Buts & Rebuts Hitchcock: a Defense and an Update tent. This is the heart of his attack: conformance with their own troubled by David Lubin Hitchcock, Thomson is claiming, neu- mental state. And that is why you don't rotically regulates his film frame by get well-rounded characters; a man All the wrathful prose in David frame because his attitude towards life is obsessed to the exclusion of all else is Thomson's "The Big Hitch" (FILM frightened, repressed, life-denying. anything but well-rounded. Such a char- COMMENT, March-April 1979) can be What Thomson assumes here is an acter can have no gradation of moral col- boiled down to two accusations against equivalence between the desire to dom- oring precisely because he is too deeply : his films lack moral inate aesthetic materials and the desire stained by his one all-consuming pas- probity and his interviews lack soul. to have absolute control over life itself. sion. Hitchcock's is an art that highlights Thomson's attack should be placed in Such an assumption is naively reduc- one character-trait at the expense of perspective, not because Hitchcock tive. To refute it, one need look no fur- others just as it highlights a single detail needs to be defended but because those ther than to Jean Renoir and a film such in a room full of details—a gun, a wine who take their film study seriously can't as The River, in which, though life flows botde. afford to get carried away by polemics freely in and out of the frame, the leaves Thomson comes up with an honor roll that have the enticing aroma of a on the trees were carefully spray-painted of great directors such as Renoir, Ozu, naughty dissent from critical consensus. prior to shooting. Is that particular act of and Mizoguchi to pit against Hitchcock. Both arguments that Thomson em- aesthetic manipulation to be regarded as They, it is true, portray for us " the dig- ploys have been around for a long time, a sign of moral stunting within Renoir nity of ordinary lives," but that's because used in conjunction with high-toned cri- himself? they tend to be domestic realists tiques of poets, painters, and musicians If there is any consistant message at whereas Hitchcock is an expressionist, ages before either Alfred Hitchcock or all in Hitchcock films, it's that one's at- with different but equally legitimate ar- motion pictures came to be. tistic and moral goals. As long as the arts What bothers Thomson about the have been around, this dichotomy of Hitchcock interviews is not simply that, styles has existed. Is Thomson, by im- as he puts it, metaphysical questions get plication, suggesting that pastoral poetry shopkeeper answers. What is worse is is aesthetically and morally finer than that the director takes so damned much epic poetry, Elizabethan comedy than pleasure in talking about matters of French neoclassic tragedy, and Dutch mere technique—a fact which for genre painting than that of the Italian Thomson gives proof that Hitchcock is mannerists? something considerably less than a True In narrative terms, Hitchcock's work Artist. But is the compulsion to talk is in the tradition of Virgil, Dante, trade so that contemptibly Philistine? tempts at control mean very little in the Milton, Hawthorne, and Melville For, far from severing technique from face of life, chance, accident. Invariably, —storytellers whose moral universe is meaning, Hitchcock has rather consis- Hitchcock characters who seek to map one in which an eternal warfare rages be- tently used the former to enrich and am- out their own destinies as immaculately tween Good and Evil. It is a universe of plify the latter with an authenticity be- as Hitchcock himself maps out his films polarities, and thus for them, reality is longing only to a handful of artists in any are rudely interrupted. Look at poor inherently dramatic, or if you will, melo- given medium. Despite what some un- Alex Sebastian in Notorious, or the two dramatic, because the opposition be- sympathetic observers might think, students in Rope, or Rusk, "the Necktie tween forces is continual. A Renoir, Hitchcock's technical complexity never Murderer," in : their determined Ozu, or Mizoguchi, having an inclusive outdistances his films' moral complex- efforts to orchestrate their own and or "synthetic" moral imagina- ity, but rather serves to evoke it. The others' experience come unraveled, at tion—"everyone has his reasons"—does runaway carousel, for example, is not first little by little, but then totally. The not think in terms of polarities and oppo- simply the pretext for a special effects moral, if one feels the need to ascertain a sitions the way that the exclusive, "ana- tour deforce, but also serves to strikingly moral, is that you can succeed at manip- lytic" artist does, and therefore tends metaphorize a personality, or even more ulating strips of film and other material toward a vastly different portrayal of life, seriously, a society that may at any in- objects, but you can't get away with ma- one that is interested in reproducing the stant go spinning out of control. nipulating reality. whole spectrum of light rather than an It is on this very issue of control that Jefferies in , Scottie in expressionistic chiaroscuro. (Renoir, by Thomson most vigorously takes Hitch- Vertigo, Norman in Psycho, and Mamie the way, although this is commonly cock to task. Worse than form without are all individuals who, in their own so- overlooked, had throughout his career content, he seem to be saying, is form lipsism, struggle against the world to an expressionist, anti-realist streak in which indexes a morally-deficient con- twist and distort what's out there into him, from his early The Little Match Girl

