Shadow of a Doubt<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\nWhat is\u00a0film noir<\/i>?<\/b><\/p>\n
Film noir<\/i> literally means \u201cblack film,\u201d but \u201cdark film\u201d is a better translation. It\u00a0<\/i>refers to any of about 300 black and white crime films released in the U. S. between 1940 and 1959.\u00a0Pre-noirs<\/i>\u00a0are similar films released before 1940.\u00a0Neo-noirs<\/i>\u00a0are from after 1959 and are usually in color.<\/p>\n
Film noir<\/i> as a genre can be defined by its setting, plot, characters, mood and visual style (to be considered later):<\/p>\n\n- The setting is the contemporary world, usually a city at night.\u00a0The environment is corrupt.<\/li>\n
- The plot: A protagonist commits a crime, usually a murder. An investigation ensues which involves the protagonist in a web of misadventures, typically ending unhappily.<\/li>\n
- The characters usually include\u00a0a protagonist, a femme fatale<\/i> and an investigator. (A character may play more than one of these roles.) Others may be\u00a0a conventional wife or girlfriend, police, criminals, corrupt politicians, a psychiatrist, etc.<\/i><\/li>\n
- The mood of films noir is pessimistic and cynical. Two typical characteristics of a film noir<\/i> protagonist are alienation<\/i> from society and obsession<\/i> with a goal (which may be the femme fatale<\/i>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cognitive categories, such as film genres, can be represented by a circle with vague boundaries, and with a few prototypes<\/em>, or perfect examples, at the center. \u00a0Damico (1978) has described the following film noir<\/i> prototype:<\/p>\nEither because he is fated to do so by chance, or because he has been hired for a job specifically associated with her, a man whose experience of life has left him sanguine and often bitter meets a not-innocent woman of similar outlook to whom he is sexually and fatally attracted. Through this attraction, either because the woman induces him to it or because it is the natural result of their relationship, the man comes to cheat, attempt to murder, or actually murder a second man to whom the woman is unhappily or unwillingly attached (generally he is her husband or lover), an act which brings about the sometimes metaphoric but usually literal destruction of the woman, the man to whom she is attached, and frequently the protagonist himself.<\/i><\/p>\n
Very few films noir <\/i>fit the prototype. (This is a good thing, since watching the same story repeatedly would be boring.)\u00a0The question then becomes: How far can a film deviate from the prototype and still be classified as a film noir<\/i>? Some argue that film noir<\/i> is not a genre, that its plots and characters are so diverse that its only defining characteristics are mood and visual style.<\/p>\n
Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock\u2019s childhood<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nA word of caution: Information about Hitchcock\u2019s early life is sketchy. There is a temptation to cherry-pick facts that are consistent with what we know about his later career.<\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock grew up in a lower middle class family in London. His father was a green grocer, a hard worker and a strict disciplinarian who died at age 52. He had two siblings, a brother eight years older, and a sister seven years older.<\/span><\/p>\nHis early life was dominated by his Catholicism. He attended a strict Jesuit school (St. Ignatius), where he learned about good and evil, with a heavy emphasis on guilt followed by corporal punishment for those who went astray. Each night, Hitchcock was required to stand at the foot of his mother\u2019s bed and recount his daily activities, an arrangement that resembled a daily confession.<\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock often told this anecdote: When he was 5 or 6 years old, he misbehaved. He father sent him to the local police station with a note. The officer on duty read the note and locked him in a cell for a short time, saying, \u201cThis is what we do to naughty boys.\u201d Hitchcock claimed this gave him a lifelong fear of authority figures, and of confinement.<\/span><\/p>\nOne of the family hobbies was reading and talking about about crimes, especially murders, a popular subject of London tabloids. The family also enjoyed entertainment\u2014music halls, plays, and eventually movies. Hitchcock was a good student and an avid reader, particularly of crime fiction.