10 Best: Hitchcock

I am taking a Great Film Directors class. What a tremendous surprise bonus that is. I walked into what I thought was Selected Topics in Electronic Media COM 112. The professor started off by saying, "Okay, everyone's here for Great Film Directors, right?" Wrong, I thought. But I decided to ride it out. He passed out the syllabus and, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, the selected topic was: Great Film Directors.
Huge serendipity points!

We have to watch films and then write response papers. No research is allowed. One of the Great Film Directors is Hitchcock. I let this flow.

The 39 Steps
The principal lesson that I took away from this movie was that if you want a young, good-looking woman whom you have just met to trust you all you need do is share a meal with her. Hannay prepares haddock for Annabelle in his apartment, which is enough to persuade her to reveal that she is a spy with an indeterminate eastern European accent. Later Hannay must quickly gain the confidence of an old farmer’s young wife. He does this literally over a dinner of herring, no time to eat for dashing Hannay. Finally, proving that man does not woo by fish alone, Hannay and Pamela share a sandwich while handcuffed together. Mighty meager grub from a hotel but a glass of milk and a bottle of whiskey more than make up for a lone sandwich. In any case, Pamela overhears the heavies plotting their capture and, with thoughts only for her sandwich, decides to ally herself with Hannay. It probably helps your case if you are young, handsome and exotically Canadian but food seems to be reason enough to think well of the man.

One of the transitions in the film that I enjoyed was the match cut between a close up of a woman’s open mouth scream and the whistle of a train coming out of the mouth of a tunnel. The express train that Hannay takes in his flight to Scotland is the “Flying Scotsman”. The thugs chasing him quickly figure out the allusion. They arrive at the station as the train is departing, leaving their legs only enough time to perform a futile act of synecdoche as they slowly run after the train. When they do manage to board the train only an extreme act of courage and physical dexterity allows a waiter to avoid dropping a tray full of china as Hannay is pursued through the length of the train.

You [the professor] mentioned the many bridges and the transitions that they indicated. It all made me wonder if Hitchcock wasn’t compensating for something. Each bridge seems to represent an escape along with a change of identity. Hannay assumes many different identities. He pretends to be a milkman, a mechanic, a party-crashing Mr. Hammond, a political rabble-rouser and half of an eloping couple; it is a wonder that he remembers he is Canadian. He even claims to be a violent murderer but nobody likes a show-off.

I noticed that marriage was portrayed in a rather grim light. The milkman asks Hannay not to “rub it in” that he’s married, the farmer beats his wife for giving Hannay a coat, the professor’s wife is so emotionally disconnected she doesn’t seem to care that her husband has his gun drawn in their living room and the owners of the hotel seem to live vicariously through the unmarried couple that they shelter. The single life is portrayed much more glamorously what with being framed for murder, handcuffed to a beautiful blonde and always escaping just in the nick of time to be pursued some more.

By the end of the film you would think that Hannay would have learned to stay away from crowds. What with shots being fired in a music hall to start the film, a birthday party that ends with him being shot (only to find salvation and rebirth in a hymnal) and a political rally that ends with his abduction it wouldn’t be surprising if Hannay never went out in public again. Yet there he is, taking in a show at the palladium and getting arrested by the police. His arrest is avoided when he tricks Mr. Memory into being shot by the professor, which brings an implausible end to this enjoyable film.

A word or two- First of all, look out below, COMPLETE SPOILERS follow.

Second, I left my notebook in the computer room over the weekend. The class is a T-Th deal with movies watched on Th and response papers due T. So I had very little time to edit the material that six pages of notes gave me. This is basically Vertigo Response Paper 1.1 because I wrote it out in one long spew and the only revision I did was as I was typing it up.

Vertigo
You [the professor] told us to watch for colour so that is what I did and I found a lot of it. Hitchcock uses much more colour here than he ever did in The 39 Steps . The opening credits start in B&W with an XCU on a woman's lips. As the camera cranes upward to her wide eye the screen washes red before a procession of multi-coloured, swirling Spirograph form the backdrop to the credits. They end with a return to the XCU of the woman's eye and Alfred Hitchcock's spins onto the screen, literally arriving on the red-eye.

The first scene opens on a chase across a dark blue skyline and a rich rust-coloured skyline. It ends with the detective, Scotty, hanging onto the edge of a roof, paralyzed by vertigo, looking down at the splayed body of a man in blue. We never see how Scotty is rescued but we assume that is what happened because he is in the next scene, very much earth-bound, in Midge's apartment. Midge is a good-looking, smart-talking, blonde lingerie illustrator. Talk about landing on your feet! And it is only talk because Scotty is hurt physically and psychologically injured by his inopportunely timed attack of vertigo.

The walls of Midge's apartment are covered with her drawings and sketches; it's really quite a confusing mess. So is Scotty, Midge calls him "Johnny," who is wearing a corset even as Midge draws ladies underwear. She is working on a new cantilever bra designed by an aircraft engineer, which is either a thinly veiled slap at Howard Hughes or a big slap on the back for the aerospace industry. In any case, Midge tells Scotty that his high-flying days are at an end even as he tells her to stop mothering him. To prove his independence Scotty stands on a step stool but soon slips off of the banana-coloured thing, into the maternal arms of Midge. She is strong, supportive and functional for everyday wear.

