Women, psychology and animal in Hitchcock’s mind.doc

8YanYan xue 01081040Professor Carl Jeffrey BoonELL331Dec 20, 2010.Women, psychology and animal in Hitchcocks mind Exemplifying the birds and MarnieIntroduction：Alfred Hitchcock is one of outstanding directors in twentieth century. There are so many interesting elements in Alfred Hitchcocks films. However, if we observe all the films closely, well find some striking themes in his films and which are never be changedwomen, psychology and animal. By two films of Hitchcock, the birds and marnie, we could know these themes better. 1. womenPortraying beautiful women is one of the most important tasks in Hitchcocks film. As we know, it is very difficult to catch the audiences eyes if there are no charming characters in the film, especially beautiful female characters. But the brilliant idea of Hitchcock is that he creates a fair woman but she is not just a symbol of beauty typically, like a vase. Shes also a complicated creature who has all sorts of emotions. Hitchcock tried to create a lady who you couldnt understand but want to figure out who she is, and he succeeded.1.1 About the blondesAll blondes in Hitchcocks films are beautiful but not sexy like Marilyn Monroe, they are icy, independent, even restrained. In the birds, we can find every time Melanie shows up, she always dressed in a prim sheath with high neckline. From Marnie, marnie was said that she was a young lady never had a dress shorter than her knees and so meticulous for her job. These dresses maybe covered the curves of the woman within, but they couldnt cover the passionate and brave personality when they faced with the dangerous situations. “Women in peril were a feature of many Hitchcock films” “Hitchcock saw female sexual vulnerability as a powerful dramatic device.” (qtd. in Duguid) No matter the fear of Melanie was attacked by flock of birds or the looks on marnies face when she recalled the dreadful memory from her childhood, which becomes a feast for the audience successfully. It is hard to say whether Hitchcock loves blondes or not, but we have to applaud for his great creativity of making up female roles. And until now, “Hitchcocks blondes” becomes a famous signature in the film history.1.2 About the relationship between womenHitchcock always focused on the relationship between women due to its complexity and ambiguity. In the birds, we can see the subtle relationship among the ladies: Melanie, Lydia and Annie. The vulnerable mother always shows distance to Melanie. Even though Annie is friendly to Melanie, when met Mitch accompanied Melanie, she became upset and showed the hostile to Melanie.In Marnie, the delicacy of the relationships between Marnie and her mother, Marnie and Marks sister-in-low, Lil, also captured the attention of audience. Marnie longed to get mothers love again, but neither Mrs. Edgar nor she could forget the homicide they did. Lil doesnt like Marnie and shows suspect to the marriage of Mark and Marnie, Marnie knew Lil admired Mark, but she didnt mind and only tried to protect herself. When Marnie tried to end her horses life with a gun (her horse got hurt, and was dying), Lil showed her womans compassion to Marnie, and wanted to help her.Hitchcock was good at dealing with these relationships, particularly they are from different generations. He caught the main point of womens relationship: They are not only friends but also enemies.1.3 About the love The loves in Hitchcocks films are not stereotype. The most important thing Hitchcock cared is the attitude from men and women when they are in specific and extraordinary circumstance.In the birds, Melanie showed her interest first on Mitch. They fell in love before the attack coming, the trust become stronger when they underwent the disaster. Womens active attitude and unusual trust makes their love story more interesting.In Marnie, Mark chased Marnie first even though he knew she is a kleptomaniac and she has many psychological problems. They dont trust each other. Mark tried to get Marnies trust and helped her by covering her stealing again and again, which is like training a puma. But Marnie still wanted to escape. This “taming” attitude to their relationship maybe the most compelling part of love, and Hitchcock represented it in a brilliant way.2. psychologyDuring much of Hitchcocks career, Freuds ideas were dominant, and although Hitchcock was skeptical of psychoanalysis, Freudian concepts and motifs recur in many of his films. (In Mo) From Marnie and the birds, we can find Hitchcock tried to explain two psychological phenomena: Repression and Oedipus Complex.Repression is one of Freudian concepts, which is occurred in the film Marnie. According to Freud, traumatic memories or the events happened in ones childhood would be repressed by the conscious mind. Basically the criminal behaviors or psychological dysfunction of the psychopath are triggered by their memory, which we can see from Marnie. At the end of movie, the flashback shows us the truth, Mrs. Edgar was a prostitute, one of her client tried to molest marnie (or it seems) in a storm night, the mother tried to protect her little girl, and she tussled and struggled with that man, Marnie started to help her mother by grabbing a nearby poker to hit him, finally, she killed him and was in front of a bloody scene. So the fear of red color, the thunder, loathing the man and the frigid make sense. It is much easier to analyze Marnies nightmare and the love she longed to get from her mother.Oedipus Complex is not the main topic Hitchcock wanted to say in the birds, but its also an important part to drive the whole story. From Annies words, we know Lydia, Mrs. Brenner, became more and more sensitive and vulnerable after her husbands dead. She gave all her hopes on Mitch and was always afraid to lose him, so she is the reason makes Mitch and Annie broke up. Lydia showed the distance to Melanie at the first time they met each other, from then on, she looked Melanie as a beautiful enemy who will take up her own son. Even though there are not definite attitude of Mitch to his mothers over controlled behavior on his love relationship, we still can tell his affection and obedience to his mother from the case “Annie”. According to the Oedipus complex, Freud believed that all children are attracted to their opposite sex parent and this creates conflict with the parent of the same sex. (In Mo) These subtle and complicated relationships among the characters in a big attack from birds make the plots become more and more exciting and entertaining.3. animalAnimal imagery is also an amazing way to symbolize the characters and the theme of films, Hitchcock is good at this. The birds and Marnie are exactly the examples which could prove my point.The birds, from the title we can see this is a movie about the birds, but what we never could imagine is the birds started to attack human beings. They looked like missiles swooped down over everyone, pecked them until they died. The birds here are a symbol of revenge, they tried to get people know they also need some place to live. As an alarm from nature, this disaster gave us many things to think, we cant make it clear where these birds come from, but we need to know what meanings behind them. The birds in the film has another meaning, if we looked Mitch as John Kennedy, looked Melanie as Marilyn Monroe, which is from some critics analysis, the lovebirds in the film are a metaphor to the dangerous relationship between Mitch and Melanie, just like Kennedy had an affair with Marilyn as it was reported.From Marnie, Forio, the Marnies favorite horse is also a significant animal imagery to the film.On the one hand, Forio is a symbol of Marnies personal fantasy. After her stealing, Marnie visited her horse, and it seems this has been her routine for a long time. She leaped onto the horse and galloped off. She rode through a landscape that is very obviously the product of a studio back-projection machine. Did Hitchcock make such a cheap mistake? Of course not. The effect of the unreal backdrop is to emphasize that this is Marnies fantasy world. (Animal imagery in Marnie) After that, Mark found her in this farm, and looked like an invader to her own dream. He even rode her Forio away, took the only one thing belongs to her, which infuriated Marnie and made her yield. We saw Marnie smiled again when she met Forio sent back by Mark, she kissed it and gave Mark a bright smile like she had her own world again. When Forio got hurt and was dying, Marnie was struggled with herself, too. Not only about the horse but also about her psychological problem, at that time, the horse becomes a symbol of her struggle that could trigger her psychoses.On the other hand, Marnie is a “horse” spiritually. She is so wild and intractable. Once Mark asked Marnie what she believes in. she said: “Nothing! Oh, horses, maybe; at least theyre beautiful, and nothing whatever likes people.” (qtd. In Marnie) Marnie is beautiful obviously, and she would like to