The MacGuffin: News and Comment (31/Jul/2000)
(c) Ken Mogg (2000)
July 31
I see that I could have better explained (July 26) just why my terrifying childhood memory of a man who suddenly transformed himself by donning a wig was so scary, of the same order (I think) as the sudden appearance of 'Mother' in Psycho. The essential point is that a moment earlier the 'nice man' had been smiling at us and reassuring us (supported in this by our lady schoolteacher, who had just introduced him), when all of a sudden, as if by malign magic, he was supplanted by someone else whom we had never met and whose arrival was unexpected and (for the moment) inexplicable, and hence deeply shocking. As I said last time, this sort of thing scarcely needs formal theory to 'explain' it, and is something that Hitchcock often tapped into. It just 'is' (like the very existence of the world's 'Will', as opposed to the non-existence of that Will, i.e., of everything). The fear of heights is of much the same order. Experiments have shown that even very young babies, including baby animals, are terrified if they find themselves on the edge of a precipice, or sharp drop, and will turn back. So we don't need theory to explain the terror we feel when Hitchcock threatens us with a fall from a great height (as with subjective-shots in Saboteur, Vertigo, North by Northwest, etc.). Now here's another example of this sort of thing. There are moments in Hitchcock films which are in a sense fundamental, or somehow archetypal. I think of the moment in Vertigo when, in the early hours of the morning, Madeleine turns up at Scottie's front door and rings the buzzer insistently. There's something particularly gratifying about this moment for the audience, almost regardless of the film's own story-line, and which Hitchcock was certainly aware of - indeed it may have been the inspiration for the scene's inclusion. I'm referring of course to the idea of a beautiful woman arriving at a man's front door, seemingly compelled to seek him out. The subtext is one of sexual gratification (or the world's Will at work!). Similarly, Hitchcock told Truffaut that the scene where Judy agrees to Scottie's request that she transform herself into Madeleine was really 'a strip-tease in reverse' ...
This material is copyright of Ken Mogg and the Hitchcock Scholars/'MacGuffin' website (home page) and is archived with the permission of the copyright holder. |