<\/span><\/p>\nAs a child, Hitchcock was shy and spent a lot of time by himself. He tended to be an observer rather than a participant in childhood activities. (He didn\u2019t participate in sports because he was fat.) One biographer described him as the \u201cconsummate watcher.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock theme #1: Doubling<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nA common theme in Victorian literature is that the self is divided into good and evil aspects of the personality, which struggle for control of behavior, i.e.<\/i>, Stevenson\u2019s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.<\/i> Hitchcock seemed to regard this as an actual principle of psychology.<\/span><\/p>\nRelated to this is the notion that each person has a double, or doppelganger<\/i>, with each individual representing the opposite side of the other\u2014one good, one evil. Because one\u2019s double is actually a part of oneself, when the evil member of the duo misbehaves, some of the guilt is transferred to the other person.<\/span><\/p>\nThe film<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nShadow of a Doubt<\/i> originated with a story idea by British crime novelist Gordon McDonnell. It was loosely based on an actual Merry Widow Murderer from the 1920s, Earle Leonard Nelson. Hitchcock hired Thornton Wilder, author of the play Our Town<\/i>, to write the screenplay, because he wanted an authentic portrayal of small town American life. There was additional dialogue by Sally Benson, Alma Reville (Hitchcock\u2019s wife) and Hitchcock himself.<\/span><\/p>\nMost of the film was shot on location in Santa Rosa, CA, a town of 13,000 in Sonoma County, 50 miles north of San Francisco. Although it was his fifth American film, it was Hitchcock\u2019s first attempt to portray an American family and community. It stood in sharp contrast with the typical Hollywood film of the 1940s, which celebrated the virtues of small town life. <\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock sometimes said that Shadow of a Doubt<\/i> was his favorite film. His daughter Pat explained, \u201cHe loved the idea of bringing menace into this small town.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nJoseph Cotten (1905-1994)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nJoseph Cotton was a successful leading man of the 1940s. He came to prominence on Broadway and on the radio as a member of Orson Welles\u2019 Mercury Theatre company. Welles cast him in Citizen Kane<\/i> (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons<\/i> (1942) and Journey into Fear<\/i> (1943). He also appeared in the Western Duel in the Sun<\/i> (1946) and opposite Welles in the British film noir,<\/i> The Third Man<\/i> (1949).<\/span><\/p>\nHe and Hitchcock remained friends. He starred in Under Capricorn<\/i> (1949) and several episodes of Hitchcock\u2019s TV series. His career declined in the 1950s, but he remained active in films until his career ended in 1981, when he suffered a stroke.<\/span><\/p>\nTeresa Wright<\/b> (1918-2005)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nLike Cotton, Teresa Wright began her career on the stage and enjoyed her greatest success in the 1940s. She was nominated for best supporting actress in The Little Foxes<\/i> (1941) and Mrs. Miniver<\/i> (1942), for which she won the award. She was nominated for best actress for Pride of the Yankees<\/i> (1943). She also appeared in two films about the problems of returning veterans, The Best Years of Our Lives<\/i> (1946) and The Men<\/i> (1950). Her 1950s films were not very successful, and after 1955, she appeared mostly on stage or on television.<\/span><\/p>\nDoubling<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock presents the doubling theme visually by introducing both Charlies with the same sequence of shots, ending with each one lying on a bed facing right. The theme is introduced in the dialogue several times: Young Charlie was named after her uncle and he was her favorite. She believed there was a telepathic connection between them when his telegram arrived just as she had decided to invite him. After she began to suspect him, Uncle Charlie argued that they are like twins, and that the same blood flowed through their veins.