Alfred Hitchcock and Art

[animalishness]

Alfred Hitchcock and Art

the prominent presence of Art is crucial and significant in hitch's
mooies. hitchcock looked fat and clownish but comported about as an
art connoisseur.
whether one can call hitchcock's movies art or entertainment, hitch
was clearly aware of the distinctions between high and low, between
mighty and minnie, between grandeur and granular.
hitch was a middle-brow with high-brow tastes. being of a low plebian
sort myself, i cannot tell high from middle, though i usually can tell
high from low. ass tattoo or tongue piercing is low. art galleries
and parties serving caviar are high.

anyway, let's consider some of the artworks--or cultural momunments--
in hitchcock's films. consider mount rushmore in North by Northwest.
consider the merry-go-round in Strangers on a Train. though most
amusement rides--like bumper cars--aren't Art, the merry-go-round or
ferris wheel is an iconic cultural product of western civilization.
it's Art for the masses, adding a degree of class to a playground for
the masses. it gives regular people the opportunity to ride horses--
usually a privilege for the nobility. and, speaking of Mount
Rushmore, it may not be High Art either but it's one of the great
works of american public art. it's cultural monumentalism that--like
the statue of liberty(also in one of hitch's movies)--defines what
americans are.
consider the various musical or dance performances in hitchcock's
movies. there's 39 steps, man who knew too much(original and remake),
torn curtain(ballet), and others.
there is the artful dinner in The Rope. and, it could also be argued
that many murders in hitch's movies are carried out in an artistic
fashion. the stranglers in the Rope and Strangers on a
Train(stranglers on a train?) don't just kill but kill with method and
finesse.
there's the mother's room with all sorts of trinkets and jewelry in
Psycho. also, the rather large mansion which looks oddly roomy and
opulent for owners of a motel.
there's the dance ball in Under Capricorn--a kind of social art form.
was there jewely in Topaz or am i confusing it for another mooie?
there's also the use of Dali in Spellbound which would suggest the
human mind/soul is the artistic/creative playground for the
subconscious. it could be argued that the subconscious is the home
of creativity, though few people have the talent to tap into it. it's
irrational, wild, crazy, and dark. yet, we dress up art--the product
of our dark/violent/creative emtions--as something that stands for the
highest, noblest, transcendental, and unifying expression of man. of
course, this wasn't exactly the case with modern art which allowed
individual artists to explore and express dark pathologies of society
and their own psyche. one of the crucial differences between
traditional art and modern art is the latter didn't try to necessarily
transform darkness into brightness, madness into sanity, ugliness
into beauty. consider the tormented soul of beethoven filled with
angst, hatred, bitterness, monstrosity, ferocity, arrogance, contempt,
etc. we sense great violence in his music but it is smoothed over and
polished with elements and motifs that transform the arrgh into the
ahhhh. dark animal passions are tailored into higher emotions. lust
turned into love. hate into righteousness. arrogance into
confidence. contempt into courage. and, beethoven had the power to
do such.
modern art didn't try to ennoble, romanticize, or celebrate the dark
and terrible instincts of man. modern art showed ugliness as ugliness,
monstrosity as monstrosity, pathology as pathology. but, it still
regarded those passions are morally disturbing--even if morality
itself was called into question. modern art rejected the 'noble' or
'romantic' aspects of traditional art but was serious in its
intellectualism and search for truth. picasso wasn't designing
bubblegum wrappers. kandinsky would not have designed posters for soda
pop companies. pierre boulez wouldn't have written songs for the
Monkees and Herman's Hermits. like Serious Filmmakers like Antonioni,
Bergman, and Bresson, they were into the problems of modern man--
alienation, loss of faith, weirdness, difficult questions, and such.
for us today, those themes may be far less meaningful. even as
serious modern artists of an earlier era rejected tradition, they'd
been raised with it. so, what they rejected was inscribed into their
souls to their dying days. they had something to reject and rebel
against. for example, bad boy bunuel was shaped by catholicism all his
life. and, 8 1/2 wouldn't be as rich if not for fellini's conflicted
feelings about catholicism. we who grew up in the aftermath of the
modernist rebellion are not much bothered by a world without god,
faith, meaning, truth, nobility, spirituality, beauty, etc. for many
folks, homer simpson's buttcrack is a comforting representation of our
culture. many folks today are happy shameless boors with low
expectations. even being rich is a matter of tasteless nouveau
richery or, at best, tasteful aloofery than about attaining higher
meaning or truth or what have you.

if modern art, even while rejecting tradition, grappled with the
problems of freedom and liberty, popular or populist entertainment
has been uninhibitedly happy with all things new. what does it matter
if there's god or no god as long as you can watch 'desperate houses'
or 'deal or no deal' every night? besides, god is just another
commercialized commodity anyway. instead of making any demands on us,
we make all the demands on Him. we want him to accept gay marriage.
what makes us feel good and happy is truth as far as we are
concerned.
in some ways, popular entertainment has been aesthetically
conservative in the sense of sticking to tried-and-true formulas for
'conventional' narrative, cliched themes, character-centeredness, and
so on. most pop songs are about boy-meets-girl or i-can-whup-your-
ass. most movies are about action heroes and horny women. they have
little in common with the films of godard, antonioni, and bergman. of
course, things were kinda funny with guys like godard and some
others. are they high or middle or low? in a way, godard--or
tarantino--is appealing to many modern folks because he straddles or
used to straddle between high and low and everything in between. this
way, you can have the cake and eat it too. you can pretend to be
intellectual and look down at all the slobs whose idea of culture is
hannah montana or the latest will smith mooie. but, you can also
pretend to be a rebel and maverick who's not into all that stuffy,
pompous high brow shit. it's like if you're into godard or tarantino,
you're above and beyond all categories. you're a superduper free
spirit, liberated in body and soul. you're above nationality, race,
religion, class, culture, etc, etc. you belong to a brotherhood of
folks-who-think-for-themselves.
while rigid categories are always pompous, rigid anti-categories are
bogus too; they end up as categories themselves, especially for people
who face the post-modern malady of slobosnobbery. our economy has
allowed great many people to gain access to higher education, books,
journals, etc, etc. even semi-educated slobs have read many
intellectual-ish books--written in an intellectualish manner about un-
or anti-intellectualish stuff. greil marcus made an entire industry
out of this bogosity where we are supposed to think seriously about
stupid stuff such as now forgotten 70s punk 'music'. the slobosnobs
have even come to command and define intellectualish thinking and
style, but their tastes are generally lowly and idiotic. so, what they
do is write intellectualish about garbage like buffy the vampire
slayer, sopranos, or whatever.

