.1. 416 pp., illus. Hardcover: $39.95. Wood-Hitchcock relationship. Hitchcock's films enjoy a certain accessibili- Wood's initial readings of seven films ty through their stylistic and thematic obvi- The Hitchcock Murders (Strangers on a Train, , Vertigo, ousness that is not the case for more 'diffi- by Peter Conrad. London: Faber and Faber, , Psyeho,The Birds, and cult' filmmakers such as Robert Bresson, 2002, 368 pp., illus. Hardcover: $25.00 Mamie) integrate sensitive analyses of nar- and Paperback: 515.00. Carl Dreyer, Yasujiro Ozu, Edward Yang, rative patterns and esthetic choices with the Howard Hawks, Michael Powell, Otto Pre- Writing with Hitchcock: elaboration of several interreiated strands of minger, and |ohn Stahl (who still has no The Collaboration of Alfred themes addressing moral development, book devoted to his work). Hitchcock and including the progression of Hitchcock's Conrad's assault on the Mitchcock by Stephen DeRosa. London: Faber and Faber, central characters from a state of mental, Industry is essentially an attack on the acad- 2001. 326 pp., illus. Paperback: $15,00. emolional, moral, or physical paralysis e m i c i 7 a t i o n of f i I in studies, which is toward some iorm of therapy or cure ("a undouhtedly a factor that has contrihuted to A Long Hard Look at character is cured of some weakness or by Raymond Hurgnal. London: Briiish f'ilm obsession by indulging it and living through the growth of scholarship on Hitchcock. Ray Institnte (Distributed in the U.S. by University Durgnat's new book on Hitchcock, A Long of California Press), 2002. 250 pp., iilus. ihe consequences"). Through identification Hard Look at Psycho (BFl, 2002), expresses a Hardcover: $63.00 and Paperback: $19.95. with the hero/ine, the audience undergoes a similar skepticism toward certain forms of similar process of cathartic redemption. At contemporary academic criticism, especially Footsteps in the Fog: the same time, Wood engaged in a kind of psychoanalysis, feminism, and structural- Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco protostructuralJsm, tracing the moral vicis- ism. Durgnat is contemptnons of what he by leff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal. situdes of Hitchcock's characters within a Introduclion by Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell. refers to as "Brand X feminists" and dis- Santa Monica, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2002. world of extremes—order and chaos, ego misses psychoanalysis, arguing that "much 288 pp., illus. Paperback: $24.95. and id, innocence and guilt, past and pre- Freudian theory tends to pansexualist sent, free will and predetermination, sanity reductionism" (i.e., Freudians tend to The Encyclopedia and insanity, and reality and faulasy/dream. explain everything in sexual terms). He does of Alfred Hitchcock For Wood, the common thread that ran not subscribe to theories of the gaze, the by 'I homas Leitcb. Foreword by Ciene D. Pbillips. throughout the films was the value ot dominance of the scopic drive, or notions New York: Checkmark Rooks (a division of human relationships in navigating these Facts on File, Inc.), 2002. 432 pp., illus. that the unconscious structures esthetic cre- [ lardcover: $60.00 and Paperback: S19.95. oppositions. ation or our experience of esthetic objects. Wood's revised edition situates Hitch- The academization of film studies, Hitchcock and the cock within larger contexts—the codes and spurred in part by the rise of Grand Theory Making o/Marnie conventions of British and American cine- in the 1970s, undoubtedly accounts for a by 'I ony Lee Moral. Lanham, MU: Scarecrow ma, the studio and star systems, and the certain proportion of the Hitchcock Indus- Press, 2002. 245 pp., illus. Hardcover: $29.95. debates of 1970s Crand Theory. The rela- try. ("Grand Theory" or "SLAB" theory [for Hitchcock's Films Revisited tively coherent construction of Hitchcock as Saussure, Lacan, Althusser, and BarthesI is a (Revised Edition) auteur of the earlier book disintegrates into term used by Bordwell and Noel Carroll to by Robin Wood. New York: Columbia University a fragmented, postmodern Hitchcock who describe the appropriation of theories origi- Press, 2002. 