Author: Liu Qing
This year marks the 120th anniversary of director Hitchcock's birth. In the "British Film Masters Exhibition" in Shanghai for two consecutive seasons, his works are listed, namely "Deep Doubt" and "Catch the Thief". Coupled with the shanghai international film festival in recent years, "Blackmail", "Tenant", "Ecstasy" and "Butterfly Dream" have been screened, Shanghai audiences have frequent opportunities to relive Hitchcock's films in the theater, from his early silent films shot in britain to the household Hollywood classics he shot in his heyday. More than half a century later, his films are still often seen as new, even if he himself is not particularly satisfied with the works , such as "Deep Doubts", which was re-screened in Shanghai a few days ago, still seems to be far more interesting and inspiring than regrettable.
Completed in 1941, Hitchcock's "transitional work" was made when he first arrived in Hollywood. (File photo)
Hitchcock didn't like Butterfly Dream and Deep Doubt
Completed in 1941, "Deep Doubt" was released the year before, along with Butterfly Dream, a "transitional work" for Hitchcock's first arrival in Hollywood. From "Thirty-Nine Steps" and "The Missing Lady" in the British period to "Butterfly Dream" in Hollywood, Hitchcock entered a different world of cinema. Simply put, his films look rich — legendary producer David Selznick, who is at the top of Hollywood's food chain, gives Hitchcock a hefty budget, but the tyrannical man interferes with the director's work. This is most evident in Butterfly Dreams and Deep Doubts. These are the two closest to the Oscars in all of Hitchcock's works, "Butterfly Dream" won the best picture, "The Deep Doubt" made Joan Fontaine the best actress, but Hitchcock in his later interview with Truffaut, he could not help but complain: "I don't like the factors that make up this kind of film, such as elegant salons, grand staircases, luxurious bedrooms... I don't like to imagine and reconstruct the scenery of Britain in the United States, I prefer to arrange the real background. Also, the photography is too dazzling. In a word, everything Selznick pursued made Hitchcock unhappy.
Female charm should be roundabout, poor Monroe is too direct
Selznick's "extravagant romanticism" limited Hitchcock's humor and sarcasm, but at the beginning of "Deep Doubts", he "skinned" a little from the beginning. When the beautiful girl Joan Fontaine played the big girl Lina appeared, she was a nerd with glasses.
Hitchcock had a deep obsession with the "woman with glasses." The original wife Of Miriam, the male protagonist of "Train Freak", is determined to get rid of, a glasses girl, a mean and watery small town girl. In her, Hitchcock shows a kind of depression and boredom of mid-class life in the Interior of the United States, even derailing with little imagination. There is also the second female Mickey of "Ecstasy", who is a good girl, but the male protagonist Scotty does not like it. Mickey serves as a reference for the heroine Madeleine throughout the whole process, Madeleine is mysterious, ambiguous, and needs men to find and discover, while Mickey is realistic and real, and has a clear view. Once again, Hitchcock extradited a female character to his socio-cultural commentary: The San Francisco girl, like her cultural environment, appeared superficial because she had no reservations.
If the glasses are framed on the bridge of the heroine's nose, the meaning is different. Ingrid Bergman's appearance in Doctor Edward is a cold pedantic woman with meticulously combed hair and thicker spectacle lenses than the bottom of a bottle. But the male protagonist Gregory Pike and the audience are like torches, understanding that the glasses are just a curtain to cover, Pike took off Bergman's glasses, kissed her, messed her hair, and then, the female pedantic mask cracked, exposing the truth of the goddess.
The same goes for "Deep Doubt". Lena wore glasses and only briefly hid her beauty. Gary Grant's Jonny meets her on the train, and she flirts out of habit, but has little interest. Later, when they were reunited at the horse farm, she took off her glasses and dressed in a riding suit, and he was stupid on the spot, saying: "It's really like two people." Jonny went on a furious attack on Lena, he asked her out in the name of going to church, she accepted the invitation, dressed neatly out of the house, of course the two did not go to the church at all, in the windy wilderness, Jonny mischievously messed up Lena's hair. This is a very typical Hitchcock-style romance, the male protagonist only likes to arm the lady's desire, the heroine seems to be cold as frost, the actual emotional tide is undercurrent.
Hitchcock once spoke openly about his understanding of "feminine charm" – "the twists and turns of gender charm". "When it comes to desire and attraction on the screen, suspense is still the master of everything, and they need to be discovered. If the heroine's charm is too direct, it loses suspense. Poor Marilyn Monroe, who unleashes female attraction all the time, is not too delicate. I believe in a certain paradox, namely, that the appearance is dignified, and the inner desire is strong. Look at the beginning of "To Catch a Thief", Frances played by Grace Kelly seems to be cold and heartless, but when Robbie, played by Gary Grant, accompanies her to the door, what does she do? She kissed him! ”
It wasn't the ending I wanted, but Gary Grant couldn't play the murderer
Although "Deep Doubt" and "Butterfly Dream" are printed with the "Selznick Mark" at a glance, from the perspective of plot coding, they can still be classified as "Hitchcock style genre films".
Lena, the heroine of "Deep Doubt", impulsively marries Jonny after her emotions, and after her honeymoon, she finds that she is married to a cunning who is in debt crisis. The seemingly beautiful life of the two families can collapse at any time, and he is found embezzling public funds at work and will have to go to court at any time. Lena and Jonny's mutual friend mysteriously die in Paris, and when she discovers that her husband is trying to withdraw her high insurance, she begins to suspect that the pillow man will kill her to cheat on the insurance... It sounds like familiar social news, a specious marriage story mixed with lust, money, class, and humanity. Hitchcock was so sensitive and anxious about the subjects of "money" and "sex" that the two were always unpopular.
However, in the last five minutes of "Deep Doubt", Jonny neither killed his friend nor tried to kill his wife, he confessed his predicament to Lena and confessed, Lena realized that everything was a misunderstanding, and they went home happy! What the hell is this ending? Hitchcock himself couldn't stand it. His original design was this: Joni poisoned the milk she gave to Lena, and Lena saw all of Jonny's crimes, and she wrote a letter to her mother, "Mom, I have no hope, because I love him and can't live anymore." If he wants to kill me, let me die. But social norms should be upheld, and he should be sanctioned. Lena drank the milk and died, while Jonny whistled and threw the letter into the mailbox. This delicate ending cannot pass Hollywood censorship because the role played by an idol star like Grant is not allowed to commit crimes.
Hitchcock originally designed the idea of the play "wronged male protagonist", which was in the silent film "The Lodger", in fact, the male protagonist in the original novel was similar to "Jack the Ripper", but the male protagonist of the film, Novello, was a British drama star at that time, and the star could not play a villain, so the male protagonist of "The Tenant" was modified to an "innocent person". Between the constraints of the "star system" and the "flipping" necessary for suspense genre films, Hitchcock weighed up a set of theatrical codes of "the wronged male protagonist", and repeatedly used "The Tenant", "Thirty-Nine Steps", "Butterfly Dream", "Deep Doubt", "Doctor Edward", "Train Freak", "To Catch a Thief", "North by Northwest" and other works.
Time and time again, the director, who has insight into the weaknesses of human nature, has made masterpieces in "The Compromise of Entertainment", because he creates emotions of doubt, jealousy and longing in the direct way of the image, he leads the audience to suspense, and makes fear into a movie. (Liu Qing)