in a way, hitchcock has been appealing to many for the same reason.
he was an hollywood director taken seriously by intellectuals.
intellectuals love being elitists despite their egalitarian politics
or low tastes. you take the most hardline radical leftist
intellectual and he's intellectual first and man-of-the-people
second.
but, unlike many hollywood directors hyped by auteurist intellectuals
and the like, there's no denying that, at his best, hitchcock was a
formidable filmmaker, even an artist. Vertigo is one of the great
works of art of the 20th century. perhaps, it's hitchcock's only true
work of art, but his other films such as Under Capricorn, Rear Window,
Marnie, and few others are masterworks of great brilliance and
originality.

anyway, the point is hitchcock was very much aware with the notion of
Art. despite his put-on humility as an hollywood filmmaker of 'pure
cinema', he was interested in serious modern ideas in psychology and
philosophy and he was very much aware of the developments in the High
Arts. it's almost impossible to imagine today's more hang-loose and
egalitarian-minded directors making something as exquisite as
Vertigo. tarantino and anderson know the tricks of filmmaking but
have no higher or finer view of humanity than bloodbath, cum-splash,
or tear-jerkery.
with hitchcock, brilliance was not enough. he was into two things we
tend to look down these days: serioiusness and beauty.
there is no lack of sexiness and lusty stuff in today's culture, but
there is little in the sense of beauty. we see women as sexual
commodities or ideological categories than as works of art. hitchcock
was interested in women as works of art. in this sense, many of his
women are walking, talking, breathing artworks. consider films such
as Vertigo, Marnie, and Rear Window. women are not merely women but
aestheticized creatures. there was much of this in classic hollywood
star system but hitchcock really pushed the envelope to the point of
obssession.
especially with the stunning fashion design by edith head, many of
hitchcock's ladies are like goddesses despite their all-americanness.
perhaps, hitchcock was especially enthralled with grace kelly because
she was a strange mix of apple pie and european haute cuisine. her
appeal was both sexy-democratic and goddess-in-heaven-above. she was
an all-american girl who effortlessly eased into high fashion. this
is perhaps why there's a gloominess hovering over Vertigo. kim novack
does a great job as madeline but it doesn't seem effortless. it's as
though she has to heroically strain to sustain the facade. it's as
though, after losing grace kelly to the conehead king of monaco,
hitchcock had to strain hard to create another grace kelly for whom
grace came naturally. we see the strain later in tippi hedren too,
especially since hedren was seriously limited as an actress.
other than beauty, there was hitchcock's interest in Serious ideas
about modernity, psychology, morality, and such. though hitchcock
worked in a popular artform, he had been interested in and respectful
of Serious cultural ideas, at least prior to the 60s when a new kind
of cultural mentality took over--trivializing and trashy idiots like
andy warhol replaced grandees like picasso and dali. when hitchcock
grew up, there was freud. today, we have zizek. the academia during
hitchcock's heyday was dominated by people like t. s. eliot and the
like. today, it's dominated by yet another bonehead writing his
thesis on the rolling stones or sex pistols. the changes are not all
bad as culture needs infusions of virility and vitality from whereever
such can be found. also, all high or serious cultures started from
humble backgrounds. also, high culture isolated from rest of society
becomes stagnant or decadent.
but, today's academic climate is not good for art or culture because
it's neither elitist-serious nor egalitarian-free. most humanity
departments are run by ideological dogmatists, theoretical
knuckleheads, slavish intellectual-wanna-be minions, insipid slobs, or
neurotic-to-pathological nerds. their supposed rebellion against the
repressive past has brought forth only a repressive present with its
political correctness, anti-white-male-dogma, radical certitudes,
people-of-color tribalisms masquerading as progressivism, etc.
because institutions--museums, colleges, foundations, etc--are now the
friend than the enemy of 'daring artists', radicalism is the safest
thing for an artist to stick too in the world of Serious Art.
notice that EVERY art gallery will have some exhibit with junk piled
in a corner, pieces of wood or rubber arbitarily piled up ceiling
high, or some fabric display hooked up to some video gizmo. whether
it's from england, france, russia, china, or arkansas, it's the same
crap over and over.
today's 'mavericks' all draw water from the same stagnant cesspool of
tired cliches which go by the label of 'the new'.
in popular art, corporations have had complete dominance over 'the
new' for many decades. unlike in the past, corporations have perfected
the process to adopting the latest idea or fashions and instantly
turning them into Mass Entertainment. even maverick rebel artists
cannot resist this as there's too money to be made by joining the
system. if something like punk music arrived on the scene today, it
would be marketed by corpies within the month of its creation. there
wouldn't be anytime for the form to develop as an anti-corporate form
before finally being adopted or 'appropriated'. indeed, corporations
have appropriated the very theme of anti-corporatism--most telling in
the Matrix mooies.
with the rise of internet, corporations have faced mounting
competition but mostly of the economic than cultural/artistic kind.
most kids who put up stuff on youtube or whatever are just wanna-be
tarantinos or george lucases or tom cruises. it's not free-thinking
individuals vs the corporations but mass-culture morons vs mass-
culture corporations. instead of bringing brilliant and serious new
talents out in the open, internet has turned our culture even crasser
than ever before. we now know that for every tom cruise, there's a
million wanna-be tom cruises. for every paris hilton, there's a
million wanna-be-paris-hiltons. for every alanasal morissette, there
are a million imitators. of course, we are talking about people and
culture in general. in a way, cyberphilia has replaced cinephilia.

