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Alfred Hitchcock: Genius? Misogynist?
New York, 11:51 PM
Sun Nov 29
18 posts in the last 24 hours
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Alfred Hitchcock: Genius? Misogynist? |
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11/06/08
I was once confronted with this very question for a film class final, and was forced to admit that aside from Tippi Hedren, there was little surviving evidence that he actively hated women. In fact, he frequently had female characters in difficult situations who admitted to getting there under their own volition, like Eve Kendall in North by Northwest, Alice White in Blackmail, or Dr. Petersen in Spellbound. They were often feminist in their actions, choosing their sexuality and their danger. Frenzy, I thought, was one of the few that wasn't, that had no surviving heroine and no good resolution. It's hateful to watch, too. Psycho managed to be much more frightening and less titilliating.
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I used to wonder if Hitch himself didn't identify with that endangered female role like he reputedly did with the wrong man role.
11/06/08
I really liked Shadow of a Doubt, but thought it was so creepy the way the elder Charlie seemed like he didn't know whether he wanted to fuck his niece or kill her, it got very subversive for 1943.
11/06/08
I definitely got the sexual tension there. It was uncomfortable to say the least. It just added to the darkness of Uncle Charlie.
Also, I totally screamed at the end, thank god I was watching it alone.
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Personally I think he's a genius and I don't necessarily care about his perversions (well I do but they don't affect how I see his films). ps whoever bought up The Perverts Guide to Cinema great call, it's wonderful.
11/06/08
Plus, he's hilarious and trills when he says "Oedipal imbroglio."
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He wasn't the only creepy manipulative director. Apparently Otto Preminger, when he was filming Exodus, needed a shot of children crying hysterically. So he asked their mothers to walk away in the company of actors dressed as soldiers, then told the kids their mothers were going to be executed. He sure got his reaction shot...
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I think of Vincent Gallo with this. It might be kind of demented or wierd and not be a fun or dignified ride, but it could end up being something kind of cool or interesting.
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Also, the female supporting characters (not the icy blondes) are often awesome, like Thelma Ritter's character in Rear Window.
11/06/08
If she wasn't good enough, he just should have fired her and gone with another, better actress. But from the interviews he did with Truffaut, it sounds like he thought that changing anything after he had planned it out would be a failure in his mind. Including, it seems, casting choices.
I'm a Hitchcock buff and still think he's the Father of modern cinema. But he was a crazy motherfucker, it's true.
11/06/08