In an over view of five different films directed by Alfred Hitchcock between 1940 and 1954 (Rebecca, Spellbound, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, and Rear Window), there is found an unmistakable style identifying the "Hitchcockery" touch. First of all, the "bomb theory" is used in these Hitchcock films--the audience knows more than the characters do. However just when the audience thinks they've figured it out, something else unfolds, and the big picture is never clear until the movies' end. Then there is always what Hitchcock calls "the MacGuffin" within these films--something that is of importance to the characters, but of little or no importance to the audience. Also evident is his use of subjective camera. He creates suspense by visual means through objects and reaction shots. Relying mostly on these visual means, he tells the same story each time, carried with a complex dialectic style, by merely changing the characters. Like an obsession with the idea of innocence and guilt, each of these five stories purvey differences between appearance, assumption and reality, the unpredictable bases of relationships and the importance of trust.

Although Hitchcock's first American film, Rebecca (1940), was actually a David O. Selznick film, we see the reflections of Hitchcocks' visual touches and style through out film. The story is told in flashback and opens with a long shot accompanied by the female main character's voice-over that carries us, in one fluid shot, from the outer gates of the Manderley estate closer to the shadowy, burnt-down mansion. At the outset of the flashback, Hitchcock uses visual means of minimal shooting to tell us a woman has walked up on a man who is about to commit suicide by jumping from a cliff. This is the first introduction of the two main characters who we soon find are from different worlds. Maxim de Winter (Lawrence Olivier) is a rich widower with a superior cultured and educated background while the unnamed American girl (Joan Fontaine) is a shy and reserved girl from a more simple background. Like a Cinderella story, they quickly fall in love and marry before knowing one another well, and then the girl is whisked away to their castle to live happily ever after--or so it seemed. Upon their arrival, they are met by the huge staff at the estate and an intimidating supervisor who makes her feel out of place. At first it seems easy enough for the new Mrs. de Winter to fill the empty space in Maxim's heart and home due to the loss of his wife, Rebecca. However, the new bride is soon shadowed by the memory of her predecessor and made to feel unwelcome even by Maxim when it comes to the subject of his glamorous, late wife. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that nothing is as it seems concerning both the relationship between Maxim and Rebecca, nor the circumstances of her death. It turns out that Rebecca was a tramp with a heartless character whom Maxim despised. Secretly knowing she was dieing of cancer, Rebecca commits suicide in way to make it look as if her husband had killed her. In the end, the new Mrs. de Winter's trust in her husband and their love convinces Maxim to come into the light of justice, and trust that it will find him innocent of his wife's death--which it does. Although the mansion is a mystery itself, it seems to me that the MacGuffin in this story could also be Rebecca as her identity is unimportant to the audience. However the revelation of her true character is what lets the important aspects of the film flow--the relationship between Maxim and the girl, the revelation of Maxims concealed feeling toward Rebecca and his innocence in her death.

While still under contract with Selznick, Hitchcock directs the romantic thriller Spellbound (1945) which entertains the psychological ideas of dream theory. Again Hitchcock gives us a love story of two-fold transformation with opposites as main characters--a psychoanalyst and her patient. The amnesiac man (Gregory Peck), who assumes the identity of another doctor he believes he has killed, first comes to the psychoanalyst (Ingred Bergman) as a colleague, and they quickly fall in love. Just as quickly, his false identity is discovered and he becomes her patient after he begins to behave wildly with uncontrollable, emotional outbursts whenever he sees lines on a white surface. In an attempt to free him from this guilt of murder, which she doesn't believe he committed, she allows a blind trust in love to search for the proof of his innocence, and ultimately his cure, through analyzing his dreams. In perfect Hitchcock style, the story goes further when his innocence is discovered. Not only is the real murder uncovered, but also the childhood trauma that chained the patient to his feelings of guilt in the first place. In the end, the story becomes a release and freedom to not only the patient, but also the psychoanalyst as her determination to treat him brings alive the feelings and romance she's never experienced. Here I would say that the psychoanalytic procedure in which the patient is treated is the MacGuffin as it frees them both to establish a normal relationship.