<\/span><\/p>\nThe film implies a transfer of guilt from Uncle Charlie to young Charlie. (Don\u2019t we all feel some guilt upon learning that someone to whom we are close has behaved badly?) She is morally compromised. To protect her parents, she is willing to let him leave town and presumably go on killing. In the end, when she does kill him by accident and in self-defense, the fact that she had threatened to kill him suggests that she had willed it. Hitchcock biographer Donald Spoto argues that the film\u2019s title refers not only to Charlie\u2019s suspicions about her uncle, but also to the shadow that the story casts over her own goodness.<\/span><\/p>\nSpoto suggests that the two Charlies are \u201ca spiritual summary of the light and dark sides of Hitchcock\u2019s own adult nature.\u201d Hitchcock is believed to have written Uncle Charlie\u2019s two bitter, self-justifying monologues: At the table, where he describes widows as \u201cfat wheezing animals. . .useless women, drinking the money, eating the money, smelling of money,\u201d and in the bar, where he opines that, \u201cThe world is a foul sty; if you ripped the fronts off houses, you\u2019d find swine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nA subplot<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nJoe and his neighbor Herb\u2019s preoccupation with murder mysteries is hilarious since the most wanted murderer in the country is sitting a few feet away. This is one of several Hitchcock films that implies that interest in murder is a form of voyeurism. More of this later.<\/span><\/p>\nShadow of a doubt<\/em> as a film noir<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock uses the high contrast lighting typical of German expressionism in some scenes, especially the two nighttime conversations on the porch between the two Charlies. When Uncle Charlie comes to Santa Rosa on the train, an ominous cloud of black smoke descends over the town. In his interview of Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut suggested that this meant that \u201cthe devil has come to town.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAlthough not set in the city, Shadow of a Doubt<\/i> is usually classified as a film noir<\/i>. Compared to most\u00a0films noir<\/i>, the genders are reversed. Young Charlie is the noir<\/i> protagonist and Uncle Charlie can be viewed as the \u201cfemme fatale<\/i>.\u201d As a result of her investigations, Charlie\u2019s optimistic world view is replaced by a more pessimistic and cynical one. The film could be said to be about her moral education.<\/span><\/p>\nWhile Uncle Charlie\u2019s death implies a happy ending, the ending is at best ambiguous. It has been suggested that the final scene between Charlie and Jack Graham implies that they will not live happily ever after. When Truffaut raised this issue, Hitchcock\u2019s reply was, \u201c(T)he girl will be in love with her Uncle Charlie for the rest of her life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAftermath<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nThe film received favorable reviews and was financially successful, although not a blockbuster. It was nominated for only one Academy Award\u2014best original story by Gordon McDonnell. Like many of Hitchcock\u2019s films, its reputation has grown over the years.<\/span><\/p>\nNovember 7\u2013Notorious<\/em><\/h2>\nHitchcock\u2019s early career<\/strong><\/p>\nAt age 14, Alfred Hitchcock enrolled in the London School of Engineering and Navigation to study engineering. He took his first job at age 15 with Henley\u2019s Telegraph Works, an electric company. He moved from engineering into the advertising department and took night courses in art. While there, he edited a company magazine, The Henley Telegraph<\/i>. He wrote short stories with surprise twist endings.<\/span><\/p>\nFor a time, he moonlighted at Famous Players-Lasky, London\u2019s largest film studio. At age 22, he took a job there writing and drawing the titles for silent films. He was very ambitious and moved up to art director and assistant director. He worked long hours, voluntarily taking on various jobs that made him familiar with almost every aspect of the filmmaking process.<\/span><\/p>\nThere he met his future wife, Alma Reville, who was a script girl and an editor. They married in 1926. Throughout his career, Alma was a constant collaborator on his screenplays, sometimes credited, sometimes not.