Scotty is asked by Gavin Elster, another old college friend, Midge being the first, to follow Gavin's wife to see if she is unbalanced, mentally that is. The walls in Elster's office are just as cluttered as those in Midge's apartment. Pictures fill almost every square inch of wall space and they're not just any pictures. They are all pictures without lingerie. Most of the frames contain nautical scenes and building permits. It's enough to make a man want to escape overseas from the construction business. Or is it enough? Outside Elster's wide window large cranes loom, a contrast to the equally broad window of Midge's apartment.

Scotty first sees Madeline (Elster's wife) in Ernie's Restaurant. She is in an emerald green dress which sails upon a sea of blue suited diners and a back drop of rich red patterned wallpaper. Green means, "Go" and so Scotty continues to follow her. He is oblivious to all of the yellow taxicabs urging caution in the background. It is as if they were not even step stool coloured. Scotty drives a pearl coloured car in and out of the shade so as to confuse people of his intentions as he follows Madeline, seemingly always going downhill. As if the streets of San Francisco aren't bewildering enough.

Scotty follows Madeline down a shadowy alley to one of San Francisco's many back alley floral shops. He ducks through a dark passageway to peek through a crack in a mirrored door. Madeline waits for her special bouquet amid a disconcerting riot of flowers. When Madeline leaves Scotty scoots out the back almost quickly enough to avoid being detected but Madeline still doesn't notice him. She continues to be doggedly unobservant as she leads Scotty around town. She doesn't notice him at a church cemetery, nor at an art gallery where at least there is an excuse for irrational clutter on the walls. It is here that Scotty notices the similarities between Madeline's curl in her hair and her flowers and the hair and flowers of the woman in the giant portrait. Though it is a wonder as to how he could have missed it what with all the cut-ins.

Scotty follows Madeline to a hotel where he sees her through an upstairs window. He checks with the blonde hotelier, who has high hopes of using olive oil on a rubber tree plant, and finds that the room is rented in the name of Carlotta Valdez, the name of the woman that Madeline is obsessed with. Apparently Scotty doesn't know that red means stop because he goes up the stairs with the rich red patterned carpet surrounded by too much mahogany only to discover Madeline/Carlotta's room empty and Madeline's car gone. What does a detective have to do to get noticed around here?

The next day Midge takes Scotty to a bookstore with a cellar full of books and a bookseller full of information about local 19th century women. In spite of this knowledge and the astounding amount of foot traffic seen through yet another wide window, nobody comes in to buy a book. Perhaps they think that they know enough about women who've been dead for over a century. No sooner does the bookseller enlighten Scotty and Midge then they turn down the lights the lights in the bookstore. This is no way to sell books.

Scotty keeps Midge in the dark about Madeline whom he continues to follow the next day. Scotty follows her along the coast in broad colours: white waves and clouds, blue water and sky, rich rust-coloured Golden Gate Bridge. Scotty seems less conflicted and confused when he is outdoors but still manages to exit his car on the passenger side in preparation for driving on the wrong side of the road later in the movie. When Madeline jumps into the bay Scotty sees his chance to be noticed and leaps into the water to save her and it's a good thing because she has lost her gloves. Madeline continues to ignore Scotty until she wakes up in his bed. Scotty is dressed in his best green-means-go sweater but foolishly gives Madeline a rich red patterned robe to put on. There isn't much stuff on the walls of his apartment but Scotty does have a good fire going in the fireplace and is beginning to carry a torch for Madeline. Outside his expectedly broad window one can see the very phallic firemen's memorial tower on a nearby hill.

Scotty gives Madeline several names that she might to call him and she chooses one. She expertly pins her hair up in a curl as neither bay water nor bed head can stop this ethereal vision. As soon as the couple's hands touch the phone rings like an alarm, allowing Madeline to escape in the nick of time to not notice Midge who is driving by. Midge does notice and muses, "Was it a ghost?" The next day Madeline returns in a white coat with black gloves but she has no sheet with eyeholes and no bag for candy. Scotty catches her in the bright daylight while he is wearing a brown suit with a tie made from the robe used last night.

Naturally Scotty and Madeline decide to wander together to a grove of sequoia trees. Nothing says green and eternal life like the stump of a sequoia. Madeline points out the dates of her short lifetime in the rings of the tree and then disappears into the wood. Showing his aggressive side Scotty repeatedly asks her, "Why did you jump?" as if she had some answers for him. She then asks to be taken into the light. The couple flees to a point along the ocean with a twisted, green tree of average size. She tells Scotty, "I know that when I walk into the darkness then I'll die." This foreshadowing is so strong that, when combined with her visions of walking a hallway with broken mirrors, it becomes five-shadowing. Scotty wants to, "Just find the key, put it together." But before he can Madeline flees and when she is caught, claims, "I'm not mad." Scotty tells her, "I've got you!" to which she responds, "Don't let me go." They kiss as a wave strikes the beach in an explosion of white spray. They kiss again as the next wave crashes on the shore. Then I guess the tide went out.