anyway, hitchcock was always in a precarious situation because he was
a kind of a serious artist working in a popular artform. on the
surface, he seemed calm, detached, content, and totally at ease with
what he was and what he was doing. but, there was an element of
criminality in his art. he was an elitist attacking the mob and an
egalitarian attacking the snob. this isn't just a matter of class
but of natural instinct. in some of hitch's movies, a socially lowly
guy may beat the higher guy, but it's not necessarily triumph of
egalitarianism because it still signifies the triumph of the greater
natural talent. in other words, he doesn't triumph as a common man but
as a superior man that breaks out of the social mold of the 'common
man'. it's like in The Servant which is a unsettling movie because
dirk bogard character proves to be the natural aristocrat who defeats
edward fox the bogus social aristocrat. the dilemma in The Servant is
not so much class injustice as class assignment. had bogarde been the
aristocrat and fox been the servant, everything would have been just
fine. (in a way, this is the problem of white male and black male.
due to white man's technological advantage, history had given
advantage to the white man over the black man. but, as white men and
black men have gained social equality, we realize that the black man
is studlier and manlier than the faggoty assed lame white boy. white
liberal males show compassion toward the black males, but black males
feel insulted because accepting compassion means you're in an
inferior position. why should the loud and proud black guy have to
depend on the compassion and magnanimity of the faggoty assed squeaky
voiced white boy? for now, obama is the compromise who plays on both
black pride and white compassion. in days to come, white people may
feel more comfortable with the notion of black superiority and even
feel open to the idea of being ruled by guys like reverened wright.
notice that the most 'progressive' white folks routinely praise
extreme black figures and feel it's a moral imperative for dweeby
white folks to meekly cower before the loud and proud wisdom of
blacks. most of white america is, as yet, too 'racist' to accept
black moral/spiritual/sexual/macho superiority as the keystone of
social progress. it's funny how progress toward racial equality is
turning into recognizing the racial superiority of blacks. what passes
for racial equality among liberals is black superiority. it's a funny
kind of orwellian doublespeak way of thinking. this is easiest to
understand by imagining a scenario where the white guy is the running
back while the black guy is the waterboy. there would be a tension in
the relationship because both would suspect that the black guy, the
natural athlete, should be the running back while the white guy should
be the waterboy. the white running back can be nice to the black
waterboy, and the black dude can smile alot and try to hide his anger.
but, the tension--insecurity on the part of the white guy and
resentment on part of the black guy--would not go away until the black
guy takes on the running back role and the white boy takes on the role
of waterboy. culturally at large, there is still resistance among
many white men to 'racial progress' not because white males fear
equality but fear being relegated to second-male status in the new
order which elevates the negro as the top male. as all honest people
know, the notion of equality among humans is purely an artificial
social construct and has no relation to actual reality.
in The Servant, bogarde is like a black-guy-as-water-boy and fox is
like white-guy-as-running-back. robert redford's Quizshow and the
movie Broadcast News presented similar scenarios where tension flowed
from the smarter jew being relegated to the sidelines for the bogus
advantage of some pretty but dumb goylden boy. it's no wonder that as
different as jews and blacks are, they've united to crush the white
goy social order. the negro wants fuc* the white boy's ass while the
jew wants to ram his cock down the goyboy's throat.)

this is what poses a dilemma for both elitists and egalitarians for
hitchcock. for cultural elitists--a true dinosaur in our cultural
landscape--, it was presumptious that a fat hollywood director who
made movies for the masses could be taken as a serious artist. but,
for cultural egalitarians--who form the cultural elite today in the
academia and many institutions--, they feel troubled by hitchcock's
conservative view of human nature and his obsession with fine haute
culture-ish stuff.
hitchcock was probably aware of the contradictions himself. was he a
low guy striving to be high, or an high guy pandering to the low? or,
was he a middle guy yojimbo-ishly playing both high and low or high vs
low?