66 to his late Petit Theatre.) sense, modern-day mythic, it is only pathies. In , we root A synthetic-minded filmmaker—a natural that their fates are often played for Roger Thornhill all the way because Bazanian realist—is likely to incline out, on, in, or adjacent to modern-day he is as witty as he is brave. In Strangers towards deep-focus photography be- mythical—tourist-attracting— struc- on a Train, we end up liking Bruno, the cause that mirrors his way of perceiving tures such as the Statue of Liberty, the nominal villain, better than Guy, the life itself, whereas an analytical-minded Sugarloaf in Rio, a Dutch windmill, an hero who is over-eager to enter the ranks filmmaker will turn more naturally to amusement park, the Albert Hall, or of society. shallow-focus photography and cutting. Mount Rushmore. In Hitchcock, "high society" always This is not because his attitude towards Hitchcock's films are indeed dis- stands for society at large. The same is life is shallow and manipulative, but be- guised myths or fairytales, and like true in the fiction of Henry James. This cause he thinks dialectically, thinks in myths and fairytales, appeal to us on is only one of many similarities between terms of oppositions. An analytic imagi- manifold levels. Superficially, good tri- the work of the short, bald, corpulent nation breaks down whatever it sees into umphs in the end. Beneath the surface, American who moved to England and component and opponent parts; when however, the conflict is shown to remain the short, bald, corpulent Englishman that imagination is also expressionist, as eternal and unresolved: Scottie solves who moved to America. Although the in Hitchcock's case, those which don't the mystery and is avenged, but stands narratives of one are actionless whereas are dispensed with. totally alone on the ledge, suspended in those of the other are rife with action, Hence Hitchcock's often remarked- the middle of the screen existentially as both artists are analytic thinkers, expres- upon close-ups of material objects. The well as cinematographically; Norman is sionists, intensive manipulators of their reason the wine bottle full of uranium safely locked away now, but is as far respective media. Both have a penchant dust fills the screen, or the reason the gone as can be. Thomson suggests that for endowing a material object—a paint- camera swoops from a great distance Hitchcock's work would be the delight ing or a bowl in James, a key or away right up to a key in the hand is not, of totalitarians because of the calculated cigarette lighter in Hitchcock—with an as Thomson implies, because Hitch- way in which it calls forth forceful emo- ever-widening set of dramatic and meta- cock cares more for inanimate objects tions, but what Thomson forgets is that physical overtones. Both experiment than people, but because his sensibility a work of propaganda, unlike a work of with narrative devices such as point of sees in the concrete, symbols of the cos- art, cannot abide even the mere hint of view (The Ambassadors/Rear Window, mic. The expressionist needs symbols irresolution and ambiguity. The Golden Bowl/Psycho). And with both because they stand for life, not as com- On the surface, the Hitchcock narra- artists, that experimentation is always mon sense reveals it, but rather as he tive is precautionary, just as is, on the subservient to theme: the use of a lim- sees it. surface, a fairytale: "Don't do this—or ited viewpoint is as necessary for dealing The same sort of distinction applies to else." If that's as deep as Hitchcock with Jefferies' voyeurism as it is with "sense of place." The realist strives for a goes, Thomson would be justified in Strether's. The typical James and Hitch- common sense, empiric accuracy in de- seeing here an art that negates life and cock characters are forced to function picting the scene in which his action advocates a refusal to enter into it. He not only in a highly repressive society, takes place, but the expressionist flat- would be correct in claiming that this but also under strict formalistic control. tens, heightens, highlights, distorts, and controller of spectator emotions "puts As a result, these characters often give otherwise alters the backdrop so that it the audience through it as a torturer, not evidence of a barely-contained passion might serve as an