This report is a little bit long but has some wonderful details and ideas. Notice how the writer focuses on visual elements and specific scenes.
Shadow of a Doubt
Screening Report
16 June 2006
I have mixed feelings for "Shadow of a Doubt" and I'm actually quite surprised this film was Hitchcock's favorite. There are elements that I like and aspects that I find disturbing.
Overall, I thought the cinematography of the film was outstanding. Hitchcock was at his best in delivering striking shots. Close ups of faces throughout the film, especially of Uncle Charlie as he's describing his contempt for the merry widows of the world, illuminated the emotion of the dialogue. The slow zoom in on Uncle Charlie during this speech increases the intensity of the scene. The billowing black smoke that engulfs the train as Uncle Charlie arrives in Santa Rosa signifies the evil that has invaded the town. The canted framing of Uncle Charlie pacing in Charlie's room demonstrates how life has shifted for her with Uncle Charlie's appearance in Santa Rosa. Toward the film's end, Uncle Charlie stands at the top of the stairs, stops, and looks back down at Charlie who is neatly framed through the open door. She looks incredibly small and boxed in, exemplifying how she feels knowing her uncle is a murderer. The close up of Uncle Charlie's hands as he twists the cocktail napkin in the bar brings to mind the victims' strangulations. Hitchcock did a splendid job of focusing in on Uncle Charlie's hands throughout the film to emphasize their importance as a murder weapon.
The relationship between Uncle Charlie and Charlie was uncanny. It wasn't just a sweet fondness between an uncle and a favorite niece. Charlie's attraction for her uncle was obsessive at best and incestuous at worst. During the first half of the film, I winced every time she interacted with him. It was extremely uncomfortable knowing that they weren't lovers, yet there was the underlying feeling that they were more than just family members. When Uncle Charlie gives Charlie her present and slides the emerald ring onto her finger, it seemed as though they were exchanging their marital vows. Ewwww.
Charlie's relationship with her parents also was unusual for a "typical American family." She exhibited more control over the household than her emasculated father, who had no real influence over anything, and her ineffectual, childlike mother. She told her mother where Uncle Charlie would sleep, she served the dinner, and she decided it would be okay to allow Ann to change positions with Roger at the dinner table. The mother had an unnatural love for her younger brother. She fawned over him while ignoring her cuckold husband. This was very creepy to watch. The mother had to be "protected" from knowing the truth about Uncle Charlie because she was so fragile where he was concerned.
Several Hitchcock themes recurred in "Shadow of a Doubt." Hands, trains, stairways, the number 13, doubles, the wrong man (this time, however, the wrong man ran into an airplane's propeller), and the deadly trap of marriage.
Several of the actors' performances stood out in this film. Joseph Cotton was superb as Uncle Charlie, his evilness always kept just underneath the surface. A young Hume Cronyn excelled in his role as Herb, the bumbling neighbor who shared ideas for the perfect murder of his friend, Mr. Newton. Teresa Wright was very good as young Charlie, although it was difficult to really get a grasp on her true age.
This D2L entry has some nice analytical discussion and reflects both a knowledge of the film and a strong understanding of the readings.
Rear Window seems to culminate many themes present in Hitchcock's previous work; fragmentation of bodies (Miss Torso), voyeurism (Jimmy Stewart as photographer), fear of marriage (Stewart's view of relationship with girlfriend Grace Kelly), fear of loneliness (Ms Lonelyhearts). All of these themes are presented to the audience via Stewart's rear window in his apartment, laid out for us like an elaborate collection of silent soap operas. I feel Hitchcock's exploration into the nature of voyeurism is especially profound in this film, and I agree with Spoto when he aligns Stewart as a double for Hitchcock; where Stewart uses a telephoto lens, Hitchcock has his video camera; they both sit and watch everyone perform in front of them. What sets this view of voyeurism apart from the other films previously watched in class is Hitchcock's ability to delve into an active/passive "looking" dichotomy and explore it with sex, ultimately resolving Stewart's fear of marriage. Because Stewart is essentially an invalid in Rear Window, he is restricted to ONLY looking; he can only be a voyeur, and his career as a photographer ultimately injured on the job sets him up for this impotent position. Conversely, Grace Kelly's Lisa takes on the identity of the "man" – she is able to break free of female-as-spectacle. Because Lisa can effortlessly shift from spectacle to voyeur, she defies what might have been a preordained role as a 'thing' for Stewart to gaze at instead of interact with. Lisa becomes Stewart's body in this respect; she sleuths whereas he cannot, she takes a piece of incriminating evidence whereas Stewart is unable to. Ultimately, this shift in gender identities leads Stewart to face what is typically regarded as a feminine role: helpless victim. Although he attempts to fight back against Thornwall's character with flash-bulbs, Stewart, in his helpless situation confined to a wheel chair, is ultimately pushed out a window. Instead of regaining his masculinity, Stewart humorously breaks another leg, rendering him even more helpless and impotent; the implication, I believe, is that Stewart must confront and recognize both sides of the gender binary before he is able to make a commitment, which it appears he is finally able to do at the end of the film where Lisa is shown as a substitute for the male role in masculine clothing.