anyway, hitchcock prolly understood the similar contradiction in the
notion of art itself, especially serious and/or respectable art. if
artistic vision and power arise from the deep dark troubled corridors
of our soul, why do we look upon art as noble, sublime, lofty, and
such? it's because artists--thru whatever reason--have dressed up
their raw creativity in the garb of higher meaning. if so, isn't art
just a big lie? but, what is the truth? is truth the animalish
nature of man? can we live with such truth? in order to be human, we
must live with lies about our nature, and art functions as a pleasing
and comforting manifestation or monumentalization of our lies.
take hitchcock and women whom he aesthiticized into artworks. at the
basic level, hitch's ding dong probably got stiff thinking of gals.
but, he didn't want to be no lowly porn director. so, he channeled
his lust into appreciation for beauty and turned ho's into works of
art.
yet, what's funny is that natural desires may even grow more powerful
and even uncontrollable as a result of the aesthitization. so, there's
a kind of vertigo-effect. you repress your desire for a ho by turning
her into an angel, but are then free of your gaga-goo lust? no, your
desire only increases for now, you're in love with an angel. so, you
then turn her into a goddess but then you find that the love for
goddess is even more powerful than love for an angel. and so on. the
more stewart in Vertigo turns novack into a work of art, the more he
feels his desire grow.
think of the scene in Rashomon where mifune-as-bandit pleads with the
woman to come away with him. mifune sees her as something special, as
a kind of high class pussy. but, when her samurai husband says he will
not fight for such a whore and mifune can have her, mifune's interest
in her dissipates. mifune's desire had been stoked more by what she
culturally represented than the mere fact of her biological
womanness.
a crude caveman could be happy with a cavewoman with hair in her
armpits and crabs in her pubes. it's man-animal humping a woman-
animal. it's very natural, biological, and sexual. but, sexual isn't
same as sexy. as civilization progressed, sexuality came under more
and more control of morality and aesthetic propriety. but, this effort
to tame sexuality only made sexual feelings more powerful--and not
only because of repression. in the muslims world, muslim guys are
horny because the women are all behind veils and don't show their
flesh. that's just horniness out of frustration and curiosity. but,
there's another kind of repression. it doesn't bury or hide sexaulity
but trims, sculpts, and shapes sexuality that idolizes or deifies it.
a muslim woman behind a burka shows nothing whereas a tastefully
dressed woman suggests more by showing less more stylishly. this is
perhaps why a woman in lingerie is more gaga-inducing for some guys
than simply a naked woman. this is prolly why the imagery of flowers
are important in Vertigo. a woman is dressed up before being peeled
off petal by petal. in a way, stewart in the movie is like someone
who's glueing the petals from one flower to another flower stem. there
is something vertigo-ish when you stare into the center of a flower.
and, of course, there is the matter of scent. perfume covers up
natural body odors, so you'd think it would calm us down. actually,
it arouses our emotions far more than any natural smell such as pussy
juice odor.

the civilizing power of art pulls us away from natural animal emotions
but also fetishizes those emotions into something more powerful and
even uncontrollable. this is why hitler was more dangerous than
germanic barbarians long ago. the barbarians bashed head for land,
wealth, pussy, and fun. they were immersed in animal passions but not
intoxicated with high faluting idears. hitler, on the other hand, was
deeply immersed in some of the loftiest ideals, images, and visions
created by man. to preserve or expand that vision, he felt justified
in killing millions. the jews have a different kind of dangerous
mindset rooted more in sacredness of an idea than of an image. in
the pagan world, images--of gods, beauty, art, etc--could be sacred
but not ideas. for greeks and romans, ideas were for discussing,
debate, intrigue, etc. ideas such as 'democracy', 'republic', this-
ism, or that-ism could be important but not sacred. they were
appreciated as the evolving thoughts of man. but, in the jewish
tradition, ideas were sacred. the laws were said to have been handed
to man from god hisself. as the idea was of paramount importance,
imagery or idolatry was seen as sinful and distractive of Truth--and
so, those associated with 'idolatry' were, at times, exterminated
ruthlessly. so, jews traditionally were obsessed about The Idea. this
sacred idea civilized the jew and christians, but it also made them
seek ever greater perfection as demanded by god. in the secular era,
it turned into marxism which claimed to be a perfect formula for
heaven-on-earth and understanding the historical, economic, political,
social, and moral science of man. if hitler killed millions for an
image, leftwing jews killed millions for an idea. it was beautopia vs
jewtopia.
hitchcock was not hitler, and unlike hitler, he knew was well aware of
his own darkness and funnybunnyness. partly, it was due to culture and
temperament. being teutonic, hitler was insanely passionate,
aggressive, iron-jawed, and thick-skulled; also, hitler was born with
extreme genes. hitch grew up in england where he learned to be
moderate, at least in public. also, his personality was disposed to be
ironic than impassioned. also, for all his showmanship, he was a
private artist than a public exhibitionist which be what hitler was.
anyway, people have asked how a people as civilized as the germans
could have done such horrendous stuff. well, why not ask how a people
who were so intelligent and advanced as the jews could give us
something like communism?

in some ways, civilization produces higher ideals. higher ideals
elevate us, but any form of elevation makes us less tolerant and more
discriminatory. those who like to be clean shun people who don't
shower. the highly literate don't like to be around uneducated
dumbbutts; susan sontag didn't even have a tv in the house and, later
in life, refused to see most new mooies.
we have coercive public education because our society doesn't tolerate
illiteracy.
one of the problem of modern liberal society is it both discriminatory
and tolerant. on the one hand, we stress over and over that we must
respect diversity and try to be tolerant. but, in order for people to
enter and live in our community, we expect them to rise to the modern
ideal. if they don't, we try to keep them out--like saying 'keep out
those dirty lazy spicks'--out of our nation or out of our communities.
(this is why many affluent urban liberals who profess to love city
life and progressive ideas actually live in gentrified areas and hang
around fancy places while avoiding areas were MOST ordinary city folks
live.) for all the politically correct compassion about the poor,
most rich educated liberals don't wanna spend anytime with poor crazy
blacks because much of negro behavior be intolerable.
besides, what does it mean to be egalitarian? to push things down or
pull things up? if we made everyone poor and illiterate, the world
would be equal. if we made everyone literate and rich, the world
would be equal. of course, most of us wish everyone would be rich
and literate. but, what if free people who are poor and illiterate
don't want to be coerced to do anything? what if they wanna take it
easy like slobs?
the welfare system is distributive but not egalitarian because it will
never create equality among people. it can only work by taxing the
rich in order to give to the poor. it's not so much about attaining
equality as taking care of poor people like zoo animals so that (1)
they won't rebel and (2) rich people can feel better about being so
'progressive'. welfare system cannot exist in a truly equal world.
it can only exist in an unequal world. if we want forced equality,
we gotta go the communist way. but, that doesn't work because
political equality is impossible under communism since the state is
all-powerful. in time, those with all the political power take all
the economic goodies as well.