<\/span><\/p>\nIn 1923, he took a job with producer Michael Balcon in what became Gainsborough Pictures. Balcon entered into a co-production deal with UFA (Universum Film Aktien Gesellschaft)<\/i>, Germany\u2019s largest and the world\u2019s most acclaimed film company from 1919-1931, where he learned the basics of expressionist filmmaking. He directed his first two films in Germany in 1925 (released in 1927).<\/span><\/p>\nGerman Expressionism<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nOne way of classifying schools of filmmaking is realism vs. expressionism. <\/i>Realism is an attempt to capture the subject objectively, while expressionism focuses on the power of directors to manipulate reality. German expressionism was characterized by high contrast lighting; distorted sets, sometimes hand-painted to represent lights, shadows and objects; tilted camera angles; and heavy use of symbolism to represent dream content or ideas such as psychological disturbance.<\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock\u2019s most important silent film was The Lodger<\/i> (1927), set in London at the time of Jack the Ripper. The lodger was a foreign-born man who rented a room with a middle class family and came under suspicion of being the killer. The film is filled with expressionist images.<\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock\u2019s first \u201ctalkie\u201d was Blackmail<\/i> (1929). Among his other successful British films were The Man Who Knew Too Much<\/i> (1934), The 39 Steps<\/i> (1935) and The Lady Vanishes<\/i> (1938). He moved to the US (he said) because American studios possessed superior technical facilities.<\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock Themes:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n#1 The McGuffin<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nA McGuffin is some object that is sought after by the participants in a drama, such as a jewel or the plans for a secret weapon. It has value because the characters think it has value. The McGuffin in Notorious<\/i> is an exception to the general rule because it was meaningful to 1946 audiences.<\/span><\/p>\n#2 Surprise vs. suspense<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock believed it was relatively easy to create surprise, i.e.<\/i>, an exploding bomb. However, the effect on audiences is short-lived. Hitchcock preferred susponse, i.e.<\/i>, tell the audience is bomb will explode in 15 minutes and let them worry about the fate of the characters. The suspense is created by giving the audience information the characters don\u2019t have.<\/span><\/p>\nIn Shadow of a Doubt,<\/i> Hitchcock preferred suspense over mystery. He told the audience that Uncle Charlie was the Merry Widow Murderer at the outset, to create suspense over the fate of young Charlie when she found out. Mystery is an intellectual process, while suspense is an emotional process.<\/span><\/p>\nThe film<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nThe original source was \u201cThe Song of the Dragon\u201d by John Taintor Foote, a serial in the Saturday Evening Post<\/i>, about a woman who had been an American spy during World War I. Very little of the original story was kept. The screenplay was written by Ben Hecht. <\/span><\/p>\nBen Hecht (1894-1964)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nHecht was a journalist turned playwright (he co-authored The Front Page<\/i>) who became Hollywood\u2019s most successful screenwriter. The number of screenplays he wrote is unknown, since many were uncredited, but it was over 100. He was nominated for Six Academy Awards and won twice (Underworld<\/i>, 1927 and The Scoundrel<\/i>, 1935). This was his second Hitchcock screenplay, after Spellbound<\/i> (1945). He made uncredited contributions to at least five other Hitchcock films, and wrote several other films noir<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\nCary Grant (1904-1986)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nCary Grant was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England. He began performing in a stage troupe at age six. He did stage work and vaudeville, moving to the US in the 1920s, and to Hollywood in 1931.\u00a0<\/span>He acted in 76 films.<\/span><\/p>\nHe initially appeared in crime films and serious dramas, but was best known for romantic comedies such as The Awful Truth<\/i> (1937), Bringing Up Baby<\/i> (1938) and The Philadelphia Story<\/i> (1940). He was nominated for best actor in Penny Serenade<\/i> (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart<\/i> (1944). He starred in three other Hitchcock films: Suspicion<\/i> (1941), To Catch a Thief<\/i> (1955), and North By Northwest<\/i> (1959).