The concept of ‘The MacGuffin’.
The denouement was unnecessary in Psycho. I think you need to give Rear Window and Vertigo at least two viewings. Think about the way the scenes are set up and shot, you may notice more there. Hitchcock’s films are also often filled with dark humor, some spoken and some visual. There is also a psychological underpinning to many of his films. Some other great films to consider viewing are The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt and North by Northwest, Heck, even Frenzy is good. These films are a bit different from the ones you saw. If you see The Lady Vanishes and North by Northwest and still don’t like Hitchcock, well, then, that’s cool; you’re not missing anything. His films just aren’t your cup of tea.
Also, the reason some of the endings may seem cliche is that hundreds of films made since have been freely appropriating Hitchcock. It may be helpful to imagine seeing the films (Psycho in particular) as if you were part of the original audience. If you do that, not only will they not be cliche, but instead something that had never been seen before.
Vertigo didn’t work for me either on my first viewing. Its a very multi-layered film. With repeated viewings, it became one of my all time favorites.
Watch VERTIGO and think voyeurism and the demystification of women.
Underneath the mainstream pap that is initially attractive with Hitchcock’s films are both some deeper and disturbing themes, as well as the dark humour he always brought to screen.
Hitchcock often said that he didn’t care that much about the “plausibility” of his films; he felt he was an artist and often compared himself to a painter or composer. He creates a semi-dream world and drops his characters into it.
Yes, frequently there is an unexpected deus ex machina at the end that resolves all the twists and turns of teh narrative (what Nate calls a “random occurrences”) , but that tradition goes back to Greek drama. And I think that one of Hitch’s big themes is that life is based on chance occurrences, a blind Fate that we don’t have much control over.
Rumplesink’s mention of the MacGuffin is also apropos because many of the plot events that mean so much to the characters on screen (“What are the 39 Steps?” “Did Lars Thorvald murder his wife?” “Will the lifeboat people survive their ordeal?”) are merely suspenseful narrative devices on which to hang the STYLE of HOW Hitch tells the story and conveys the theme.
Without going into a long dissertation on the subject, my advice would be to think beyond the plausibility of the endings and beyond the story line to the director’s Themes and Techniques.
I think it’s safe to say no one can help you.
Brad S. is correct about Psycho. To see it with the eyes of an original audience member is to see the birth of every horror cliche for next the 50 years.
There’s some kindergarten self-reference (by today’s cinematic standards, anyway) in the loudly advertised MacGuffin concept, the invention of possibly the single worst film genre ever with Psycho, some effective aesthetic sensibilities, and not much else.
Despite unparalleled casts of superstars, the thing you remember most from Hitchcock’s films are objects. You have to understand this to understand Hitchcock.
not seeing the beauty in hitchcock is like not seeing the beauty in shakespeare. yeah, its that serious.
as brad said, so many cliches have grown from hitch’s cinema, and so many genres and styles he’s launched, that we can forget how awe-inspiring original and effective he was in his time.
I think what you are not getting is watching Hitchcock simply for murder mysteries.
“It seems to always be some kind of random occurrence that falls in place for the protagonist so he figures it all out…and need I say anything about the Birds.”
Maybe that it’s most terrifying in its randomness. Has any other mainstream Hollywood film with its degree of artifice been as accepted by audiences before or since?
Randomness and improbability are key here. The fundamentally irrational intentionally and hostilely mimicking the narrative ultra-rationality in order to disarm the viewer.
Deeply unsettling stuff, all throughout his career…
If you don’t get Hitchcock, you don’t get cinema. Period. End quote.
Whoa, whoa, whoa…let’s not bring in the “getting” game.
Recommendation: Watch Histoire(s) du cinema part 4(a). Even if you don’t enjoy his films much (I don’t), it will bestow you with a basic appreciation of his greatness.
Fair enough. , Ben.
Revised —
If you think Hitchcock is overrated and disappointing, you deserve to spend the rest of your life watching Clint Eastwood and Zack Snyder.