hitchcock's movies are very instructive about american mass culture
and mindset. they were made for everyone to be sure--for the rich, the
middle class, and lower class. but, we know that MOST moviegoers were
not rich folks but regular folks. so, on the one hand, hitchcock's
movies are mass entertainment. but, just look at most of the
characters in his movies. there have been hitchcock movies about
regular folks, working class folks, humble folks, etc but his most
memorable movies have been about fancy folks, rich folks, beautiful
folks, classy folks, etc. to be sure, there's stuff like The Wrong
Man, a movie about regular folks. but, hitchcock was at his best when
he made movies about rich, powerful, or highly intelligent folks. the
psychiatrist woman in Spellbound isn't rich or powerful but she's an
intellectual type. so, hierarchy mattered a lot with hitchcock--and
for the fantasy appeal of his movies to most moviegoers.
this is why it's almost impossible to imagine a western made by
hitchcock. too muddy and grimy. now, appeal of fancy or rich folks
in hollywood movies is nothing special. but, hitchcock had a special
obssession with this exclusive world lacking in most hollywood mooies
about the rich, special, or powerful. he doesn't just show us the
world of special privileges but fixates on it as though he--and we--
have trespassed into forbidden territory. there is some of this in
the films of woody allen also. notice that his movies about the rich
intellectual NY crowd are adoring and rhapsodic. and, there was
kubrick whose fixation on the rich and powerful was also rather
obssessive and strange. all three of these artists present the
special world thru a kind of voyeuristic, penetrating, trangessive,
and trespassing gaze. it feels like we've entered this special zone
thru violation than by invitation, as though we don't really belong
there. on the one hand, there is a sense of us peeking into a special
world. we feel the thrill of entering without being invited and being
undetected. but, in almost all of kubrick's films, the intruder is
also intruded upon. the power of the special zone is far greater than
that of the intruder. so, even as man intrudes into the mystery realm
of space aliens in 2001, the space aliens intrude into the man's
consciousness and remakes him. bowman thought he was entering the
forbidden zone when, in fact, the aliens totally invaded his private
zone to reconfigure him. or, consider humperdinck in Lolita. he
thought he was being so clever, entering that sleepy american academic
community. he was the smart englishman surrounded by meat-and-potato-
headed americans. he was gonna control lolita anyway he wanted to.
but, it's lolita who possesses him, and both of them were chewed,
used, and spat out by peter sellers, the brilliant american. or,
consider Barry Lyndon where barry thinks he has the rich folks in the
palm of his hands, when in fact they had him in theirs all along. or,
consider The Shining, where nicholson feels like the king of the
overlook hotel for the winter when, in fact, he's just a pawn of the
ghosts of that hotel. and, consider Eyes Wide Shut. tom cruise thinks
he's so clever and smart. he secretly enters the rich man's mansion
and think he's playing tricks on them, when in fact, they spot his ass
right away, and the joke is on him.
hitch, allen, and kubrick were romantically fascinated with the
special world of privilege and power, but also delved into the
dangers, hypocrisies, ruthlessness, and mysteriousness of this world.
allen pretended to laugh about it but was intimidated enough to see a
shrink all his life. he saw thru the phoniness of the beautiful
privileged world but obsessively wanted to belong nevertheless; he
wanted to be around the rich, beautiful, and intellectual than the
poor, ugly and ordinary even if the former type was more neurotic--
indeed, their neurosis was a kind of turn on, sure sign that they were
more complex and sophisticated. both hitch and allen couldn't help
thinking they were outsiders forever gazing in. when they became rich
and famous, powerful people dined and wined them but for only their
celebrity. they both felt a deep insecurity because hitchcock was a
fatkins and allen was an uglew--ugly jew. for both of them, the
special world need not be particularly rich nor powerful. it could
simply be a world of beautiful classy people. the people in The Birds
are not particularly rich nor powerful. but, just look at tippi hedren
in edith head's costume. even the facade of specialness was powerful
enough to make one's head spin. take scotty in Vertigo. even after
madeline dies, he creates the myth of madeline in his mind which could
be be grafted onto another woman from humble background.
this makes us wonder about art. how did art begin? what is its
purpose? how does it serve us? there is art as a possession of the
rich and powerful, but there is also art as a substitute for what most
of us can't have. most people couldn't have marilyn monroe the person
but could still have marilyn monroe as a movie, poster, sound
recording, etc. art replicates the special, precious, and rare in the
world. few men can own a goregous babe but anyone can own a statue or
an image of a gorgeous babe. and, in a way, scotty in Vertigo is a
kind of an artist, a sculptor who recreates madeline whom he couldn't
have whether she lived or died. even had she lived, she would have
belonged to her husband--a rich and powerful man. this was all the
more complicated because we don't really know when novack-as-madeline
was going thru the rehearsed motions to trick scotty and pouring out
her real emotions to access scotty. for instance, there is a scene
where she presses against scotty and says, 'i don't wanna die'. she
was clearly doing what the evil husband trained her to do, but we
can't help sensing she's really sincere at that moment. but, sincere
as what? as madeline or as the woman-inside-madeline or the woman-
inside-madeline-who-really-wishes-she-was-madeline? and, couldn't
one argue that the evil husband too is an artist? he did it for money
but it was one helluva of an artistic idea to train some ordinary
woman into this fine creature and to hatch this genius plot. besides,
don't artists work for money as well? so, what is art, what is
commerce, what is crime?
also, the story of carlotta makes us wonder about the nature of art/
crime and history. we are told of a very sad and tragic story of a
person's life, so are we too see the painting of carlotta as a record
of tragedy/past crime OR as a criminal participant in and of itself?
isn't there an element of criminality or immorality in all forms of
deceit? isn't all art necessarily a form of deceit? fantasy is an
outright lie but art that claims to represent the truth is just
another lie because no replication or representation can be totally
truthful--all it can do is give us the impression of truth, which may
be a greater crime than outright fantasy. giving a false or flawed
account of what actually happened is worse than saying alien space
monsters came and ate your sister. if art is deceitful to begin with,
then is it really shocking if people spin new myths inspired by it--
like what the evil husband does with the story of carlotta? what is
the link between art and history? isn't much of our idea of the
historical past the product of how we read and misread--willfully at
times to serve whatever biases or agendas--artifacts we dig out of the
ground or sit on shelves in archives?
in vertigo, it's even stranger because icy nordic blonde goddessy
madeline is supposed to be the descendant of latin brunette carlotta.
it is this connection that arouses scotty's interest and passion for
her, yet when scotty later meets the woman-who-played-madeline, he
doesn't care for her looks though she is closer to carlotta's image in
the painting.

