As you know, I have a rather soft spot for The 39 Steps in New York City. While the play has moved from its Broadway location at the Helen Hayes Theatre to an Off Broadway home at the New World Stages, the fact remains that a long-running hit is still drawing big crowds. As well it should!
Each year, they declare September to be Alfred Hitchcock Month, and 2010 is no exception. Visit the official contest site for more details and to enter. Hope you can join in. Here is the high level view:
ALFRED HITCHCOCK LOOK-A-LIKE CONTEST
Now through Sept 23rd The 39 Steps is accepting photo submissions for the Third Annual Alfred Hitchcock Look-A-Like Contest. Three lucky finalists will win free tickets to attend Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps on Monday, September 27th at 8:00pm. The audience will then vote LIVE to select the grand prize winner of the Third Annual Alfred Hitchcock Look-A-Like Contest. Win tickets and a special prize package from The 39 Steps! To Enter: Send your “Look-A-Like” photo via email to: alfred@hhcmarketing.com
HITCHCOCK TRIVIA CONTEST
Fans can test their knowledge of all things Hitchcock and The 39 Steps with the “Mr. Memory” trivia contest. The 39 Steps is giving away a great prize package to the fan who can answer the most questions of this classic Hitchcock trivia quiz. One lucky winner will win four orchestra tickets, a CD and a poster signed by the cast! Log on here to submit your answers.
FREE TICKETS!
Lucky number “39”! During the month of September, any person born in 1939 or who is currently 39 years old* can see the show for FREE! Simply bring a valid ID to the New World Stages box office (340 West 50th St.) to receive one complimentary ticket for any September performance. *For tracking purposes, “39 years old” qualifies as being born in the year 1971.
PRIZE GIVEAWAYS AT EVERY PERFORMANCE
Winners will be chosen at every performance of THE 39 STEPS during the month of September to receive prizes, including merchandise and signed posters by the cast.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
"The 39 Steps" declares Alfred Hitchcock Month
Friday, September 3, 2010
Alfred Hitchcock Geek to Interview Tippi Hedren
Tippi Hedren preparing for her interview.Very exciting news! On Sunday, September 12, I'll have the honor of interviewing and moderating a discussion with one of Alfred Hitchcock's most fascinating and inspiring blonds - Tippi Hedren, star of The Birds and Marnie. A strong, intelligent women, her life in Hollywood and beyond has made the world a better place. To wit: my interview with her is in conjunction with a fundraiser for her Roar Foundation and its Shambala Preserve -- a rescue sanctuary for large exotic cats. You're heartily encouraged to attend, and the cost is very reasonable. Here's the official press release, along with this review quiz: If you enjoy healthy cuticles, why should you thank Tippi?
The Birds Star Tippi Hedren to Appear at Benefit for the ROAR Foundation.
AUGUST 28, 2010, LINCOLN CITY, ORE. – On Sunday, September 12, screen actress Tippi Hedren will host “An Evening with Tippi.” The event will include a special screening of Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 thriller The Birds – her first starring role; an interview and Q & A session led by Alfred Hitchcock scholar Joel Gunz; an autograph session and more. The screening and interviews will take place at Lincoln City's Historic Bijou Theatre, which will also provide a catered reception. Afterward, attendees will have the option to gather at the nearby Historic Anchor Inn for an intimate dinner with Ms. Hedren.
The event is a benefit for the Roar Foundation and its Shambala Preserve, whose mission is to educate the public about wild and exotic animals, advocate for legislation to protect them and provide sanctuary for abused and neglected animals, especially big cats such as lions and tigers.
Says event organizer and president of the Bay Area Merchants Association Alex Ward, “We are delighted to help out Tippi and the very important work that she does.” He adds, “This project is a community effort, and I've been amazed to see our volunteers generously pool their time, money and other resources to make it a success.” Gunz adds, “Hedren's talent on screen, combined with her devotion to such humanitarian causes as Shambala, are an inspiration to millions of people around the world.” Event sponsors include the Bay Area Merchants' Association, the Bijou Theater, Chinook Winds Casino and the Historic Anchor Inn.
Event packages are as follows: Autograph Package: Screening of "The Birds" with Tippi, autograph and Q&A session, catered refreshments, $30. Dine with Tippi Package: Autograph Package, plus an intimate dinner with Tippi (limited seating), $90. Overnighter Package: Autograph and Dining packages, plus a one-night stay at the Historic Anchor Inn, $149 per person, $239 per couple.