Yeah one can easily see the intentions of the OP simply in how he criticizes a film. First of all, he’s comparing Hitchcock to Agatha Christie, why I’m not sure. Hitchcock was in the business of crafting thriller films, not murder mysteries. In Rope we know who the murderers are at the very beginning. Psycho, we see the murderer commiting the crime about halfway through. The Birds, there’s obviously no mystery at all nor is it meant to be. It’s a suspense film.
Rear Window is the only one that kind of hints at being a murder mystery, but Jimmy Stewart’s character doesn’t blinding grasp at straws illogically in the film as the OP claims. We, as the audience, see what his character is seeing and the murderer’s actions are interpretable but also suspicious – doesn’t the OP have any concept of what made Christie’s mysteries so compelling? In the first Poirot mystery ever written (Mysterious Affair at Styles), the murderer is rather obvious, he is the caricature of a murderer and yet, at first, he is found innocent. It’s Christie playing with that caricature and turning it on its head in a way – Hitchcock does the same with Rear Window, so if anything the OP should’ve related to this one the most.
So, it’s apparently a case of the OP looking for things that aren’t supposed to be there in the first place. If you want mystery, go see the multitudes of Christie adaptations out there or Midsomer Murders or Lord Peter Whimsey (I always found Dorothy L. Sayers to be a much better mystery writer than Christie) or Inspector Morse or Nero Wolfe or something, but don’t blindly assume something when you don’t even know what you’re looking at.
I think the basic misunderstanding here is that Hitch didn’t make mysteries, but suspense films and there is often a vast difference between the two—especially on what information is revealed to the audience and when that information is revealed. Vertigo is the best example of this—the revelation earlier than expected as to who Judy is, etc. moves the film from standard Agatha Christie fare, to the more sublime creation that Vertigo becomes.
“…because his solutions are never worth the build-up.” The joke is on the audience. The promise of a generically satisfactory solution serves only to get a viewer into the film and through the run-time, while that run-time is filled with a series of tension and suspense experiments…spectacles. If you don’t dig them, that’s that. But if you do, you think Hitchcock’s the best. A genius.
Case in point: “Psycho, we see the murderer commiting the crime about halfway through.” But we don’t know the truth about the killer’s identity till the final reveal in the last 10 minutes. And by that point, Hitch has had ample opportunity to take us through a variety of torturous suspense set-pieces. And then, when the truth is divulged, when the rational explanation is revealed, it’s absolutely ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek psychobabble. Why? Because it does matter to Hitchcock, it’s a disposable by that point. The movie’s over. Go home. Relax. Chill out. Stay safe. Life’s harmless. Movies kill.
>>his endings always let me down. It seems to always be some kind of random occurrence that falls in place for the protagonist so he figures it all out<<
Consider that his beginnings are pretty “random,” too. Take the opening of PSYCHO as the camera wanders across the city skyline & picks a window to moove in on seemingly at whim. Or later in the same move, Marion Crane inadvertently gets off the main road and stops at the first motel she sees.
I could probably go through all his thrillers and extract similar details.
Hitchcock is all about “random.”
Don’t look at Hitchcock films as thrillers or “who done its” – they’re really sophisticated dramas or comedies that only use the “mystery” as a plot clothesline to hang interesting observations about love or women, an intense visual style and black comedy.
I didn’t really “get” what Hitch was doing as a director until I saw “Notorious”. The “mystery” of what Claude Rains and his Nazi cronies are up to in the house is almost an afterthought – it’s really a love story about a man who misjudges a woman and realizes his mistake when it’s almost too late.
I think HITCHCOCK should be called The Master Of The MacGuffin, instead of his Master Of Suspense title, although he can create a hell of a mood.
To the original poster, to restate in a rephrased way what others have noted already, you might approach Hitchcock more as a (sometimes not so) subtle absurdist or surrealist director rather than a creator of whodunnits like Agatha Christie (who wrote great whodunnits, let’s face it). If you’re looking for a Christie factor, you’re doomed. Otherwise, Hitch’s work is great.
I can’t imagine cinema without Hitchcock—and, have come to agree with Godard, that cinema ended with the death of Hitchcock. Well, on bad days—
Notorious is the key film to understanding Hitchcock—I agree.
Yes, a lot of Hitchcock is about ‘random". It’s especially noticeable (and less irritating) in his British period. (Can any of the Wise Ones here say if he was influenced by Luis Bunel and Salvador Dali?)