making art available to the masses is both egalitarian and elitist.
egalitarian in the sense of expanding access but elitist in the sense
of spreading the notions of high far and wide. any regular guy who's
allowed into an art museum soon realizes there is more to culture than
sitcoms and beer burping. the access is egalitarian but the
realization is elitist. and, no filmmaker's career conveyed this
tension more than hitchcock's.

in many of his films, the climax or culmination takes place around a
specific work of art. the nature of the artwork shapes the meaning.
take North by Northwest which climaxes with the Mt. Rushmore chase.
on the one hand, rushmore symbolizes all that is glorious and grand
about america. it's proud, reverent, confident, public, and
spectacularly visible to anyone in the black hills. yet, the movie
shows another side of america as characterized by cary grant--self-
centered, cynical, flippant, self-centered. even darker and more
troubling is the porousness of american freedom which allows spies and
such scum to infiltrate american society and politics while posing as
good americans. also troubling is that US intelligence organization
will use a civilian as a bait to catch spies. so, the climax on Mt.
Rushmore has double-meaning. on the one hand, it's about good vs evil
on sacred american ground. on the other hand, it suggests that there
is much more to america and humanity that what our sacred symbols
indicate.
now, mt. rushmore is a public work of art. it belongs to everyone,
but it's not mass art either. mass art comes and goes and changes
according to fashion. mt. rushmore is forever, and as such, is
considered a great cultural monument. by NW makes us wonder if Mt
Rushmore represents the heart/soul or merely the mask of america.
but, maybe we need masks. maybe we should see mt. rushmore as a kind
of "Persona" for the nation as a whole.

anyway, a work of art often crystallizes the tensions and stresses
that have built up thru the course of a hitchcock movie. this is only
fitting because much of the conflict is about the tension between man
and nature, between reality and artifice.
take the horse in Marnie. now, a horse isn't technically a work of
art, but in a way, it is. we see horses as more than mere animals. we
see it as a BEAUTIFUL animal, a natural work of art. furthermore, we
train horses in a more special way than with other animals. horses
are trained to do amazing things. and, rich people groom and take care
of horses like treasures--like the hollywood producer in the
Godfather. so, for marnie, the horse is more than a horse. it's a
symbol of grace, beauty, nobility, truth, and freedom. but right away,
we feel the tension; can nobility and freedom coexist? marnie likes
to wear nice clothes and talk all fancy and stuff, but her lifestyle
is supported by her amoral freedom as a thief. freedom is anarchy
whereas nobility is about control. marnie wants to be both free and
dignified. she wants to steal yet put on airs like a classy lady.
and, her horse comes to symbolize this tension when it gallops away
out of control. on the one hand, it's galloping magnificently as it
was trained to do. but, it goes bonkers and jumps a wall too high and
breaks its legs and marnie has to kill it. the scene symbolizes what
marnie herself must face. she can't be both a free rule-breaker and
then put on airs of the ruler class.