Scotty then returns to Midge who quickly hides something in the cautionary step stool. She needn't have bothered because she is wearing a red-means-stop sweater; we know who the green-means-go kind of girl is. Midge shows Scotty (or "Johnny") a still life with her face atop the museum portrait but men don't make passes at pictures with glasses. Scotty's reaction leaves something to be desired as he pitches headlong out of the apartment. That something is Madeline. The rejected Midge slashes at her painting with a brush and then throws the brush at her reflection in her no longer impressively wide window.

Scotty decides to take Madeline to a Spanish church of her dreams a hundred miles to the south in order to complete her dream. You have to wonder at his ulterior motives in manipulating the girl of his dreams. Gavin had said earlier that his wife had put ninety-four miles on the speedometer during one of her drives. Perhaps Scotty wanted to find out why Madeline drove only halfway down to the church before turning back. Perhaps he wanted to figure out why Gavin didn't say "odometer." No matter, it is here that the couple drives on the wrong side of the road but arrive at the church none the worse for wear having made good time by arriving before the end of the movie. Perhaps it really was ninety-four miles on the speedometer. Madeline lets slip that in her past life, "the sister wouldn't allow us to play." She then flees, always fleeing, that Madeline, into the bright light, then into the church and ascends to the bell tower. Scotty follows, plagued by vertigo from the same deepening of the camera's perspective that beset him in the opening chase scene. Before he is able to reach the top he hears a scream and then Madeline plummets past a fortuitously non-wide, tall window to land splayed upon a rich rust-coloured roof. Scotty, horrified, sees oncoming nuns and is forced to take flight.

Scotty and Gavin are put on trial in an open room court for the death of Madeline. A publicly decisive jury of seven non-angry men acquits both men. Even so all concerned broadly imply Scotty's culpability. Gavin pulls his old friend aside so that Madeline's ghost might make an apparitional appearance between the two men. We next see Scotty in a bed with a cautionary yellow blanket as he has nightmares of many shades until the shades are drawn on his mind. Midge shows up at the hospital in a white blouse but there are red roses in the room; she is unable to nurse Scotty back to health. She even tries telling him that, "mother's here." Later she tells a doctor dressed in black that Scotty was in love with Madeline and then exits down a long dark hallway with the bright light of sanity at the end. This signifies that it wasn't a very good hospital.

Healthy, but not cured, Scotty takes to a montage of wandering the streets, mistaking blondes for Madeline and revisiting all of the old haunts where Madeline had ignored him. It is enough to make you wonder if Ernie's is the only restaurant there is in San Francisco. He follows a one-way sign to Madeline's old car before he spots a young woman on the street that looks just like Madeline. The blouse and the face are the same but the hair is all wrong; she is the first brunette that Scotty has ever met. Scotty, showing that he still knows how to be ignored by women, follows her to a hotel and again watches a woman through a window. He then approaches her door down a dark hallway with a bright sign leading to the fire escape but Scotty, having learned his lesson about portentous signs, ignores it.

In a room lit in green, looking over her shoulder at her reflection in the mirror, Scotty is slowly convinced that she isn't Madeline. I've forgotten what her real name was but she convinced me too that she wasn't Madeline. Scotty asks for and gets a date before he leaves. Not-Madeline then sits down to write Scotty a note revealing the climax of the movie. Deciding against giving anything away to the people in the film with her she makes another dramatic decision and wears a lavender dress.

Scotty, in a manner reminiscent of "Pygmalion" without the music, remakes his fair lady in Madeline's image. He auditions surrogates in particular outfits in a room of mirrors. He tells not-Madeline that it can't matter to her even as not-Madeline begs to be loved if she makes these changes. She flees to a mirror, that's our girl, with her hands behind her back, diamond bracelet glittering like handcuffs. Scotty convinces her that this last change would be it. Except for dying her hair blonde. Then putting it up in a curl so as to make a ghostly entrance through a green bathroom door. And then a drive down the coast to the church where Scotty drives her up the stairs of the bell tower. When our man Scotty says that's it then that's it.

He has figured it all out and his vertigo is gone as all is revealed at the top of the tower. Gavin had forced not-Madeline to stand in for Madeline and then threw a pre-deceased Madeline off of the bell tower, knowing that Scotty would be powerless to follow. Due to the intensity of the scene Scotty and not-Madeline fail to notice an onrushing nun. Because she tore up the script in her hotel room not-Madeline is scared literally over the edge and falls to her splayed death on the rich rust-coloured roof. The nun leaps into action and begins to toll the bell, which, if you ask me, tolls for Scotty's hopes of resolution, love and sanity. Non-ironic wedding bells are no longer in Scotty's future. If only he had remained grounded and not fallen in love things could have been so much easier.

What a way to start a day. I awaken to the sound of strings...

...from Psycho , along with the death of Janet Leigh and the fact that I haven't written my Psycho response paper yet.