It is deplorable, however, that this randomness firmly established itself on screens after Alfred in every mediocre comedy/thriller/car-chase-erotic-space-western. I also have to agree with Bruce that Psycho did not open a way to a lot of good stuff. And after all, almost any movie that has a “Father figure” or a “Mother figure” could be proclaimed to represent Oedipal struggle or discuss relationship between God and man. What’s special about Hitchcock is that he inscribed his themes in numerous details of screenplay, set-design, mis-en-scene, camera, editing, lighting — thus creating an artistic unity between the form and the meaning.
Therefore, Hitch is also about trying to find order and identity in chaos. All his works are essentially the same story with different endings – sometimes order is more definitely (re)established (“The Man Who Knew too Much”, “Young and Innocent”) , sometimes the ending is more ambiguous (“Notorious”) or even quite pessimistic, like in Psycho (or Birds).
Yes, a lot of Hitchcock is about ‘random". It’s especially noticeable (and less irritating) in his British period. (Can any of the Wise Ones here say if he was influenced by Luis Bunel and Salvador Dali?)
It is deplorable, however, that this randomness firmly established itself on screens after Alfred in every mediocre comedy/thriller/car-chase-erotic-space-western. I also have to agree with Bruce that Psycho did not open a way to a lot of good stuff. And after all, almost any movie that has a “Father figure” or a “Mother figure” could be proclaimed to represent Oedipal struggle or discuss relationship between God and man. What’s special about Hitchcock is that he inscribed his themes in numerous details of screenplay, set-design, mis-en-scene, camera, editing, lighting — thus creating an artistic unity between the form and the meaning.
Therefore, Hitch is also about trying to find order and identity in chaos. All his works are essentially the same story with different endings – sometimes order is more definitely (re)established (“The Man Who Knew too Much”, “Young and Innocent”) , sometimes the ending is more ambiguous (“Notorious”) or even quite pessimistic, like in Psycho (or Birds).
I think his endings are proof that he was an artist, because they defy being put into boxes as Suspense Thrillers.
One of the great joys of Hitchcock is his randomness. Most of his films – but more so the British films – are full of surreal and/or absurd sequences that don’t always have much to do with the actual plot, except they make us laugh or scratch our heads or are just simply entertaining divertisements (for example the farmer’s wife in The 39 Steps, the visit to the dentist in The Man Who Knew Too Much or the children’s party in Young and Innocent). But Hitch was, first and foremost, a showman and a prankster and his prime aim was to entertain and to make mischief. He was far less interested in the logic and implausibilities of the plot (even his masterpiece Vertigo has plot flaws you could waltz an elephant through) as he was how the film made us ‘feel’. Add to this the fact that he claimed that ALL his films were comedies, which (excepting the bleakness of The Wrong Man, Vertigo and maybe I Confess) they all are – providing you accept the jet black joke that is Psycho? So treat Hitchcock films as glorious jokes – or tricks on the the audience and you start to get what was really at the heart of Hitchcock.
By the way, you can’t get any more random than his cameos!
Drunken Father Figure of Old
I just watched the 39 Steps this weekend, and that movie has pretty much sealed my opinion of Hitchcock as an overrated and disappointing director. I have seen Psycho, the Birds, Rear Window, Lifeboat, and Vertigo (although I saw that when I was like 12, so I should give it another try based on how great it supposedly is). I love murder mysteries, and every Hitchcock synopsis sounds amazing to me… the only thing is that his endings always let me down. It seems to always be some kind of random occurrence that falls in place for the protagonist so he figures it all out. SPOILERS NOW: Rear Window profoundly bugged me because the protagonist jumps to conclusions at the beginning with no evidence and turns out to be right – Psycho is just kind of disappointing in general… the killer is just not that convincing, and the denouement seems just kind of expected and tacked-on – the end of the 39 Steps is just basically, “we’re a spy organization, so we don’t really have to explain anything… we just killed that lady because we wanted to.” – and need I say anything about the Birds? END SPOILERS. I almost always love a Hitchcock film until the end, because his solutions are never worth the build-up. I choose Agatha Christie over Hitchcock any day. So what am I not getting?