Mt Rushmore is very public and the horse is sem-public. in Vertigo,
the crucial artwork is very private. the key work of art is the
necklace--though other works of art are also significant--the painting
of carlotta and the convent--a kind of historical work of art. (we may
also include the golden gate bridge, and of course, madeline
herself.) actually, the privacy of the necklace is compromised
because it was all a gimmick cooked up the wife-killing husband.
anyway, a jewelry is a beautiful expensive work of art. but, it is
also meant to be bought and sold. no matter how fancy schmancy, it's
all about dollars and cents. and, the woman in the movie was bought up
pretty good by the nasty husband who done killed the real wife. and,
he did it for money. in a way, the nasty husband was a great
imaginative artist. though ruthless, he came up with one helluva
scenario to fool scotty alright. even as we loathe him, we admire his
imagination. it sure beats humdrum reality. and, in a way, as
perverse as it may sound, he gave scotty the greatest gift in the
world. no matter how depressing and dark, it's thru the madeline myth
that scotty feels the greatest--perhaps the only true--passion of his
life. he'd been a cop chasing after lowlifes and crooks. he never
expected to fall in love or even believe in it much. he's been a man
without faith all his life. considering all the things he'd seen
throughout his career, you'd think he's incapable of falling for
anything. but, he does fall into and drowns in his passion for
madeline--and even for the bogus madeline(modeled on what was bogus to
begin with). not that scotty should be grateful to his nasty old
friend--the nasty hubby--, but scotty finds out about love, life,
himself, beauty, reality, evil, etc, etc thru this episode in his
life. it becomes and will always be the centerpiece of his life.
without it, he would have grown old as just another retired cop.
because of it, he will always have something strange and dreamy to
back to. same with Lady from Shanghai. what happens to welles'
character is pretty nasty, but he'll never forget his experience. the
ending of Lady from Shanghai may have inspired the final image of
Jules and Jim where jules too walks toward a future that can only
look back.
that the final confrontation takes place in a bell tower in a convent
reminds us of the Mt. Rushmore scene in N by NW. a convent is neither
a private nor public property. as a place of worship, it is open to
all--at least spiritually. but, it's an exclusive place for the
initiated. and, it perfectly conveys the tension in the movie--and
all of hitchcock's career. hitch was both a private/public artist.
Forrest Gump or Shawshank Redemption is what you might call a total
public movie. everything--story, characters, details, etc--is
designed and manipulated to please the audience. then, you have the
total private film--bresson, bergman, and later godard--which
expresses the personal feelings/vision of the artist. watching a
personal film is like being given priveleged access to private
property. we have the permission to look around but not to stay.
this is the difference between being given access to a place like a
convent and entering a theme park. a theme park can be free or may
charge admission but once you're in, you know that everything exists
for YOUR pleasure and enjoyment. it belongs to The People. it's all
rah rah. but, a private place is all hush hush. you're allowed to
enter but you must be respectful. hitchcock's films are both personal
and public. on the one hands, he gave us what we wanted--especially
in stuff like N by NW. but, in some movies--like Vertigo and Marnie--,
we were invited to tread softly--like when marnie tip toes out of the
rutland building after stealing the dough.
we kinda feel like trespassers in some of hitch's more personal films.
we trespass onto his private territory, but of course, he's
trespassing into the psychic territory of his characters.
this is especially true in Spellbound. in this movie with the
collaboration of salvador dali, hitchcock presents the psychic
interior as a Work of Art. the dreamworld or the subconscious is
surrealism-in-progress. of course, this isn't surprising as surrealism
was inspired by dreams and theories of the subconscious. according to
freud, the rules of the dream world are much like the rules of art.
objects in dreams have symbolic meaning. there is a logic to the
madness. nothing is arbitrary though, on occasion, a cigar is just a
cigar. our dreams process experience in the real world and turn them
into psychic inner works of art. in this sense, freud was more of a
literary or art critic of the mind than a scientist. he read the human
mind like harold bloom read shakespeare. many new scientific
discoveries have argued convincingly that freud was a fraud.
scientifically perhaps, but his significance in the humanities and
culture will live on because art operates according to a different set
of rules. this is prolly why both freud and jung are more appealing to
artists than to scientists. though both claimed to be scientists, they
were essentially literary and pictorial interpretors of the mind.

art comes in many forms. some are hard, solid, and/or crystal clear--
like sculpture, architecture, jewelry. some are solid but flowing and
flexible, like a woman's dress. and, some are fluid and formless--at
least in the physical sense--, like music or the subcoscious(the
source of all creativity untapped by most people). music figures
prominently in nearly all of hitch's films, especially in
collaboration with bernard hermann. music is perhaps the strangest
artform because it's both the most primitive and the most complex, the
most natural and the most elaborate. music can express the bloodlust
of a hunter community and the bonerousness of an horny male. but, it
can also express the high and the mighty, the spiritual and
transcendental. many symphonic works are musical palaces, elaborately
ornate and sophisticated in their aural structure. musical
instruments range from clapping hands to musical instuments created
with the finest design and craftsmanship. the theory of music is
perhaps more complex and demanding than any other. yet, no matter how
music is produced, it affects the audience more immediately and more
powerfully than any other artform. no matter how avant-garde or
intellectual, music goes straight to the innermost emotional core. in
this sense, music appreciation is the most elemental if not primitive
form of art appreciation. one could make the same argument for a
painting or some other visual art, but images are not as emotionally
powerful as sound. when people go to an art gallery, they stare at a
painting and think about it. thinking is powerless against music.
even professionals and intellectuals who write about music must regard
the music's worth essentially on its emotive power. those who don't
are idiots. this is why so much of modern music and modern music
theory are closer to computer or mathematical science than musical art
or appreciation. and, even those who appreciate music emotionally
usually tend to write about matters related to music than the music
itself. it's easier to write about biographies, circumstances,
politics, controversies, and etc surrounding the artist and his work
than about the music itself. only a poet of great brilliance can do
justice to the beauty or power of music.
anyway, music is important in hitchcock's movies because of hermann's
contributions and its use as key motifs in some of hitch's mooies.
consider the concert in Man Who Knew Too Much, the Merry Go Round
music in Strangers on a Train, and the ballet in Torn Curtain. on the
one hand, hitchcock is using an obvious irony. we have respectable,
mainstream, or safe performances/settings which conceal dark and
terrible secrets and goings-about. but, there is also an internal
irony in the musical performance itself. no matter how we try to
civilize the musical form, its power gushes forth from a dark crude
subconscious zone. in this sense, an artist is like a oil driller
with the tools to suck out the psychic fuel and refine it into
something that looks all useful, respectable, fanciful, and dandy.
the final product is deceptively fine but the raw material is dark and
crude.
notice how respectable people enjoy or experience a fancy concert or
drama to learn about truth, reality, meaning, etc. yet, what is the
nature of reality? much of it's ugly and hideous. no matter how
truthful, art aesthicizes the ugly and hideous into something
deceptively meaningful--even the theme of meaninglessness of life in
art is meaningful as a philosophical expression--, sublime, powerful,
noble, and even beautiful. in real life, a man beaten up by thugs is
a beaten-up-man. but, a TV show like Roots or Passion of the Christ
can make brutal ugliness seem meaningful, noble, and even beautiful.
so, we weep for kunta who be made to call hisself toby. so, we bawl at
the sight of noble jesus whupped real bad by evil romans. when we see
ugliness in reality, we wanna puke. when we see ugliness in art, we
wanna weep.

