Hitch

I went to see Rear Window last night, during one of those “Classic Movie” showings at the local movie theatre. I have most of my favorite Hitchcock movies on disc, but nothing beats seeing one of his films on the big screen. And that’s kind of the beauty of this director’s work, because his films are so very visual and yet they are all about the interior, the person’s mind in all its terrifying complexity. His art lies in devilishly taking us into his characters’ thoughts and feelings, while weaving a suspenseful and vibrant film around them.

Alfred Hitchcock seems to be making a comeback these years, in biopics like The Girl or Hitchcock, and series inspired by his movies, like Bates Motel. He certainly is present by means of his influence on directors like Pedro Almodovar or Darren Aranofsky. This might just lure the younger generation of movie goers to his films; or maybe not, given young people’s appetite for blockbusters.

The Rope - Dial M for Murder - Marnie

Alfred Hitchcock is the anti-blockbuster director par excellence, yet his movies provide more thrill and suspense than any of the multi-million dollar, loud and flashy modern day films of this type. Many of Hitchcock’s greatest films take place in a room or similar confined space; they are all about the acting, the sets and location and his singular camera angles and movements. And they are not movies made to simply entertain, nor are they the type that take on broad social or political issues; his are movies that deal in the everyday person, in their psyche and in deep human relationships.

In Rear Window, with the first wide-screen shots of James Stewart’s face, his beautiful blue eyes, we are drawn into his feelings and thoughts and move through the movie seeing everything this voyeur sees from his room, where basically all the action takes place. Spellbound, The Rope, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, Rebecca, Marnie and, of course, Psycho all have this common thread of the action and thrill being the protagonists’ minds and the tension between the dark and twisted mind of one of the characters as seen by the other, which is us, his audience, caught in the terrifying grip of those tangled minds.

Salvador Dali designed dream in Spellbound

Even those other famous films, the suspenseful ones that deal more in the story of the wrong person at the wrong place and time, like North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew too Much, The Birds or Notorious, strong human relationships are still at the core. 

North by Northwest

And though he dealt with the everyday man and woman, in reality the Hitchcock protagonists of the films I’ve mentioned are not really ordinary folk, unless you consider people that look and act like Cary Grant, Lawrence Olivier, James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Ingrid Bergman or Tippy Hedren ordinary. Yet he sort of made them so. He was able to draw these beautiful, yet great actors into his movies more than often; Cary Grant and James Stewart both made four films with Hitchcock, and Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman made three each.

It is well known (or rumored) that “Hitch” was sexist, quite harsh with his female actors and never gave enough credit to his wife and long-time collaborator Alma Reville. Also that he showed preference for “cool” blondes. While this may be true, if one hadn't read these rumors, we could easily think the opposite, because the female leads in Hitchcock’s films are not just beautiful, they are strong, intelligent, witty women; none of them are “housewife” like. They are not “the other” in his films, they go tête-à-tête with the male characters. In fact, in many of his films, like The Birds or Rebecca, they are the main protagonist.

Grace Kelly-Kim Novak-Tippy Hedren in Hitchcock films.

The male and female relationships in his movies, while many times very romantic, are light years away from the sorry ones we see in “rom-coms” today. They are mature relationships, these are adults, they are complex, and at the same time, they are full of humor and in no way dull. They are also not easy. Vertigo, of course, comes to mind as the most complex of all, but in Notorious or even in Rear Window, the romantic relationship between the protagonists is real and deep. These are not cliché romances.

Hitchcock directed 69 films. He considered Shadow of a Doubt his favorite. This movie, which starred Joseph Cotten, had a screenplay by Thornton Wilder and the author of the story, Gordon McDonell was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story. This was another art of Hitchcock: to bring out the best in the writers and the actors that worked with him. Many of the most famous films of the Hollywood legends mentioned were made by Hitchcock.

It speaks volumes of Hollywood that despite his contributions to cinema, Alfred Hitchcock was never awarded a Best Director Academy Award. He was nominated five times and Rebecca won Best Picture (so the producer got the Oscar), but Hitch only got the “lifetime” kind of awards. No matter; forty-four years after he directed his last film, Family Plot, his influence is everywhere and his fine director’s eye is still on the big screen.