448 pp., illus. Paperback: $23.50. provides Wood with a foca! point for his nally developed to explain society, language, rethinking o^ auteur\?,n\, his appropriation and psychology for use in discussing the cin- of a humanist Marxism, and his self-procla- ema.) But that Industry is not confined to ed over the years in association with his own mation as gay feminist. This revision also acadeuie. Hitchcock continues to enjoy a TV shows, mystery anthologies, and talk explores issues of gender as they relate to tremendous popular appeal. Durgnat refers show appearances, guarantees the entertain- identification and the director's problematic to p-Titchcock's oft-quoted comments about ment value of his films. Hitchcock has been relation to patriarchy. his relationship with his audience in Psycho: commodified into a product line; the Hitch- Wood has never abandoned his notion of "Psycho has a very interesting construction cock industry has its mass market counter- moral development; indeed, it structures the and that game with the audience was ftisci- part^DVDs and videos of Hitchcock's new preface and his account of his own "pil- nating. I was directing the viewers. You major films. Amazon currently lists forty of grim's" progress, which he equates, via a might say I was playing them, like an the director's fifty-three feature films for symmetrical arrangement, with his final organ." saie on-line. chapter that documents Mamie's movement Hitchcock remains concerned for his The best of the 'new' books on Hitchcock toward a greater consciousness of who she audieuce and takes pride in his ability to are, not surprisingly, older works, especially is. As Wood writes: "I have never had the gauge their interests and, thus, to control Wood's Hitchcock's Films Revisited, which least difficulty in identifying with Marnie; I them. Hitchcock's films continue, quite Ht- dates back to 1965, and Raymond Bellour's knew, the first time I saw the film, that 1 am erally, to entertain audiences. For the gener- The Analysis of Film (Indiana University Marnie. And so the end of this book, as with al public, 'Hitchcock' has become a brand Press, 2000), a 1979 book originally pub- every good classical narrative, answers the name product—his name, carefully market- lished in French, which includes articles beginning..."

CINEASTE, Fan 2003kk 17 and 'business' with objects...It's also a 'dia- log,' between Marion's silent looks and the blank envelope." Though he does not openly acknowledge it, Durgnat seems to be writing a loosely- stitched-together, phenomenological ver- sion of what the editors of Cahiers du cine- ma referred to as an "active reading" of the texl. His goal is to capture the spectator's experience caught up in the "flow of uncer- tainties, the questions, the possibilities, in scenes as they go." Durgnat's account of the film mirrors his own thinking and argumen- tation as much as it does that of the film. For him, the narrative does not move "deterministically" through a tightly-knit chain of cause and effect hut rather "inde- terminately," through "webs of uncertain- ty." Bellour's Psycho, in which psychosis answers neurosis, would seem to contradict Durgnat's; Bellour suggests a more deter- ministic movement of the narrative. Durgnat likens Psycho to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and to Books 1 and 2 of Paradise Lost—"a spiritual journey, a The thrilling climax to Strangers on a Train (1951), as Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) poetico-lyricat description of twisted moral struggles with Guy Haines (Farley Granger) on a carousel (photo courtesy of Photofesti impulses," combining craftsmanship with "esthetic elegance." That works for me. As for Norman's stare at the end, for Durgnat it Sections of Bellour's The Analysis of Film they leave it like an autopsied cadaver in the is not a return of the camera's look but a have been translated into English previously morgue. They actually bring the text to life, stare "at nothing." The look, in turn, signi- in Camera Obscura and Screen, but his mag- lovingly animating its various pieces, and fies, for Durgnat, the operations of the film isterial, 115-page essay on North by Nortb- revealing the intellectual and emotional itself Referring to this look, Durgnat writes: west ("Symbolic Blockage") appears here in force—what Bellour calls "the desire of the " Sometimes, evil seeks to abolish the English for the first time. In addition to