About the Roar Foundation and Shambala
The Roar Foundation, founded in 1983 by Tippi Hedren, exists solely to support The Shambala Preserve. Shambala is sanctuary to approximately 70 exotic cats all rescued from roadside zoos and private citizens unable to properly care for them or have been confiscated by authorities such as the United States Department of Agriculture, Humane Society and the ASPCA. A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, the Roar Foundation’s Shambala Preserve gives animals a home where they can live out their lives with love, professional care and dignity.
Website: www.shambala.org
About Tippi Hedren
A former New York fashion model, Tippi Hedren made her screen debut playing the lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 classic, “The Birds,” a role for which she earned a Golden Globe award, and has gone on to appear in some 50 films and countless television appearances. She continues to work in motion pictures and television. An outspoken voice against cruelty to animals both wild and domestic, she co-authored “The Captive Wildlife Safety Act,” halting the interstate traffic of exotic felines for personal possession. It was successfully passed and signed by President Bush on Dec 19, 2003. She has now co-authored a bill titled “A Federal Bill to Ban the Breeding of the Exotic Feline for Personal Possession”. She is not only rescuing these unfortunate animals but is desperately trying to stop the problem. Ms. Hedren sits as president of the American Sanctuary Association that has defined “sanctuary” and is an accrediting organization. In addition to her animal welfare work she served two USO tours during the Vietnam War . She later served as volunteer coordinator for the organization Food for the Hungry providing relief for people all over the world including the Boat People in Southeast Asia. This led to her sole sponsorship of Vietnamese women in the U.S. to learn the manicuring trade. As a result of her efforts, the multi-billion dollar Vietnamese manicuring industry was established.
Out of the over 80 awards Ms. Hedren has received, the most recent are:
2010- Genesis Award for 2009 lifetime achievement.
2010- City of L.A. Congratulations on 2009 Genesis Award
2007- Jules Verne Nature Award
2008- Smithsonian Institute acknowledgement for donation of scripts for “The Birds,” “Marnie” and “The Countess of Hong Kong”.
2003- Received Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
About Joel Gunz
After a lifetime of study and association with film makers, authors and scholars, in 2004, Joel Gunz launched a blog devoted to the scholarly consideration of Alfred Hitchcock. Since then, he has built an international audience and won several awards for his writing and research. In 2009, he was twice invited to speak at New York City’s Broadway production of The 39 Steps and in May, 2010, previewed his one man show, Alfred Hitchcock Geek at Portland Center Stage. He is currently finalizing plans for the publication of his film guide Notes from an Alfred Hitchcock Geek.
Blog: www.alfredhitchcockgeek.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Alfred-Hitchcock-Geek/194418010799?ref=ts
Twitter: www.twitter.com/hitchcockgeek
About the Bijou Theatre
www.cinemalovers.com
About the Historic Anchor Inn
www.historicanchorinn.com
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Alfred Hitchcock's Most Wanted Actresses
It was probably no surprise to Patricia Hitchcock that she was one of her father's most favored actresses.
That answer is a bit dicier because it can change, depending on how you look at it. If you count TV appearances, his daughter Patricia Hitchcock takes the cake, with three movie credits and 10 roles in Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But let's stick to the movies.
My answer is Clare Greet, who had speaking roles in a total of eight Hitchcock films (Number 13 (1922), The Ring (1927), The Manxman (1929), Murder! (1930), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Sabotage (1936) and Jamaica Inn (1939), plus Lord Camber's Ladies (produced by Hitch, 1932).
Clare Greet helped Hitch out and he never forgot it.
In Number Thirteen, her first film with Hitchcock, Greet had been awarded the starring role. His uncle, John Hitchcock, had invested in the movie and when that money ran out, Greet kicked in more funds. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. Filming was brought to a halt and both of those individuals lost their investment. Humiliated, Hitch took that lesson to heart and he tried never to lose an investor's money again, earning a reputation for shooting his films on or under schedule and budget and aiming for commercial success – which he usually got. Hitch never forgot Greet's generosity and the belief in his talents that it implied and he repaid the favor by offering her more acting roles in his films than anyone else.
As an extra, Bess Flowers usually played what Sinatra would have a called a “classy broad.”