anyway, the source of art is plenty dark, violent, and so on. the
great composers of classical music were mostly tormented men. though
they created music that gave respectable people pleasure, the music
was created thru much pain. the beauty of the music is refined product
of what were elementally animal and crazy passions. so, in a way,
it's kinda funny that people at an artistic performance would freak
out and panic when someone fires a gun. in a conventional sense, the
gunman has violated a civilized evening for respectable folks. but, on
the other hand, the gunman has acted out the true nature of artistic
creativity--dark, trangessive violence at the core of human heart.
imagine a fancy restaurant where everyone's eating haute cuisine and
wearing pearls and acting all civilized and etc. suppose you bring
an animal and slaughter it for everyone to see. or, suppose they were
shown how geese are tortured terribly in order to make the famed
bloated goose liver dish. the fancy diners who'd been cutting up and
chewing on the meat of dead animals would all freak out and complain.
this is the hypocrisy of art. but, civilization itself is a kind of
hypocrisy. civilized folks are condemned to be hypocrites. if we
reject hypocrisy, we can no longer be civilized. we would have to be
either animalish/savage or totally cynical/opportunistic/selfish. to
be civilized is to believe in the moral goodness of civilization. it's
to believe in respectability and honor and such. but, it's an high
price to pay. however, consequences of rejecting such hypocrisy is
even worse. today, we are seeing the face of anti-civilized wild-ass
savagery and the face of anti-civilized material greedery. the
savage types--soccer hooligans, rappers, ass tattooer, idiots on jerry
springer, etc--reject all social rules and forms. greedy
materialists accept social rules but ONLY out of self-interest.
libertarians have no illusions about human nature or civilization.
they see humans as animals who live for pleasure and security. they
see society as a means by which people can have more pleasure and
security thru the free market and enforcement of the law. their
patron saints are the southparkers. now, savages and materialists
can be said to be less hypocritical than civilized folks. in some
ways, they are more honest and consistent. they wanna destroy society
for self-centered fun or wanna save society for self-centered fun. to
either, there is nothing beyond self-interest. it's all about pussy
and guns though they differ on how to get them. savages want guns and
pussy by breaking the law, and libertarians want guns and pussy thru
the protection of the law. but, beyond guns and pussy, there's
nothing.
hitchcock feared and prophesized this eventuality--most powerfully in
The Birds. what happens when nature or human nature runs amok? is
hypocrisy the price we must pay for being civilized? of course,
hitchcock wasn't happy with civilization either. if Birds is very
pessimistic about raw human nature, Marnie is very pessimistic about
'decency'. marnie is sexually decent in the victorian sense. she
thinks sex is dirty and scary. but, her hatred of biology had led to
her hatred of men. and her hatred of men has led to crime against
social institutions. to live a clean, respectable, decent life, she's
turned into a criminal. but, sexual licentiousness isn't the answer
either. the flashback showing marnie's mother as a whore is pretty
gross and ewwww. it's as though marnie was trapped between two
extremes--ultra-sexuality and ultra-decency. she's only saved by
traditional love with sean connery. but, even this isn't so simple
because connery is a funny kind of guy who rather enjoys this business
of saving marnie. her neurosis turns him on. so, who's the sick one?
perhaps, we're all sick. it's not so much a matter of mental health vs
mental sickness as controlling-one's-mental-sickness vs falling-victim-
to-it.

in hitch's movies, art is presented as summation of man, as the ideal
of man. it offers a vision of perfection, order, meaning, stability,
and such. but, hitch the surgeon also cuts thru this facade and draws
blood and makes us feel all queasy.
in some cases, even ordinary stuff takes on sinister meaning. take
the taxidermized animals in the the bates motel. it's what you might
call homey art--stuffed trophies. but, other than alluding to the
mummified body of mrs bates, it suggests that there is wild savagery
at the heart of art. it prefigures the much more frightening use of
animals in The Birds.

in mrs bates's bedroom, we see the usual woman's domestic possessions--
even some fancy stuff. though mrs bates was in the humdrum motel
business, she had an higher/delusional sense of herself. she nursed a
romanto-gothic fantasy about herself. just as the woman in Vertigo
wanted to be a classy lady like the mythic madeline, mrs bates wanted
to be part of an ideal romance. her money came from some second-rate
business but her pretensions were semi-regal. despite her 'artistic'
pretensions, what was her biological creation? the dorkass son
norman. we get a sense that she wasn't too happy with norman. norman
was also the product of a not-too-happy union. so, she tried to
psychically control norman, like marnie's mother tried to control
marnie. in both cases, the child came to accept the control but
wanted total love/devotion in return. both felt betrayed. marnie is
jealous that her mother shows more affection for some neighborhood
girl. in Psycho, bates couldn't stand his mother going off with
another man.
anyway, the point is that in both cases, the parents try to turn life
into 'art'. marnie's mother fashions a fake reality of family virtue
which mentally traps marnie, and bates's mother fashioned a fake
reality of family love and unity against the hostile world--like ms
haberdasher in 'great expectations'. art violated reality and reality
eventually intrudes into this 'artistic' community of the mind.

animal imagery is important in Strangers on a Train too, in the great
Merry-Go-Around scene. when the carnival ride goes bonkers, it
anticipates the birds-on-wild in The Birds and the crazy horse scene
in Marnie. merry-go-round is supposed to be perfect artistic/
technological fusion and taming of nature where even toddlers can
safely ride mechanical horses going around in perfect circles. but,
like the systemic breakdown in kubrick films, the ride goes bonkers in
Strangers. the reason is both mechanical and biological. the ride
operator gets shot and pushes down on the wrong lever, but why did
such happen in the first place? because people lost control of
themselves and fought like animals.