Continued from previous post
Thematically, his exploration of identity is widely evident, particularly in Psycho, Vertigo and certainly Marnie. Poor dead Rebecca de Winter is represented only through description by others and a few of her decadent effects throughout the whole of her movie, Mrs de Winter of course, has no name, and no real personality of her own.
Espionage, identity theft, masks, multiple identities and mistaken identities are all explored through both hero (if Norman Bates can be described as a hero) and heroine. Although of course the obsessions with costume, hair and make-up are reserved for the leading ladies. Hitch famously dictating costume down to the very last detail. For example, Kim Novak, who had always refused to wear black shoes for fear of making her calves look fat was told in no uncertain terms by costumier Edith Head that Hitchcock insisted on black shoes, and the grey suit she is pictured in. For his more favoured ladies, those who he saw as Trilby to his Svengali, (or Galatea to his Pygmalian, eventually leading to ‘casting couch scenarios’ the hollywood cliches do tend to pile up) he would even dress their off hours, choosing clothes from Bergdorf Goodman.
For me the Romantic pedigree of Du Maurier’s Rebecca, with it’s junior Jane Eyre heroine, is an interesting choice for Hitchcock. Certainly he wanted to inject more horror into it than he was allowed to, both by Selznick and by the American censors. Who also insisted that a tweaked ending indicate Maxim not a murderer, but a victim of misunderstanding, unlike the book, in which he indeed does pull the trigger but only when manipulated into it by his scheming and terminally ill wife. The standout Hitch moments are his depiction of Mrs Danvers, who becomes an almost supernatural figure, deranged by grief and love, appearing silently and terrifying Fontaine’s milksop ‘coy and simpering’ Mrs de Winter.
A lot has been written about Hitchcock, about Rebecca and about the Hollywood systems which perpetuated the production line of models and starlets into screen goddesses via the male agents, producers and directors who wielded the contracts. I’m more interested in the disturbing and pervasive romantic notions we have inherited from these gothic novelists which remain in popular culture. In my recent research on romance paperbacks indicates that these same characters and scenarios are recycled again and again. Modern day Mills & Boon shows this in it’s characterisation of the male romantic hero, in the sixties he was an older man with a past, in the seventies he was likely to be Greek or Spanish (exotic and exciting, a little bit dangerous) and still generally older, in the eighties and nineties he was in big business, sophisticated and rich, or a spy of some sort, or an oil sheikh (and older), up to the present day, where he is very likely to be a Russian tycoon.
Just as for the Romantics in past centuries the hero is a higher status older man, he is generally sophisticated, rich, well-educated and a loner. He might be difficult, generally unpleasant, unfeeling, angry, emotionally stunted and sexually predatory. But that’s okay, because he’s a bit damaged and has ‘a past’ which you can save him from. Then you’ll live happily ever after. If you must.
Sources:
Donald Spoto – Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies
BBC Arena series Screen Goddesses http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pjlhv
François Truffaut’s comprehensive Hitchcock interviews https://soundcloud.com/filmdetail/sets/the-hitchock-truffaut-tapes
http://www.moviesin203.org/2010/12/hitchcock-and-identity/