That said, there's another woman who could also contend for that top spot. “Queen of the Hollywood Extras,” Bess Flowers, appeared in over 700 movies in her career as an uncredited, usually non-speaking, walk-on. She can be spotted in seven Hitchcock films: (Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) as nightclub extra, Notorious (1946) as a party guest, Dial M for Murder (1954) as a woman departing the ship, Rear Window (1954) as a guest with a poodle at the songwriter's party, To Catch a Thief (1955) as a guest at the costume ball, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) as an attendee at the Royal Albert Hall concert, and Vertigo (1958) as a diner at Ernie's) and one episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“The Legacy” (1956) as a diner at the hotel restaurant).
Finally, we shouldn't forget (though at this point it could be an uphill battle) Hannah Jones, who appeared in six of Hitchcock's early films: Downhill (1927), Champagne (1928), Blackmail (1929), Elstree Calling (1930), Murder! (1930) and Rich and Strange (1931). She missed the number one spot by one film, but in case the name comes up on Jeopardy, there you go.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Defending Gus Van Sant's Psycho
Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho left more than a few critics stone-faced -- unfairly, in my opinion. It's pretty much an even bet that, when I introduce myself to someone as an Alfred Hitchcock Geek, the first thing he or she will say is, “What do you think of Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho? My answer is always the same: I love it. I love the fact that he tried to recreate a great film, shot for shot, and I think he broke new ground in how we experience classic films. His 1998 recreation has been unfairly chastised, and I feel the need to defend it when few others will.
Classic movies are often regarded as sacred cows, off limits to the supposedly dexterous, yet maladroit mitts of (insert scornful tone) film school graduates – and it isn't limited to Hitchcock. (I'm reminded of how similar contempt was once heaped upon Julliard or Berklee-bred jazz musicians who performed songs written by older musicians who'd paid their dues the old-fashioned way.)
Classic films will be enjoyed long after you and I are gone, and from that perspective, Hitchcock's movies – along with those of William Wyler, Orson Welles, etc. – are still very young. Perhaps they (or their late makers) are too freshly ensconced in the can to be exhumed and reanimated. But, really? Is there a statute of limitations on remaking films, that they can't be remade until a certain, respectful time period has elapsed? Maybe there is. It's unseemly to speak ill of the freshly deceased; but at a certain point their memory becomes fair game and we can relax the rules of respect for the dead. I don't know where that line is drawn, but while the recent remake of Hitch's early classics The Lodger (1926) and Easy Virtue (1928) irked only the staunchest Hitchcock geeks, even the most casual moviegoers have deemed Psycho to be forbidden territory – and the controversy surrounding the potential remake of The Birds has ruffled more feathers than those possessed by the film's principle actors.
Van Sant's remake pissed a lot of people off. And I don't think that can only be chalked up to its iconic status. I think it had something to do with the fact that his version was too faithful, too uncomfortably close to the original, in the way that a prosthetic hand ought not imitate too closely the original it's replacing. People see it and don't know what to think, so they reject it.
I say that Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake was a real tribute, the way a remake ought to be done. As the independent director once told an audience at BFI Southbank, “I was sort of angry at Hollywood trying to remake movies, because it seemed like they would rob the screenplay and … actually change the script. So I said, 'Why don't you just shoot it exactly the way it is, because it's a great movie?'” His intent was to honor the film, not desecrate it by changing the movie with arbitrary updates. He was genuinely surprised when it failed to be the blockbuster hit he'd hoped it would be. (In a note of poetic symmetry, Hitch was flummoxed when Psycho turned out to be such a worldwide phenomenon.)
When a chamber ensemble redoes Mozart, it's usually expected to faithfully recreate the original note for note. From this perspective, Van Sant's faithful-to-the-original approach would place him squarely in a conservatory camp, preserving the original “score.”
That said, there's plenty in the film to make you scratch your head. The casting was all wrong. Macho, fast-talking Vince Vaughan is about as far away from the birdlike adolescent Norman Bates as you can imagine, and Norman's lines – halting and stuttered in the original – come off flat in Vaughan's verbal waterfalls. Likewise, girlish Ann Heche, with her pixie hairdo, is no voluptuous, maternal Marion Crane. (Personally, I think the two actors should have switched roles, performing in drag. Imagine this: Heche playing Norman, with a wink to the Peter Pan tradition.) Van Sant himself admits that there are problems with the movie and has contemplated remaking it again. Now that's sure to get the old school critics talking!