film"—that drives the film itself world...Sometimes to abolish the world, it essays on Hawks, MinnelH, and Griffith, the This is more or less the ohvious point to will first aholish itself; and that's Hitchcock's anthology includes analyses of segments return to Durgnat's book-lengtb essay on Psycho." from The Birds, Marnie, and Psycho, as well Psycho, A Long Hard Look at 'Psycho\ which There are two other new books devoted as meditations on film analysis itself ("A Bit is essentially a shot-hy-shot reading of the to Individual Hitchcock films—one by of History," "The Unattainable Text"). Bel- film. (Sadly, Durgnal died shortly after com- Charles Barr on Vertigo and another by lour's larger project is to identify and pleting this project.) Durgnat's work is Tony Lee Moral on Marnie. Both books describe the oedipal structures that underlie decidedly not semiotic. It's influenced not explore the collaborative nature of Hitch- classical Hollywood narrative cinema; by the structural linguistics of Roland cock's work, providing the sort ol "de-cen- Hitchcock's films function as his primary Bartbes and Christian Metz that inspired tered" study that Gottlieb encouraged as a texts. Bellour but by the "grammatical" notions ol way of "growing" Hitchcock studies in a Bellour sees in classical American cinema f~ilm language set forth in the work of Stefan productive and useful manner. Barr docu- the same preoccupation he found in his Sharff on Hitchcock {Alfred Hiteheoek's Fligh ments the evolution of Vertigo from novel to study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Vernaetilar, 1991, and The Art of Looking in film as it passed through the hands of three literature: the use of "Oedipus and castra- Hitchcock's Rear Window, 1997). Unlike separate screenwriters—, tion to organize conflict and sexual differ- Sharff, whose goal is purely formal (i.e., Alec Coppel, and Sam Taylor. Hitchcock ence around the restricted scene of the non-thematic), Durgnat grounds his essay frequently began script development with nuclear family." Hitchcock's films exemplify' in thematic concerns, in particular, on the the screenwriter he had worked with on his the oedipal nature of narrative through their optical motifs (eyes, looks, POV shots, mir- previous film; in this case, it was Anderson, implementation of what Bellour refers to as rors) that run through the film from the who had done the final script for The Wrong "symbolic blockage." By this he means that voyeuristic "eye" of the camera during the Man. Coppel was brought in to lay out the the films move through a "series of con- credits and the opening hotel room story in greater detail, Anderson left, Hitch- straints" in which desire is gradually recon- sequence to Norman's "stare" at the end of cock had a hernia operation, and, by the ciled with the law. This movement occurs the film. time he was ready to start work again, Cop- on a variety of levels. It can be seen narra- Looking and spectatorship provide pel was unavailable so he enlisted Taylor's tively in terms of the hero's oedipalization, a threads of unity for an essay that is other- help. Barr's research reveals the possible process that is most elaborately worked out wise digressive and fragmented. Indeed, influence of an Ambrose Bierce story, "Man in the journey narrative of North by North- Durgnat's running commentary attempts to Out of the Nose," on Taylor's draft. Bierce, a west. But it can also be seen stylistically in reconstruct the experience of the spectator San Francisco native, was cited on the title the movement from shot to shot and from (Durgnat's own experience as spectator?) page of Taylor's script; the Bierce story dealt scene to scene—a movement which plays on moment by moment through a quasipoelic with one man's obsession with another's difference, repetition, violations of expecta- redescription of the film, such as the follow- wife, who falls to her death when their eyes tion, variation, alternation, symmetry, and ing portrait of Marion "orbiling" the stolen first meet. dis-symmetry. Unlike other close readings, tnoney on her bed at home: "the scene is a Barr explores James Maxfield's reading his microscopic analyses in no way reduce soliloquy withotU words—it's thought "spo- of Vertigo as a reworking of Bierce's An the text to its fundamental elements nor do ken' by restless movements, body language Ocetirrence at Owl Creek Bridge, arguing that

