Rear Window

I watched this movie in portions over three days -- not the ideal way to watch a film, I admit, but it's not my first time through -- and my experience revisiting Rear Window was actually a lot like my experience revisiting Fight Club: it was weird to see how much of an impact this one film has had on the kind of repeated themes and events that occur in my own work. Somewhere between this and Don Quixote lies a certain kind of story I keep revisiting. I have my theories as to why, but this isn't about navel-gazing. It's supposed to be about my thoughts on watching a movie.

This film falls right on the cusp between what I love about Hitchcock and what I hate about him. It's got a lot of really stagy, obviously artificial setups, dialogue, sets and action scenes, but it also uses most or all of that to tell a story that is singularly Hitchcockian (I'm sure I didn't just make that word up), a novel exploration of suspense and tension, a slightly askew and cheeky morality story, and a bracing headlong dive into relatively uncharted psychological territory. Keeping all of the action across the way and through a window works, it implicates us in our desire to poke into others' lives, and it makes us all the more tense when things do (finally) happen across the way. A key element was Jeff's helplessness throughout: first his inability to convince anybody that mattered that Thorwald may be up to something, then his helplessness as he watched Thorwald move on Lisa, and especially the terror of his immobility when Thorwald turned the tables and came after him. That helplessness is a main ingredient in what makes the movie scary, tense. (Helplessness is a theme I'm exploring, so it's at the forefront of my attention lately.)

But on the other side of the coin, Hitchcock is at his worst when he tries to delve into common human dramas, characterization, relationships. Like Vertigo, like the opening of Psycho, like much of North by Northwest, whenever we have to sit with two characters flirting or two lovers arguing the notes ring a little false, a little bit looking-down-his-nose at the foolish plebes of his stories. (I know he doesn't write them, but the detached stiffness of each film rings similarly false, from writer to writer; I mean, it's hardly a bold claim to suggest that Hitch cares deeply about suspense, tension, and plot and not much at all for character, relationships, or ordinary human drama.) Rear Window slacks for a good chunk of it, especially as poor Jimmy Stewart has nothing to do but sit in a chair, fidget with a camera lens or a pair of binoculars, and twitch back back and forth between the window and the lamp. An inordinate amount of time is spent on tangential issues like whether or not silver-spoon Lisa is suited to traipsing about the globe with rogue-wanderer Jeff. I like that she proves infinitely more tenacious and resilient than he gives her credit for (this may be one of Hitch's most feminist characters), but I'm not sure the issue feels adequately resolved at the end for me, and I'm less sure that it matters ultimately to the story beyond giving Lisa motivation deeper than just echoing Jeff's intense curiosity for some of the bolder actions she takes. Proving something to her man is certainly adequate motivation, but the number of scenes it took to establish this felt a touch exhausting. At least in Vertigo, all the time spent on the strange relationships with women are directly linked to the themes of the story; they may feel dry and phony but it makes sense for them to feel repetitive in a story about obsession. Here, it just felt like constant reminders that Jeff's normally a take-action fearless kind of guy, and that Lisa is expected (by Jeff) to be a pretty princess and cosmopolitan socialite, above getting her hands dirty. All of that could be handled with a lot less.

Whenever I watch a Hitchcock movie, I always praise his sense of story and structure, and how he knows his way around a setpiece, but I also always come away griping that he spins plates too long, has no sense of pacing in his dialogue or character-building moments, and loses a lot of (or all) his well-built steam and well-earned excitement. Well, what can I tell you? This is no exception. It's a really, really good movie, except for the parts that aren't.

Psycho

I've already gone on at length about how cheap imitators of Psycho were so prevalent that they created a bad formula for an entire genre of film ("slasher" movies). And pretty much every critic ever seems to have belabored how awful the last ten minutes are, with Dr. Useless-Psychobabble-Exposition coming in and sullying an intelligent story's elegant conclusion. It's not enough to ruin the film, but that's only because the film is so good. Hitchcock consistently underestimated his audiences, I think, and this ending moment is one of the worst cases of it. (Another case is Spellbound: a beautiful drama, with dream sequences directed by Salvador Dalí, that hinges on a lot of overexplained, poorly understood gibberish posturing as psychoanalysis.)