<\/span><\/p>\nHe lived in a beach house (\u201cBachelor Hall\u201d) with his friend Randolph Scott for 12 years. He was married five times. He retired in 1966 saying he was too old to play leading men.<\/span><\/p>\nIngrid Bergman (1915-1982)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nBergman in Stockholm and started her career in Sweden, where she made about a dozen films. She was brought to the US by David O. Selznick to star in Intermezzo<\/i> (1939), and had a string of hits in the 1940s, the most popular being Casablanca<\/i> (1943). She starred for Hitchcock in Spellbound<\/i> (1945) and Under Capricorn<\/i> (1949).<\/span><\/p>\nShe married Peter Lindstrom, a dentist, in 1937. In 1950, she had a well-publicized affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. This harmed her career since American audiences were shocked by her infidelity and the studios disapproved of Rossellini, a pioneer of neorealism<\/i>, because he was a socialist. She married and did five films with Rossellini. <\/span><\/p>\nShe was nominated for seven Academy Awards, six for best actress and one for best supporting actress. <\/span>She won three times: Gaslight <\/i>(1944), Anastasia<\/i> (1956) and (for supporting actress) Murder on the Orient Express<\/i> (1974). Her final Oscar nomination was for Autumn Sonata<\/i> (1978), a Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman (no relation).<\/span><\/p>\nClaude Rains (1889-1967)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nBorn in London, he started out as a stage actor in London and on Broadway. His first film was The Invisible Man<\/i> (1933), and he starred in two other Universal horror films, The Wolf Man<\/i> (1941) and Phantom of the Opera<\/i> (1943).<\/span><\/p>\nDisadvantage by his height (5\u20196\u201d), he played mostly supporting roles. He was nominated for best supporting actor four times: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington<\/i> (1939), Casablanca<\/i> (1943), Mr. Skeffington<\/i> (1944), and Notorious<\/i> (1946). He continued to work almost until his death.<\/span><\/p>\nThe plot<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nConsidered within the context of 1946 Hollywood, the first question becomes, \u201cHow did Hitchcock get away with it?\u201d He said, \u201cI wanted to make this film about a man who forces a woman to go to bed with another man because it\u2019s his professional duty.\u201d This was not only sexually controversial but immediately after World War II, a time of patriotism, it questioned the ethics of the US government, which was sending a woman to prostitute herself for the country.<\/span><\/p>\nHitchcock believed\u2014apparently correctly\u2014that if he didn\u2019t talk directly about what was going on, the censors might not notice. Maybe they were too busy timing the kisses (which were limted to 3 seconds each) and missed the greater significance of the plot. <\/span><\/p>\nAs a love story, the theme of Notorious<\/i> could be said to be lack of trust. In the scene in which Devlin gives Alicia her assignment, he is presumably thinking, \u201cIf she loves me, she won\u2019t do it,\u201d while she is thinking, \u201cIf he loves me, he won\u2019t let me do it.\u201d Each wants the other to speak up first, with the result that both are silent.<\/span><\/p>\nThe McGuffin<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nThe McGuffin, uranium, hidden in order to make an atomic bomb, turned out to be quite timely. In 1944, when the script was written, the bomb existed only as a rumor. After Hitchcock and Hecht visited a nuclear physicist at Cal Tech to ask him questions about the bomb, Hitchcock claims he was followed by the FBI for 3 months. By the time the film was released in 1946, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed and the McGuffin sounded like a real threat.