Still, he corrected a few matters with regard to Hitch's original, while adding touches that enhance it. Regarding the murder in the shower, sharp observers have noted that Marion's pupils contracted as her life went out of her. In reality, her pupils would have dilated – a detail that Van Sant fixed with a cutaway shot (though they do return to their contracted state, a consequence of the studio lighting.) Hitchcock also envisioned the scene as a veritable slashing at the film and the screen itself – Van Sant enhances that impression, interjecting a few frames of the gleaming-white knife as it consumes half the frame; the effect is that the film appears to have torn inside the projector.
Screenwriter Joseph Stefano had written into the screenplay that there would be an overhead shot of Marion, her buttocks and legs exposed, her beautiful body laid waste. Hitch cut that shot on the grounds that censors would disapprove, a decision that Stefano always resented; Van Sant returned Stefano's shot to the sequence.
Then there's the final scene. In the original, we see a close-up of the rear of Marion's car as it is being pulled out of the swamp. In the remake, the camera pulls back to reveal a swarm of news crews and police investigators taking over the scene of the crime. The impression is that, though the movie has ended, the story has just begun. In a sense, that is true, for in retrospect, Psycho, the movie, took on a life unlike that of just about any other movie, period. I tip my hat to the director for not giving in to the cliché impulse by pulling back to reveal a movie set and camera crew.
The main point is, however, that it got people talking. Prior to 1998, when average moviegoers asked me about Hitchcock, it was as a subject of middlebrow Hollywood fare. Since 1998, even if people know little else about the maestro, they often know about Van Sant's version of Psycho; such knowledge invariably launches questions about the ideas behind Hitchcock's films. And that puts our conversation off to an infinitely more interesting start.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Alfred Hitchcock –- The Compleat Filmmaker
Alfred Hitchcock often spoke with near-reverence of montage – the assembly of pieces of film – to create emotion in the audience. Montage he often said, “is the whole art of the cinema.” He told Francois Truffaut, “I don't care about the subject matter; I don't care about the acting; but I do care about the pieces of film and the photography and the sound track and all of the technical ingredients that make the audience scream. I feel it's tremendously satisfying for us to be able to use the cinematic art to achieve something of a mass emotion.”
From this, one could easily conclude that Hitch was a formalist, a disciple of Russian film theory pioneers Eisenstein and Kuleshov – that is, that he was more concerned with the form of filmmaking than its content, such as plot, story or dialogue. But that really isn't the case. The record – actual transcripts of his story conferences – reveals that he cared deeply for the content of his films. Also, if he didn't care about content, he never would have given a second thought to the idea of the long take, an approach in which the camera records an entire scene uninterrupted, which was anathema to montagists. But the fact is, he loved using long takes.
One superb example can be found as far back as 1931, with the auction scene in his class conflict fable, The Skin Game. Putting cinema audiences in the privileged spot of auctioneer, they are treated to a view of that event's attendees as if looking out from the platform. Clocking in at two minutes and twenty seconds, that long P.O.V. sequence is covered one continuous take, as the camera scans, darts and whips about the faces in the room, seeking bids. The audience joins the auctioneer in his exasperation as the bidding gets off to a sluggish start, empathizing with his efforts to wheedle a higher price for the land at stake. Excitement mounts as casual bidders drop out of the game, leaving the film's two antagonists to duke it out amongst themselves, jacking the price beyond what either had hoped to pay, the camera anxiously zipping between them.
Who hasn't fantasized about the thrill of standing at an auctioneer's podium? Hitchcock used a long, subjective take to give the audience just such a taste.
The long take can serve several purposes. One of them is to make the audience feel as if it were in the room with the characters. We are like the invisible man, present-but-not-present, walking among the characters. (I'm reminded of Saboteur's Barry Kane, who, as if invisible, sneaks around the blind woodsman, all the time watching him nervously.) With that in mind, sharp readers may recall Hitch's description of the famed love scene in Notorious. “The public, represented by the camera, was the third party to this embrace,” he said. Spectators were “given the great privilege of embracing Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman together. It was a kind of temporary menage a trois.” In this case, the unbroken shot of Bergman and Grant fused in an unrelentingly intimate close-up, neck and peck at each other, not even stopping while Grant answers the telephone. This is indeed one of the most intensely erotic scenes of that conservative era of Hollywood censorship. It's as if you were cozying up to the couple yourself.