What I haven't noticed really before this watching is that Psycho isn't a horror at all. It's barely even a thriller. It's pretty clearly a mystery film, if you ask me, and one that plays on three levels simultaneously without missing a beat. Check it out: there's dramatic irony because we know far more about what's going on than the various characters do (and I have a feeling Psycho can be read with Norman Bates as a late-appearing protagonist or with Everyone Else as a collective-protagonist and Norman as the antagonist; I'm inclined to see it as the latter). And then there's the twist, when we see "what really happened." In other words, there's level one, the story Lila and Sam and Arbogast and everyone assumes is true, that Norman (or, perhaps Arbogast? or maybe just Marion herself) ran off with the $40,000 and it's only a matter of putting together clues to get on the trail of the money, and Marion (alive or dead). But then there's level two, the story we assume to be true, that the money is meaningless and Norman is a (mostly) decent, sweet guy, who we can root for, who's just protecting a psychotic, murderous mother. But then there's level three, the reveal/twist (I'd say "spoiler," but come on... more people know the end of Psycho than know the end of Citizen Kane), in which Norman's mother has been dead for ten years, and in fact was murdered by Norman himself, and that Norman has taken to becoming his mother to sublimate the guilt of what he's done, thus lording over his own life the way he expects she would (or perhaps did). These three things aren't subplots, they're more like parallel explanations of what's happening: what they think is going on, what we think is going on, and what's actually going on. And all three are juggled masterfully. Up until the reveal, every single one seems reasonable, even the one we know is a wild goose chase for the world's most famous MacGuffin: Marion Crane's stolen money.

Once you know the end of course, there are plenty of clues throughout that this is what's happening. Never once does the movie "cheat" or have a moment that isn't satisfied by the final explanation. But even more than that, it's fun to watch some of the tiny gestures, to watch the evolution from Norman Bates, goofy shut-in (and by the way, I love the shit out of Anthony Perkins here... he may be my pick for greatest performance in a Hitchcock film, though it's a small list) to Norman Bates, sexually confused young man -- and of course it's the latter that triggers "Mother." When Marion comes in, all is well. When she says she's from Los Angeles, something about this triggers Norman, and he gives her the room closest to his office. Little moments like this, ways in which she makes herself available to him (gestures meant only as friendly, confusing and enticing to a reclusive man who longs to leave behind crazytown but knows he cannot) draw him to her. You get the distinct impression it's not a random crime, and that Norman doesn't kill every passerby (in fact we learn he's only killed twice before, both young ladies). This is a crime of passion spurned on by the feminine wiles of a nice young lady with a bit of the flirt in her and an obvious lie in her backstory. None of this is said, even in that unbearable info-dump denouement. It just is. It's all there to see, so (like everything else in the denouement) it doesn't need to be said at all.

The characters and the story are brilliant. The horror moments are strong, but I still say this is more of a murder mystery with a dose of thriller, and not really a horror at all. But considering how Hitch sold it to audiences, and the ripples it's created in today's horror movie... uh... pond (there's a metaphor that collapsed, ha!), it's not surprising it's thought of as a horror film. I guess that's not surprising, as a lot of the best films of any genre are the ones that come from elsewhere and bring with them a novel perspective and unique elements. The cinematic equivalent of genetic diversity, say.

The Lady Vanishes *

I've said this so many times, even I'm bored of the discussion, but I am a bigger fan of the middle years of Hitchcock's body of work than his more famous later, Hollywood years. Here, the craft is significantly looser, and the story isn't trying quite so hard. In its place is a lot of relaxed fun and silly moments surrounding a just-so plot of disappearance and espionage. I don't have as much to say about this film as I sometimes do, partially because I'm in the middle of moving and haven't slept much lately and so I'm a little distracted, but partially also because this movie doesn't spark in me any instant thoughts I need to write down. Or maybe I have some things to say, but I'm too unfocused to channel the thoughts in any particular direction or into any specific thread.