This one is a bit shorter but makes some very good points.
Surprisingly, I think I liked the love story in this film the best. The whole idea of the guy thinking the girl he's with is too good for him has been done before, well, at least since, but this one played out differently. The scene that clenched it for me had to have been when Lisa returns from dropping off the letter at Lars' door. There's a shot of her walking back into L.B. Jeffries' apartment, the shot is from the point of view of Jeffries and then there is a cut and a shot of Jeffries looking at her. He face is so perfect as to capture how much he does really love her. I don't know if it was the acting or the stage direction or what, but it just all came together for me at that part. And then of course, the cute ending with her sleeping on the bed next to him sleeping in the wheelchair with two broken legs is a nice closing image for the movie
I also really enjoyed the setting of this film. It's so unlike any I've seen before, or can recall seeing. I love how all these little apartments' courtyards open into one another. I guess this is more common in a big city, but it was really interesting to me. We get a lot of point of view shots from Jeffries' perspective and I think that's so we aren't able to gain more knowledge then him because that would take all the fun out of it. So what we get is just glimpses of people living their lives from observations from a man above them looking at his window. It really is like watching a silent movie. Not the entire movie, because we're able to hear certain things when people are outside, but for instance, when he watches Lars with his wife, it is as if we are watching Jeffries watch a silent movie.
This one also makes good points although it is not very long and doesn’t discuss visual elements as much as it might. On the other hand, it cites the readings in an intelligent way and the length is adequate for an entry.
What I like about this film, as Spoto and Modleski talk about, are the themes of deception between all the characters. Alicia decieves using the guise of "typical, vulnerable women" to get into Alex's house. To me their seems to be a role-reversal happening there. A typical spy movie would have a man infiltrating the bad-guy's house, not a woman. Here, however, we have the woman becoming the predator in the sense that she is the one doing the hunting for information, while the man has to wait back on the sidelines for most of the movie. This role-reversal is complicated, however, by Alicia being vulnerable, though not typical. The dinner scene with Devlin as she seems to cling to him, not the other way around. Her begging him to believe that she can change. Yet she can also openly acknowledge that, at that point in their relationship, it doesn't seem like it will last long. I think she's the bluntest of H.C.'s characters thus far, having a penchant for alcohol and men, something that Modleski attributes to finding out her father was a spy. Did she have any of those qualities before that? Who knows.
This is another very nice entry that gives an overview of how the film fits into the other films from the course. It also has a very good visual analysis.
A number of the films we have watched in this class are carried along by strong and capable heroines. Having said that, there are some films where the female character is a dependent and emotional mess, however, Notorious is not one of them. Right from the beginning of the film, Alicia Huberman attempts to assert her power over Devlin, from her incessant drinking that belies any hint of femininity, to her reckless and drunken driving as Devlin remains in the passenger seat of the car. By all accounts, Alicia fights to be Devlin's intellectual equal and Hitchcock reflects this effectively in the film. For example, in most camera shots of Devlin and Alicia standing side by side, her height (particularly in heels) seems to match Devlin. When the pair first arrives in Rio de Janeiro they stand side by side talking as a deep focus shot also encapsulates the city in the background. During this scene, Alicia stresses how she wants Devlin to believe in her. The heroine stands tall and erect and the audience become aware that Alicia is not only striving to be Devlin's equal on a physical level, but she also wants to be his equivalent mentally. However, as Alicia will learn at the conclusion of the film, interdependence can suggest strength instead of a weakness. In the final scene, Devlin and Alicia descend the stairs of the Sebastian house as Alex descends to a state of madness. As Alicia leans on her lover and he attempts to hold her upright, the two become almost one entity, relying on each other for both emotional and physical support. Devlin and Alicia transform themselves from stubborn, independent individuals to willing, selfless lovers.