Longer takes also maintain whatever mood the director has established. Rebecca De Winter's backstory in Hitchcock's eponymous 1940 film is at first a mystery. Though she seems to haunt Manderley estate, we don't know exactly why – until the scene in the seaside cabin when all is revealed. The scene begins with Maxim's flashback (as performed by Lawrence Olivier), his face in profile and illuminated from behind by the window. (A similar longish shot appears in Spellbound, when Gregory Peck recalls his dream from the night before.) As he wraps up his soliloquy, the camera pulls back to allow room for Mrs. De Winter (Joan Fontaine), who, for the first time, gives herself over un-self conscious compassion for Maxim's plight. The camera pulls in closer, giving us a close view of both her virtuoso moment and of Maxim's doubtful reaction (or non-reaction!). Then, strangely, the phone, long disused, rings. The camera pulls back again as the pair stare at it, as surprised as the audience is, then tilts down to a close-up of the cobwebbed device, as if responding to (or prompting) Maxim to answer it. This two-minutes-and-37-second spell would have been broken if Hitch had chopped it up with edits, such as standard action/reaction shots of the two characters.
One of the earliest questions I had about Hitchcock's style (and this is going back to my teen years in the 1980s) was: If Hitchcock was such a devotee of montage, why did he employ so many long takes? Wouldn't that have been a violation of his theoretical code? The short answer is that he had no interest in being bound by any one theory. What follows is a longer answer.
Alfred Hitchcock walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "Why the long take?"
In 1948, Hitch, the most vocal proponent of montage since Eisenstein, departed from his usual aesthetic approach and decided to try filming its diametric opposite, the eight-minute continuous take Рthe longest then technically possible. It was an ambitious move, to be sure. In the magazine L'Ecran Francais, Jean-Charles Tacchela and Roger Th̩rond declared that, with Rope, Hitch had become "audaciously sure of his audacity." It was such a bold move that you might suppose that its novelty alone, buoyed by James Stewart's star presence, would have been sure to attract a large audience. (It didn't.)
Numerous theories have been proffered to explain why Rope was shot to appear as one take – about as many theories as there are Hitchcock scholars. (Of course, the film was actually constructed from a series of seven-to-nine minute takes, spliced to appear – mostly – as one take.) All right. It's my turn to have a go at it.
First, it's important to mention the context in which the film was made. While Hitchcock kept himself busy making formalist montage-oriented movies, a countervailing theory was emerging that stressed long takes and the inventive use of depth of field (the background in the frame). This idea was put forth most explicitly by French critic André Bazin, co-founder of the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma and, arguably, the most important theorist in his day since Eisenstein. While montage directs the viewer to have one response to the film, Bazin believed that a person should have the freedom to choose what to dwell on within the frame. In fact, he opposed editing and montage in the strongest terms. "Editing was the destruction of the cinematic form,” he said. “the destruction of the essence of cinema...it is the shot, the unedited gaze of the camera onto the world before its lens that constitutes cinemas aesthetic core." He lauded Orson Welles, whose use of background as counterpoint to foreground action is legendary. (My favorite use of this technique by Welles occurs in the long-take opening scene of The Trial (1962), in which K (Anthony Perkins) is rousted out of bed the state police.)
If montage uses bits of film to create an idea or emotion that exists purely in the audience's head, long takes are, in Bazin's view, pure, unambiguous representations of reality. The emphasis in this latter approach is almost entirely on the content of the scene, the camera dollying and swiveling about as it goes about framing a scene.
So along came Hitchcock, always on the alert to try out the latest technologies and tricks of the trade. Though Bazin might be rolling in his grave as I write this, Rope is, in a way, a consummate example of his own philosophy. As one 80-minute length of almost uninterrupted film, it is the granddaddy of all long takes; but remember this too: its ever-present, ever-changing New York skyline – which was a character in itself – along with an elaborately designed sky, delivers an infinitely deep field of vision! As the movie's soiree goes its not-so-merry way and the camera (always a surrogate for both the director and his audience) follows the characters about that swanky Manhattan penthouse, spun-glass clouds scud across the sky, the daylight recedes from bright afternoon to orange sunset to starry night time, and the city lights begin to twinkle as if in concert with the party. Hitchcock's cameo occurs in the form of a flashing red neon replica of his famous profile, punctuating the cityscape like an artist's signature.