To wit: It's funny and it's thrilling all at once, and the moments of awkward humor or my-aren't-British-people-stuffy humor are great, and it's pre-WWII tension is smart and exciting. It's got a funny and fresh-feeling "meet cute" between the man and the woman, and the scuffle in the storage car with the magician is pretty fantastic stuff. For my money, and by my spoiled ("savvy"?) critical eye, the story is too obvious and too easy, with uncountable coincidences propelling the plot, and it doesn't make the audience work for much. So it's not perfect. But it is fun, and it's got the oddest tone, straddling screwball and suspense unabashedly. So there, that's what I thought. I apologize (to myself? or anyone who stumbles upon this?) for being so scattershot, but I saw the film in a scattershot state, so I react to the film likewise. (It's going to be a long month.)

Seen at Laurelhurst Theater.

Notorious

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington left me hungry for more Claude Rains, so I rented and watched this. I continue my love-hate relationship with Mr. Hitchcock, but this falls in that early-mid category and for the most part, it works. There's a little bit more shorthand than I'd like in some of the emotional-setup moments (notably the agreeing to be a spy and falling in love beats feel rushed), and quite frankly Cary Grant feels even more stiff and robotic than usual, but the situations are wonderfully tense and clever and sticky. The character motivation is clear and their actions are interesting. The whole story hinges on Devlin lying about his feelings out of a sense of duty (and resentment of those feelings), and Alicia going along with it even though she knows better -- because what's the value of being loved if your lover won't admit their love to themselves, let alone to you?

Claude Rains and Ingrid Bergman, fantastic. A little funny watching a romance play out between Ilsa and Renault, but Rains felt and looked a little more like Albert Finney than he did a French Captain. Plus the chemistry (and lackthereof) was so nice, it felt real, and you could easily sympathize with our villain's plight at the end, betrayed by his love -- and by his own hubris. I couldn't help but wonder, especially in the context of Alicia's constant acceptance and encouragement of his love in the face of Devlin's stubborn stoicness, if Sebastian might not have accepted her love anyway, even if he had known she was using him. Surely not, with so much at stake, but it left me thinking about accepting the love that's given versus holding out for the love that's withheld. Whether or not Alfred Hitchcock wants me to be considering this while watching his tightly scripted espionage thriller... well, your guess is as good as mine.

Lifeboat

I have a working theory that the better Alfred Hitchcock got as a filmmaker, the worse he got as a director. The more he gained mastery over the parts he cared about, the more myopic his vision of the film as a whole got, and things like performance, pacing, and rhythm went right out the window. According to Wikipedia, Lifeboat is Hitch's 31st film, with 23 more to follow, and coming as it does roughly halfway through his career it seems to support my theory at least incidentally. The casualties of Hitch's later genius do not suffer here, with some pretty solid performances and tight pacing. The film is downright exciting from the first frame to the last, and although the camera shies from the darker moments the story definitely does not.

The anti- or pro-war message of the film is interesting, especially Hitch's defense of writing a strong Nazi character in the middle of WWII as necessary to prove his point that "the Allies needed to stop bickering and work together to win the war." That, I can handle, and watching it 60 years later with a more even-keeled view of Germans in general I definitely could not have predicted whether or not Willi was going to turn on them or prove to be their salvation after all. The women in the story are given a reasonable shake, starting out as more than just girlfriends and wives and only devolving into lovers when desperation takes hold and everybody starts looking for someone to die with. In fact, I laughed right out loud when upper-class journalist Connie and rough, tattooed sailor Kovac skipped all the little back-and-forth flirtations and went straight from loathing each other to kissing furiously when they believed death was just around the corner. "We might as well go down together, Connie," he says. I wish I could say the charming Negro was as well handled, but at least he was a noble, respectable character, even if he was a two-dimensional one who knew his place. Hell, even Casablanca fucks that one up. (To be fair, they do agree to give him a vote in their "democracy" early on, without batting an eyelash. That's a little progressive, right?)

The story had the right blend of characters, from classes and races and genders and attitudes, without feeling artificial, and the events as they unfold are pretty great. Then again, I suppose working from Steinbeck makes that kind of easy. Anyway I'm thoroughly impressed and I'm glad this was the random movie I grabbed tonight out of my pile of should-watch movies.

North By Northwest

I have a much more contentious relationship with Hitchcock than almost anyone else I know, in that I think he's a really pretty terrible director but an amazing filmmaker. But North By Northwest holds up maybe the best, because the script is so brilliant: fun, clever, surprising, and nonstop. Even Hitch's unique sense of pacing or Cary Grant's unique brand of acting can't unmake this masterpiece.