<\/span><\/p>\nTechnique<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nThe film illustrates Hitchcock\u2019s use of montage <\/i>(editing) to make the characters\u2019 thought processes visible; for example, when Alex figures out what Alicia and Devlin were doing in the wine cellar, and when Alicia realizes she is being poisoned. This is done by alternating shots of the actors\u2019 faces with what they are presumably thinking about. <\/span><\/p>\nWhen Alex realizes that he has been betrayed, he goes to his mother\u2019s bedroom and confesses\u2014shades of Hitchcock\u2019s own childhood. Leopoldine Konstantin, in the role of Alex\u2019s mother, delivers the film\u2019s great line: \u201cWe are protected by the enormity of your stupidity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nNotorious<\/b><\/i> as a <\/b>film noir<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/p>\nIn Shadow of a Doubt<\/i> the usual gender roles in films noir were reversed: Young Charlie was the noir<\/i> protagonist and Uncle Charlie a sort of femme fatale<\/i>. In Notorious<\/i>, the standard gender roles apply: Devlin is the noir<\/i> protagonist and Alicia the femme fatale<\/i>. However, Devlin errs by trusting her too little rather than too much. At the same time, Alicia is clearly a femme fatale<\/i> for Alex. He makes the more typical mistake of trusting her too much.<\/span><\/p>\nThe ending<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nOur response to the \u201chappy ending\u201d is undermined by the sympathy that we feel for the villain, Alex. The nominal hero and heroine have pulled off one of the screen\u2019s great betrayals. However, if anyone feels sorry for Alex, Hitchcock can remind them that (1) Alex is an escaped Nazi living in South America, and (2) he\u2019s not just hiding out; he\u2019s planning to build a nuclear weapon to restart the war.<\/span><\/p>\nAftermath<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nNotorious<\/i> received favorable reviews and was a hit. The film cost $2M and grossed $8M. But it received only two Academy Award nominations: Ben Hecht (screenplay) and Claude Rains (supporting actor). Neither of them won.<\/span><\/p>\nNovember 14\u2013Strangers on a Train<\/em><\/h2>\nHitchcock\u2019s career (cont.)<\/strong><\/p>\nHitchcock came to the US under contract to David O. Selznick, at the time America\u2019s most successful producer. Although this had advantages, both in salary and technical facilities, it also had significant drawbacks. Selznick was a very \u201chands on\u201d producer, who intervened in Hitchcock\u2019s work in ways that he didn\u2019t appreciate. In his seven years with Selznick, Hitchcock made ten films, only three of which were produced by Selznick. In the others, Hitchcock\u2019s services were loaned to other companies for a fee, which was usually a lot more than he paid Hitchcock. Hitchcock seethed.<\/p>\n
Hitchcock was initially shocked by how much the American press ridiculed his weight and his mannerisms\u2014something the British press tactfully refrained from doing. Eventually he learned to turn this to his advantage by making fun of himself.<\/p>\n
Hitchcock the Technician<\/strong><\/p>\nHitchcock was famous within the film industry for his fastidious direction. Everything was carefully planned. He drew up story boards for every scene, specifying the content of the shot, camera angle, lens, etc. Crew members were amazed at the depth of his knowledge of every aspect of filmmaking. Even when he was seated far from the camera, he knew exactly what lens to use and what would be in the shot.<\/p>\n
Hitchcock visualized his films as a series of scenes, and he relied on screenwriters to supply a plot and dialogue which would connect these pictures to one another. He hated what he called \u201cscenes of people talking.\u201d His training making silent films (which he called \u201cpure cinema\u201d) allowed him to tell stories with a minimum of dialogue.<\/p>\n
He complained to Truffaut about the \u201cplausibles and logicians\u201d who found holes in his plots. He felt the audience didn\u2019t really care about them as long as they were emotionally involved in the story.<\/p>\n
With his emphasis on planning, he said that the actual shooting of the film was an anti-climax that he didn\u2019t really enjoy.<\/p>\n
He was often quoted as saying that actors are like cattle. This is an exaggeration; there were some actors he liked a great deal. However, actors were not allowed to deviate from his instructions.<\/p>\n
He particularly disliked \u201cmethod\u201d actors who bothered him with questions about their character\u2019s motivation.<\/p>\n
The cinematic code<\/strong><\/p>\nHitchcock made exttensiove and skillful use of the cinematic code.<\/p>\n
The cinematic code:<\/strong> Two ways of communicating meaning on film.<\/p>\n\n- Mise-en-scene<\/strong><\/em> = literally, putting-in-the-scene, or that part of the cinematic process that takes place on the set; the shot itself; placement of cameras relative to subject matter.<\/li>\n