Hitchcock's Films as Philosophy - The Exciting Conclusion

To Catch a Thief: Set in picturesque Monaco, even the obligatory chase scene, which takes place at a flower market, is beautiful. All the better to seduce audiences while sneaking in deeper philosophical ideas.

This is the fourth and final part of some "thrilling" thoughts I've been posting lately on Alfred Hitchcock, film and philosophy. If you'd like to catch up with the flow, click here:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 war propaganda flick Foreign Correspondent, Johnnie Jones (Joel McCrea) was a simpleminded, rakish beat reporter. But when his editor assigned him to Europe and changed his name to the Ivy League-ish "Huntley Haverstock," the reporter wasted no time living up to his new identity. The conceit that identity is something we own or create for ourselves was blithely undercut by another insight: identity is often foisted upon us. As the movie progressed, his newly-acquired identity became increasingly difficult to bear. As he more fully embodied what that name stood for (an intrepid wartime correspondent) he became more authentically "alive" – though in doing so he put his life at risk.

Hitch continued to ponder the meaning of identity. 15 years after Foreign Correspondent, in To Catch a Thief, the film’s lead character, John Robie (Cary Grant) had a false, this time criminal, identity thrust upon him, which he spent the film trying to shake loose. The truth of the matter was kept ambiguous – at least as far as the audience was concerned – until the mystery was solved toward the end of the movie. Any presumption of his innocence could only be based on mere sympathy for the character and on the star status of Cary Grant.

Who really are John Robie and Cary Grant? To Catch a Thief raises more questions on the subject than it answers.

Four years after that, in North by Northwest, Hitch placed before audiences yet another character with identities inflicted on him against his will. Unlike TCaT, though, the truth about Roger O. Thornhill (again played by Cary Grant) was confirmed at the film’s outset by no less an authority than his own mother, putting the audience at an advantage. Being fully convinced of Thornhill’s "wrong man" status, viewers could watch as he knocked himself out trying to convince others of who he "truly" was.

In NxNW, spymaster Vandamm (James Mason) repeatedly accused Thornhill of giving a theatrical performance – pretending to be ad man Roger Thornhill. Vandamm insisted that he was United States Information Agent George Kaplan. "My name is Roger Thornhill," the ad executive replied. "It’s never been anything else." But that changed rapidly. Shortly thereafter, upon meeting Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) on the train and now on the run from the law, he tried (and failed) to convince her that he was "Jack Phillips" of "Kingby Electronics." (As Murray Pomerance pointed out in An Eye for Hitchcock, "not just false identities can be laid upon us.... what we might call authentic ones can too.") Afterward, Thornhill stepped into the role of Kaplan, even getting "killed" in a staged gun attack using fake bullets – just like in the movies.

Throughout all of this, though, Thornhill was merely a thin veneer over the actor who portrayed him, Cary Grant, whose constant mugging for the camera reminded audiences of whom they were really watching. (One scene in the hospital even treats us to the Hollywood fan world, when a bobby soxer swoons over Grant!) This house of mirrors-like labyrinth of identities could permutate forever as it works out such questions as, "who am I?" and "at which point to I ‘become’ the roles I take on?" Clearly, name, profession and social status are completely inadequate answers to these kinds of existential questions.

For me, regarding the answer to that second question, the operative word is become. Thornhill learned that accouterments such as a driver’s license, a hotel key, a gray silk suit or even a recognizable face are unreliable identifiers. Instead, action itself is the thing – it was in the act of becoming Kaplan that he found himself. In becoming, he became alive. That’s the lesson that I take from Sartre’s dictum, "As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become." If that is the case, then its opposite might also be true: to stop becoming is to die.

And that’s what I mean when I suggest that Hitchcock’s films are philosophy.

Vanity Fair's Hitchcock Scenes Compared with Originals

Fellow blogger Barefoot Cassandra has been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately. When the March Vanity Fair came out with those (I think) fantastic recreations of famous Alfred Hitchcock scenes, she set about scanning those images and then finding their parallel stills from the original movies. It's been interesting to compare them side by side - to see how the artists adhered to the original and where they exercized their creative license. Thanks, Cassandra! (Whoever you are....)

Later, today, hopefully, I'll deliver my wrap-up on Hitchcock's Films as Philosophy.

Sometimes You Hate the One You Idealize

Alfred Hitchcock sometimes repeated the Oscar Wildesque aphorism that "you kill the thing you love." In an earlier blog post, I suggested that the well-known aphorism could more accurately rephrased that `idealization is a form of hatred.' I’d like to be more precise and say this: Idealization is often a form of hostility. (Not always, and not necessarily hatred.)

I define love as a reality-based experience, while idealization is based on fantasy. So, while love and idealization look rather similar, in reality, they are opposites. In her book "A Question of Time: Essentials of Brief Dynamic Psychotherapy," Angela Molnos puts it this way:

"Idealization, by which someone loses touch with the reality of the idealized object, is invariably destructive in the long run. I consider it a form of acting out of destructive anger [what I call hostility], because the latter remains totally unconscious and fuels the idealization that persists. ... A powerful defense against an intolerable present, against the here-and-now, can lead to losing contact with reality. The abhorred part of reality is eliminated from the mind, and the longed-for condition is idealized in fantasy."

When those ideals are found to be lacking in reality, idealization can turn to hatred, or at least, devaluation. Wikipedia elaborates:

"Splitting is the tendency to view events or people as either all bad or all good. When viewing people as ‘all good’, you are said to be using the defence mechanism idealization: a mental mechanism in which the person attributes exaggeratedly positive qualities to the self or others. The counterpart of idealization is devaluation: attributing exaggerated negative qualities to the self or others. In child development idealization and devaluation are quite normal. Being raised in a healthy environment the child learns how to deal with reality. Being an adult and using idealization and devaluation as the only way to protect the feeling of the self is pathologic."

In VERTIGO, Scottie’s experience (played by James Stewart) can be seen as a textbook case of idealization-as-hostility. Scottie’s so-called "love" for "Madeleine" (Kim Novak) was fantasy-based. Such a person literally did not exist. His attachment to her could be defined as, not love, but as an idealized fixation. An obsession. When she fell short of his ideal, his "love" was tested, and it turned ugly, destructive and hateful – but not necessarily murderous – all of which are hallmarks, not of love, but of idealization.

Another example of idealization-as-hostility can be found in REAR WINDOW. L.B. Jefferies’ and Lisa Fremont’s dialogue (played by Stewart and Grace Kelly) crackles with idealization and hostility. I would say that L.B. was attracted to Lisa because she was an ideal, and that the movie begins after his idealization has shifted to hostile devaluation. His cutting remarks to her about her unassailable "perfection" bespeaks a man who has lost his illusions about the woman he has fallen for. By film’s end he has developed a more enlightened view of Lisa as he sees heretofore hidden qualities of hers that redeem her in his eyes. As I see it, the relationship arc goes from idealization to something closer to true love as the characters shed their fantasy projections about each other and arrive at something closer to reality. They’ve made moves toward an integrated view of each other, but there’s still a lot more work to do!

Idealization is a normal part of a relationship – in its early stages. In Hitchcock’s films, such idealization gets sometimes gets strung out and becomes pathological. (I haven’t even talked about the murderers in THE LODGER, PSYCHO, FRENZY and, perhaps, ROPE who literally ‘kill the thing they idealize!) It’s such idealization that Hitch’s movies often concern themselves with – and the dire consequences that result when it confused with love.