objective correlative to a moral scientist or a teacher." That, that may at any moment explode. I'm states of mind and to theme. The back- however, is far from what is really taking not talking about the famous Hitchcock drop, like the inanimate symbolic ob- place in either a good Hitchcock film or a glacial blonde that supposedly becomes ject, is used to express feeling or mean- good fairytale. a wild-woman in the bedroom, but ing or both. The mansion, Instead, the audience is thrust vica- rather of someone like Alex Sebastian or the wayside motel, the Moroccan Cas- riously into a symbolic realm of moral James' Merton Densher. bah, are there not as reported facts nor, contest, and thus receives the opportu- People accuse both James and Hitch- as one would suppose from reading nity in this "laboratory" or "classroom" cock of being cold manipulators, but Hitchcock interviews, to merely provide environment (the movie theater, the what could be more charged with inter- atmosphere healthy for the box-office, campfire) to practice deciphering be- nal emotion than the story of an enor- but because they help to throw into re- tween disguised good and evil, and per- mously wealthy, fatally-diseased young lief the moral as well as dramatic issues haps more importantly, to become woman who discovers that the man she at stake. The realist might wish to help wisely accustomed to sensations of dan- loves is marrying her purely for her us understand and care for the people ger and fear. When as children we ad- money, or a man so full of impious adora- who crowd the Casbah, but Hitchcock mire Jack's strength as he climbs the tion for the woman who deceived him doesn't do that because he chooses in- beanstalk, applaud his bravery, love him that he entirely shelves his ordinary, stead to amplify his protagonists' sense for his high spirits, and cheer his inge- everyday life so that he might go chasing of helplessness and isolation in order to nuity, we unconciously resolve to make after her ghost? It's appropriate that involve us in the fight between good and those qualities our own. Likewise, we Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo score relies evil that is about to get underway. In In- instinctively shy away from those char- heavily upon the "Liebestod" from dia, Renoir showed the faces, and in- acters, not the witches and wizards who Wagner's Tristan. For what Richard directly the soul, of the peasants in the are evil yet resplendant, but rather the Strauss exclaimed of that opera—"Such marketplace, but then his theme was stay-at-home older brothers who are stu- fire of sustained passion! It could have about the timeless unity of all mankind, pid, vain, cowardly, self-righteous, and been written only by a man of ice!" not it timeless opposition. selfish. Hitchcock films evoke from us a —might certainly be said of that cine- Since Hitchcock's characters are, in a similar set of moral sympathies and anti- matic masterpiece. ®

68 cock has the strength to make another an error-free delivery. One of the gaffes by Joseph McBride film. rectified in the editing was Hitchcock's Hitchcock had a pacemaker im- describing his honor as the "Lifetime On the very day he received the first planted in his chest two years ago, and Amusement Award," though there were American Film Institute Life Achieve- he now finds that arthritis in his legs those in the audience who felt that ment Award in 1973, John Ford signed makes it difficult for him to walk. On the Hitchcock may have purposely misread his last will and testament, and exactly day of the tribute, readers of the Los the cue card at that point. The stitching five months later he was dead of cancer. Angeles Times were told by Charles Cha- process was evident to careful viewers, Though all of the subsequent six recipi- plin in an interview-profile of Hitchcock however, because Hitchcock was stand- ents are still with us, the AFI tributes that aside from having to walk with a ing when he taped the speech against a from the beginning have always had the cane, Hitchcock was in better health black background in the afternoon, and uncomfortable feeling of premature fu- than he had been before the pacemaker was sitting when he repeated it at the neral rites. "I hope I'm still alive when was implanted. What the readers dinner. He tried to stand up when AFI the AFI salutes me," Burt Reynolds weren't told was that the day before the director George Stevens Jr. handed him joked in his recent FILM COMMENT dinner, AFI officials were thrown into a the award, but he fell back into his chair interview. As the AFI hurries to bestow panic when Hitchcock's doctors forbade in full view of the national TV audience. belated honors on the ever-dwindling him to attend. As a precautionary meas- Pasetta skillfully edited out other em- number of great old-timers still in our ure, his acceptance speech was taped in barrassing moments, tightening, for ex- midst, geriatric names naturally domi- advance, on the afternoon of the event. ample, Hitchcock's