Hitch first saw the Patrick Hamilton play at London's Ambassador Theater in 1929, and ever since then had wanted to adapt it for the screen. He'd discussed it with screen writer Peter Viertel during the production of Saboteur in 1942, suggesting, in the words of biographer Patrick McGilligan, “that it might lend itself to being shot in continuous, carefully planned, single-shot takes.” In later discussions with Hitch's business partner, Sidney Bernstein, McGilligan reveals that the producer desired to see West End plays filmed just as they had been staged, so as to preserve these classic dramas for posterity. With that, Hitch didn't need any prompting to trot out his ideas for Rope. And this is an important aspect of the film: the play takes place in real time on a single set: given his vision and Bernstein's convictions, how could he not direct the film adaptation as if in a single take?
And so he went into action. Having satisfied his stipulated desire for long takes, Hitch also set about devising perhaps the most extraordinary background field ever up until then – that scale model of New York City, complete with thousands of tiny lighted windows, which covered three times the floor space of the actual set. (That diorama was an obvious precursor to the Greenwich Village courtyard apartments in Rear Window – as well as, I might go so far to say, the topography of George Lucas' similarly-lit starships in Star Wars.) The film's aforementioned gradual transformation from afternoon sun to full nighttime served to reinforce the illusion that the story was unfolding in real time. But that was just a trick. Realistically speaking, there is no way that the murder, pre-dinner conversation, the dinner service itself and subsequent departure of the guests, culminating in the climactic reveal could have all happened in under an hour and a half. Its actual time is compressed. Aided by the changes in the background scenery and by the long take, which directors had long known seemed to stretch the perception of time, the story only appears to take place in real time. In fact, that elasticizing of perceived time is one of the film's flaws: though shorter in duration than most films, Rope drags, seeming to last far longer than it actually does.
Bazin should have been impressed with Hitchcock's application of his ideas in Rope, but he wasn't. He said:
“Each time we are struck by his effectiveness, it is because [Hitchcock] managed, at the cost of a thousand resolved hardships, to create the impression of shot and reverse shot or a close-up where it would have been easy to use a single [edited] take like everyone else. This directing through continuous traveling shots -- which is simply an endless succession of reframings -- is completely different from Wyler's 'stationary shot' or from Welles, who managed to integrate into a single frame many moments of a virtual editing."
Bazin's problem was that, despite the long-take methods Hitchcock nevertheless continued to carefully control audience perception – a result opposite of the democratic looseness that Bazin called for. And Hitch himself admitted as much. Perhaps recalling Bazin's rebuke, he told Truffaut that “the film was, in a sense, precut. The mobility of the camera and the movement of the players closely followed my usual cutting practice.... I maintained the rule of varying the size of the image in relation to its emotional importance.”
As the late Hitchcock scholar Robin Wood put it,
“For Hitchcock, the experimentation of Rope is never in the least conceived as in opposition to his already highly developed montage technique, but as a possible alternative to and equivalent for it, another means of exerting total control over the gaze and the emotional response of the viewer."
While it's true that Hitch's long takes follow a different train of thought than that of Wyler or Welles, I can't agree with Bazin, who held that Hitch could more easily have achieved his effects through traditional editing. The long take in Rope gives the camera (again, thus the audience) a visceral, if invisible presence and underscores the claustrophobic, hothouse hermeticism of the two killers. The uninterrupted take is an essential component of the film's overall design.
Keep in mind, though (and Wood goes on to concur), that however constrained the audience might be in its response as a result of the uncut camerawork, it is never reduced to automatons. As in all his films, if he exerted unusual control over the audience, he also dignified its free will by making it privy to an extraordinary abundance of information withheld from the movie's characters. Indeed, that's the basis for his development of suspense – and also the objective of Bazin's brand of realism. The audience responds to Rope by engaging with the film, trying to guess the characters' next move, at times even reacting as if in a debate with what Hitch is saying through his surrogates, the characters.
And so Hitch's camera, in one long take, moves among Brandon, Phillip and their dinner guests, swooping in to examine a broken glass or a stack of books, while discreetly, like a good guest, staying out of the kitchen. If in the stage play audiences watched as dinner was served and consumed, in the film they can almost smell the chicken and taste the toasty fizz of champagne.