In Notorious (1946), Hitchcock makes us forget that the story concerns the penetration theme of espionage. Instead, we follow the romantic story of the two main characters who, upon meeting, are in a way opposites -- an American intelligence agent and the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy. T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) approaches the Alicia Huberman (Ingred Bergman) with an offer to work as a counterspy for America as she is the perfect person to plant in such a position--not only because of her father's reputation with the Nazi's, but also because the man who holds the enemy secrets that America is after was once in love with Alicia. Devlin and Alicia quickly fall in love before she leaves on her mission which she conveniently penetrates as the man with the secrets has proposed marriage to her. When Alicia's indentity is discovered by the man and his mother, they quietly begin poisoning her slowly, and Devlin rescues her from death. The important concern of the story--Devlin and Alicia's relationship--is a two-fold transformation concerning trust. Alicia to be trusted in her love for Devlin, and Devlin to let go and trust himself to love. The story is also very much about concealed feelings. For instance, near the story's beginning when Alicia learns her father has committed suicide, we see Devlins emerging, but unacknowledged, feelings for her in his glances. They both avert gazing at each other to cover emotion as well. Also concealed are Alicia's false affections for the Nazi man she has married in order to ultimately betray him. The MacGuffin in this story is undoubtably the bottled uranium Devlin and Alicia discover in the man's wine cellar as it is only a device to move the story along.

In Rear Window (1954), Hitchcock plays with the idea of innocence and guilt in another fashion where the long-term, yet uncommitted, relationship of the main characters, L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) and Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly)--again opposites--become closer and more committing after they team together to uncover Jeffies suspicions of a nearby, neighborhood murder. The entire movie is shot, through subjective visuals, from Jeffies apartment as the elements of his suspicions build through his observations from his window of a couple in another apartment. At first the evidence is sketchy to both the audience and Jeffries' girlfriend Lisa. But she puts her trust in him to the test, literally risking her life, to help Jeffries, who is temporarily confined to a wheelchair due to an injury, get the evidence he needs to confirm his suspicions that a man has murdered his invalid wife in an apartment across the courtyard. Her actions make Jeffries see her in a whole new light. She is suddenly not so indifferent in his eyes and worthy of a committing relationship. Whereas the other films take the viewer from the larger to the smaller viewpoint, this film takes the viewer from the inside to the outside. The MacGuffin in this story is the murder because no one actually sees the murder happen, but it gets the story's central concern--Lisa and Jefferies' closer relationship--flowing.

In yet another straight forward film, Strangers on a Train (1951), the main characters are both men, but they are still opposites. Guy representing the lighter side of human nature, and Bruno the darker side. Both men have a desire to be rid of burdensome people in their lives--Guy longs to be set free through divorce by his wife so he can marry his lover, and Bruno longs to be rid of his hated father. Bruno suggests what he sees as a fail-safe exchange of murders that could never be convicting because of the lack of motive to make each of them suspects--Bruno will kill Guys wife if Guy will kill Bruno's father. Although Guy sees the idea as crazy, Bruno kills Guy's wife and expects Guy to now fulfill his end by killing Bruno's father. When Guy refuses to do so, Bruno attempts to set Guy up for his wife's murder by planting Guy's lighter at the crime scene. When Guy goes to the scene--an amusement park-- to stop him, they fight and Bruno is accidentally killed. Hitchcock's style really comes out in the murder scene--Bruno has followed Guy's wife to amusement park. He lights her cigarette, and then we see only her face looking directly at the camera. Bruno steps into the frame as he grabs her throat. After her glasses fall of and hit the ground, we watch the murder in the reflection of one of the broken glasses lens. The MacGuffin in this story is the lighter of course!

TooniOneFeather 2002

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