painfully intermina- nate the proceedings and will for the Hitchcock finally mustered up the ble entrance into the ballroom and dis- next decade to come. Since Ford, the strength to attend the ceremony guising his slowness with rapid, multi- winners have been James Cagney, Or- —defying his doctors' orders to use his directional cutting. But he left in Hitch- son Welles (the youngest, at a mere 59), cane when he entered the ballroom of cock's turning to Cary Grant and clearly William Wyler, Bette Davis, Henry the Beverly Hilton Hotel—but he had mouthing "Who's that?" when Sean Fonda, and now Alfred Hitchcock, who trouble getting through the speech at Connery, the male lead of Mamie and was honored March 7. the dinner even with the aid of cue also of Hitchcock's current film project, Among those most prominently un- cards. was introduced. Pasetta admitted that der consideration for future honors are As Todd McCarthy reported in Daily he had received some criticism for in- Frank Capra, James Stewart, Cary Variety several days later, TV director cluding that moment, but defended his Grant, George Cukor, and King Vidor, Marty Pasetta had to intercut both decision by shrugging, "That's Hitch." with the ailing John Wayne also sure to speeches to give viewers the illusion of In addition to his own state of health, receive serious consideration for next year's award. The only person known to have turned down the award is the reclu- sive Katharine Hepburn, though the AFI received similarly negative re- sponse when it put out feelers to inti- mates of Greta Garbo. Perhaps, after the AFI has finished honoring as many of the elderly greats it can get to in the next few years, the pool of worthy honorees will be in better shape to receive their tributes. That should spare us the ghastly sight of a doddering Steven Spielberg being pushed out in his wheelchair to receive his award, or a toothless Peter Fonda feebly escorting his white-haired sister Jane to the dais for her acceptance speech. These morbid musings are occas- sioned by the Hitchcock dinner, which was the most painful to watch since Ford's. In the three years since Hitch- cock made his last major public appear- ance (plugging in a national closed-circuit press conference), his physical condition has deteriorated alar- mingly. Despite optimistic assertions from Hitchcock and his backers at Uni- versal Studios, close friends of the ven- erable seventy-nine-year-old director sadly admit what was obvious to anyone who watched the AFI event in person or on CBS-TV: it is unlikely that Hitch-

69 another of Hitchcock's worries on the dead-panned, "No, Bruce, I know what calls for several elaborate visual set- day of the dinner was whether his wife we should write—'Fuck MCA.' " pieces in the tradition of Hitchcock's Alma, an invalid since two strokes left Family Plot, though not without its classic thrillers (including a bravura aer- her partially paralyzed, would be able to charms, was generally considered a dis- ial tracking shot which is meticulously attend. She made it, and indeed seemed appointment, and it's unfortunate that described over a page and a half in the more alert than her husband, who sat Hitchcock probably won't get another screenplay, and a climactic train chase impassive as a statue throughout most of chance to cap his career with a final mas- across the Russian border), Hitchcock's the evening. Both Hitchcocks require terpiece. Frangois Truffaut, whose associates say it is not so much the visual round-the-clock nursing care at their Bel book-length interview with Hitchcock mechanics which engage his fascination, Air home, but Hitchcock doggedly has become the standard text on the di- but, as always, the interplay of suspicion clings to his routine of holding story con- rector, came to Hollywood for the Hitch- and trust in the suspenseful love story. ferences every weekday in his bungalow cock tribute and also for his own concur- As Truffaut observed in his testimonial at Universal for his 54th film project, a rent AFI retrospective. Truffaut's at the AFI dinner, "You respect him be- spy thriller called The Short Night. spirits, already dampened by the death cause he films scenes of love as if they Though plagued all his life by obe- Feb. 12 of his other cinema mentor, Jean were scenes of murder. We respect him sity, Hitchcock remained relatively ro- Renoir, were made even more somber because he films scenes of murder as if bust until his wife had her first mild by his awareness of Hitchcock's infirmi- they were scenes of love." stroke in 1972. Intensely devoted to his ties. At a discussion following a Holly- The screenplay of The Short Night is so home life, Hitchcock, as biographer wood screening of Hitchcock's Shadow vivid and precise in its visual detailing John Russell Taylor reports in his re- of a Doubt, which Truffaut selected to (aside from long dialogue master scenes, cently published Hitch, reacted to show how Hitchcock has influenced which are not broken down into shots) Alma's