I'm not so sure Wood got it quite right in his above comment, either, though. I believe that Hitch wasn't so much looking for an alternative technique as he was searching for a synthesis of Eisenstein's formalist methods and Bazin's mise en scene. Between those two critics, almost all that could be said about film theory up to that point had been said. It would seem that Hitch was searching for a way to add his two cents to the theoretical conversation with the development of a new film grammar that combined the best that both previous methods had to offer. Getting back to Bazin, I also disagree with him somewhat that Rope is overly manipulative with its images. That may true at certain points, but as the clip below shows, there are other times when Hitch magnanimously gave audiences plenty to choose from in the mise-en-scene.
In this scene, Mrs. Wilson (Edith Evanson) clears the dishes from atop David Kentley's makeshift casket. We know his corpse is in there, and the suspense is terrific in this cinematic fugue, which combines offscreen dialogue, dramatic use of depth of field and, of course, Swiss flywheel timing to heighten the audience's awareness of all that is going on and to keep it guessing about what will happen next. My experience of this scene is that at times I feel I must choose between listening to the dialogue and worrying about whether the chest's lid is going to be opened all the way. (Although the resolution in this clip isn't the best, later on in the sequence you can see Hitch's flashing red profile in the skyline.)
There are many reasons to praise Hitchcock's filmmaking ability: his technical virtuosity; his adeptness in any setting from the writing phase and into the cutting room; his survival skills in an industry that believes backs were made for stabbing. As I've hopefully demonstrated here, Hitch excelled at integrating all that film had to offer as a communications medium, seeking to resolve apparent contradictions in opposing methods and approaches. All of which is to say, Alfred Hitchcock was a compleat filmmaker.
Monday, August 9, 2010
AHG Facebook Poll: Which Hitchcock Movie House Would You Live In?
Many thanks to my Facebook page co-moderator Elisabeth Karlin, who has been dreaming up some ingenious polls for our Alfred Hitchcock Geeks to participate in. Today's question:
You're living in a Hitchcock movie--but nothing bad can happen to you--In what house, apartment or motel do you see yourself?
To weigh in with your opinion and see what others have to say, drop by the Alfred Hitchcock Geek Facebook Fan Page!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Dial M for Murder in 3D now on YouTube (Well, a few highlights, anyway)
Okay, it's been up there for a few months, but I just discovered it recently. So, grab a piece of red and a piece of blue cellophane, sit back and enjoy.
(Click thru to the YouTube page itself and then click on the 3D icon to choose the format you prefer - including "cross-eyed."(!))
Although Alfred Hitchcock was at first dubious of the 3D process (he correctly saw it as a flash-in-the-pan), he approached the technical challenge with enthusiasm and a fresh viewpoint, assuring his friend and sometime business partner Sydney Bernstein that there would be "no spears or chairs to throw at the audience." Almost perversely, the film's primary setting is a one-bedroom flat in London.
Hitchcock almost had Cary Grant booked for the role of Tony Wendice (finally casting him in the role of a wife killer), when producer Jack Warner vetoed the idea, on the grounds that he was a "light comedy type." Nevertheless, Ray Milland gave the film a superb performance. I can't help imagining that at least part of his onscreen charm was buoyed by that fact that his costar, Grace Kelly, had developed a crush on him during shooting. At least, I know it would work for me.
Kelly, however, was very available -- and the price, as Bob Barker would say, was right. Not yet a major star, she received $14,000 for her role; Milland by contrast received $125,000.
Dial M comes across as a profiterole in Hitch's works -- light and satisfying, but with little substance. Set in one room, the script was barely changed from the original Broadway play on which it was based. But Hitch just made it look easy. Knowing that it might be released as a "flattie" as he called it, he nevertheless took advantage of the 3D process to add depth to its setting. The visual effect brought an otherwise ordinary apartment to life, giving audiences the experience of a night at a live theater performance. He mused on the possibilities of 3D filming, but was constantly thwarted by the technical restrictions posed by the unwieldy 3D camera.
Those disappointments notwithstanding, Hitch's adaptation differs in many subtle ways from the play. The 3D effect of the murder scene is Gothic horror at its most sublime. And, though he made few changes to the dialogue, it may be the most cinematic stage play ever to find its way the screen.
For those reasons, when asked about Dial M for years afterward, I believe Hitch was merely demonstrating his inability to resist a pun when he replied, "I could have phoned that one in."