18 CINEASTE, Fall 2003 "everything after the opening sequence is The Hollywood I Knew Hitchcock's longtime s h i p h o a r d, honeymoon "rape scene." the dream or fantasy of a dying man." Cer- associate producer Herbert Coleman goes to Hunter insisted that Mark was not the kind tainly, Vertigo is one of Hitchcock's most similar lengths to discredit Spoto, referring of person who would rape Marnie, explain- oneiric works, as Barr suggests, but there is to his "numerous misquotes, mistakes, and ing that "Stanley Kowalski might rape her, clearly a significant difference between being outright inventions." The books by Moral but not Mark Rutland." When Hunter sent dreamlike and being an actual dream. Barr's and Coleman are presented as revisionist Hitchcock a script without the rape scene essay plays with these two possibilities, sug- efforts to set the record straight. and with a ditferent honeymoon night, gesting that the filjn encourages a kind of Moral's provides a firstrate history of the Hitchcock replaced him with Allen, who hesitation in the spectator between objective developtnent of Mamie ivom its initial status agreed with the director's original vision of and subjective narration, between "yarn" as a vehicle for to controversies the scene. and dream, between an experience of it all as generated during the scriptwriting process Moral admits that Hitchcock's relation- "real" and ail as a fantastical "construction." over the "rape scene" to the working rela- ship with Hedren was tense during the mak- This hesitation between one perception and tionship on the set between Hitchcock and ing oi Marnie. Hedren wanted out of her another exactly describes the first half of the his actors. contract with Hitchcock and planned to film in which the "reality" that Scottie actu- Reviewing the correspondence between marry her agent after the completion of ally sees is a fiction created by Gavin Elster Hitchcock and Crace Kelly, Moral makes it filming. When Hedren wanted to fly to New (or Hitchcock or, if Maxfield is right, by clear that Kelly's withdrawal from the film York to accept a Photoplay award as "The Scottie himself). lu this sense, Vertigo lays had nothing to do with the common Star of Tomorrow," Hitchcock refused to let bare the operations of all cinema in which assumption that she did so out ot deference her go. Moral explains that "Hedren the spectator hesitates between an immer- to the people of Monaco who were unhappy believed it was the culmination of Hitch- sion of the pleasures of the deception and an with (he thought of their princess playing a cock's excessive control over her life" and awareness of the constructed nature of that compulsive thiet. In fact, Kelly withdrew that their relationship never recovered from deception. Al any rate, Barr's notion of hesi- because of a political crisis that had arisen that dispute. Though Moral never directly tation offers one of the best explanations between France and Monaco over the lat- refutes Spoto's reports ot an unwanted "sex- I've ever read of the film's ending, which ter's tax policies and both Keily and her hus- ual advance," his book suggests that this was leaves botb Scottie and the spectator sus- band. Prince Rainier, deemed it inadvisable not the case and that Spoto's accusations pended and the narrative unresolved. to leave the country at that time. With have subsequently distorted the reception of Moral's account of Hitchcock and the Kelly's departure and the delay of the pro- the film. Making of Marnie also stresses the collabora- ject, Hitchcock lost the services of Joseph Moral's book dt>cuments Marnie as a tive nature ot the film's production. But Stefano, his original screenwriter. When he collaborative effort. Several of the new Moral's book clearly belongs to a somewhat began work on the film again, it was with books suggest that Hitchcock was not always different genre of scholarship than Barr's. Its Fvan Hunter (aka Ed McBain) who had easy to work with. Evan Hunter and Tippi focus and organization of topics looks back worked with him on The Birds. Moral Hedren were not the only members of the to earlier projects by Stephen Rebello (Alfred quotes some fascinating correspondence Hitchcock team that had run-ins with the Hitchcock and the Making