stroke by "neglecting his own him, Truffant commented, "I regret that a reader familiar with Hitchcock's carefully guarded health, abandoning that Hitchcock is not fifteen or twenty style has little trouble imagining it on his usual regime and eating and drinking years younger, because he made his last the screen. Despite Hitchcock's tradi- with more freedom than for many few films before the recent tendency in tional protestations that the actual shoot- years—almost as though he felt he was Hollywood to increase budgets for films. ing of a film bores him, it is clear from only taking care of himself for Alma, and Hitchcock would be the best director for the script that what would make it come the possibility of life without Alma was disaster movies. It's a shame that while alive is the intangible chemistry be- not to be contemplated." Her second, directors today have the ability to do in- tween the director and the performers more serious stroke accelerated his own credible visual things, he can't take ad- enacting the love story. The first writer process of decline. vantage of it. . . Yet I still prefer in his Hitchcock turned to for the project was If the last few years have been an or- films the scenes which deal with'human James Costigan (Love Among the Ruins), deal for Hitchcock physically, his ad- relationships. We speak too often of the but they couldn't agree on the approach, mirers around the world have the sat- strong visual side of his films and not so Hitchcock brought back Ernest isfaction that, unlike so many other vet- enough of the emotions in them." Lehman, who wrote North by Northwest eran directors, he has never been After Family Plot, Hitchcock vacil- and Family Plot. shunted aside by Hollywood as "un- lated for a while about his next project. This was a major surprise to Holly- bankable." His last real hit was The Birds Universal still refuses to let him shoot wood observers, because Hitchcock in 1963, but Universal has been respect- his dream project, James M. Barrie's clashed with Lehman on Family Plot ful and indulgent, as well it should be, wistfully melancholic ghost story Mary and actually went so far as to tell journal- considering that Hitchcock owns a large Rose, which it evidently considers too ists that it was the strain of working with chunk of the stock of Universal's parent odd; Hitchcock's current contract at the Lehman that caused him to have the company, MCA Inc. Much of his hold- studio, he told me, actually contains a pacemaker implanted. Hitchcock re- ings were acquired when he sold his two clause enjoining him from making Mary garded the pacemaker as a badge of TV series to Universal's syndication Rose, though he slyly confessed that he honor, opening his shirt in Chasen's res- arm, and MCA stock has split twice sneaked a bit of Mary Rose into the taurant to show it to a Variety reporter, since then, giving Hitchcock a comfort- opening seance scene in Family Plot. tapping the device and solemnly inton- able haven in a studio not always noted His sights eventually turned toTheShort ing, "Ernie Lehman did this to me." for its dedication to the art of the cin- Night, a Ronald Kirkbride novel based Evidently all was forgiven, and Lehman ema. During the shooting of Family on the real-life story of British traitor finished the script of The Short Night on Plot, Hitchcock gleefully received daily George Blake, who defected to Moscow June 26, 1978. But when a production reports on the boxoffice receipts of Jaws, after being convicted of causing the staff was assembled, and it became ap- which caused his stock to soar to even deaths of forty-two British agents. parent that the extensive location shoot- greater heights. Hitchcock has retained The central character (to be played by ing in Finland would necessitate relegat- a certain irreverence toward his financial Connery) is a brother of one of the ing those scenes to a second-unit di- patrons, however. When I visited the set traitor's victims; sent by intelligence rector, Hitchcock, rather than face facts of Family Plot during the height of the agencies to kill the traitor before he and cancel the film, temporized by dis- Jaws euphoria, I heard Bruce Dern and reaches the USSR, the Connery char- banding the production staff and calling Hitchcock discussing whether they acter finds the pursuit complicated in for a script rewrite by David Freeman, should scrawl graffiti on the outside wall perversely romantic Hitchcockian fash- which is still in progress at this time. of William Devane's garage hideaway. ion when he falls in love with the traitor's "Nothing will ever stop Hitch," his Dern jokingly suggested painting the wife (Liv Ullman), finally winning over wife declared at Hitchcock's seventy- Jaws ad logo of a gaping shark's mouth her divided loyalty and persuading her fifth birthday party. Now he's trying his on the wall, but Hitchcock puckishly to join in the killing. Though the script damnedest to prove her right.®

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