NORTH BY NORTHWEST

Revisited Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) last weekend and even on the House's less-than-stellar video it captivated me yet again. It's a movie I've returned to many times in the three decades it's been in my life. Made by Hitchcock during his peak period (and coming on the heels of VERTIGO, a psychologically complex and hugely personal statement), it could have been a throwaway comedy-thriller. But Hitchcock and many of his key collaborators were in too powerful a groove to just throw a project off. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman joined Team Hitchcock with this picture, with the declared goal of writing the ULTIMATE Hitchcock thriller - the script takes in many of Hitchcock's favorite themes (the wrongly-accused protagonist chief among them), and gives everyone involved a chance to take their game to another level: Cary Grant, in his final film for Hitchcock, carries the lead thru sheer charm; Bernard Herrmann follows up his operatic music for VERTIGO with a score more than suitable to accompany the dance Grant must make across half the US; and cinematographer Robert Burks continues to expand his palette across urban landscapes, desolate cornfields and (thrillingly) the faces of Mount Rushmore.

But I wanna talk about Eva, and Eve.

Eve Kendall is the protagonist of her own picture: the story of a party girl at a crossroads, pressured by the government into an undercover assignment. (Another recurring Hitchcock type: Eve would have an interesting conversation with NOTORIOUS' Alicia Huberman.) She seems close enough to Philip Vandamm to know the trouble that George Kaplan is causing him, and must have raised an eyebrow when George Kaplan suddenly had a face, splashed over the newspapers. Perhaps she puts on the same face she always wore for Vandamm when she runs into Roger Thornhill on the train. She's seductive but icy, intimate but not easy to know. Roger doesn't understand quite why this incredible woman is helping him. And Eve's poker face is so strong that he doesn't realize how hard she's working to keep him alive.

As breezily as the whole thing moves, it takes a few viewings to really grasp the depth of Eve's story. And keeping all of the above in mind, it's clear that Eva Marie Saint has internalized it all, and behind her fully composed masque she's calculating all the steps she's going to have to take to keep this idiot from being murdered. She starts to crack in the auction house sequence, clearly hurt when Roger expresses his bitterness over what he believes to be her betrayal (and probably frustrated and angry) and trying to keep her emotions at bay. (She's keeping it inside, but she's dancing every bit as hard as Roger.)

There's a relief that comes when Roger and Eve meet face-to-face in some Keystone forest, at last on the same page and at the same point in time. Though surrounded by thick trees they finally, truly see each other. They're still beset by an incredibly hostile and dangerous world, reflected in the increasingly distorted and disturbed faces of Mount Rushmore they must scale during the movie's climax, but even in this moment, maybe the most traumatized expression by Hitchcock of a world in chaos and uproar, Roger and Eve are finally dancing together.

UNDER CAPRICORN

1831, Sydney, Australia: Among the ne'er-do-wells and convicted criminals making a new start in this sweaty liminal zone is Charles Adare (Michael Wilding), the cousin of the colony's new governor. Charles is taken in by shadowy but prosperous businessman Samson Flusky (Joseph Cotten), whose troubled and alcoholic wife Henrietta (Ingrid Bergman) was acquainted with Charles back in Ireland. Charles' growing fondness for Henrietta gradually brings her out of her shell, but also brings to light a variety of demons that have lurked quiet in the Flusky household, which threaten to destroy all in their wake.



Goddammit, this movie should have been HUGE for director Alfred Hitchcock, returning him as it does to the Gothic milieu of REBECCA and building confidently on the long-take experiments of ROPE. It's one of his most technically assured films, and he'd aided immeasurably in its execution by the artfully garish Technicolor photography of Jack Cardiff and an incredibly lightfooted crew of camera operators. The long takes stalk through the manor and draw you in, giving the actors time and space to fully inhabit their characters and put you away. (Among other noteworthy scenes, Bergman delivers a confession that, at the time, was the longest speech recorded in a feature film - I think it's the finest piece of acting I've ever seen her do, in its breadth and restraint.) The result is one of Hitchcock's most emotionally involving films, a powerful revitalization of the Gothic melodrama that remains absolutely fresh and engaging.

It is believed that its box office failure was the result of an audience unwilling to follow Hitchcock into non-thriller territory (which is baffling, since in its quiet way it's one of his most thrilling films), and/or the public's shunning of Bergman after her affair with Roberto Rossellini became public. Part of me thinks that the failure of this movie either depressed Hitchcock so much that he wound up phoning in STAGE FRIGHT, or that he deliberately phoned it in as a fuck you to that neglectful audience. Their stupid loss became our stupid loss, and UNDER CAPRICORN remains one of Hitchcock's more obscure films. It remains a truly misunderstood gem, and well worth seeking out.

two by Hitchcock

I CONFESS - had never seen Hitchcock's tale of a priest (Montgomery Clift) forced to keep mum about a murder confessed to him - a lovely series of lesser-seen Hitchcock films unfurling at the Castro Theatre's helping me fill in some blanks. I liked this film - was pleasantly surprised at the ensemble nature of the film, less centered on our conflicted hero than taking in all of the people in his orbit, including the authorities brought in to investigate the case and the surrounding community. Strong though it often is (and unusually serious for a Hitchcock film), one does long for more contemporary characterization. In the mid-50s it was enough to simply show Clift as a priest, but we need more details these days to really understand WHY he doesn't just divulge what he knows. There's very little insight into why Clift became a priest, thus little tactile understanding of what he'd lose by breaking the seal of the confessional. A remake penned by George Pelecanos (or even Richard Price), an author with a knack for that much character detail and grounding in both religious and crime stories, would not be remiss.


ROPE - the problem of characterization continues here. It's just impossible to buy James Stewart as a professor who espouses belief in murder as a right of the superior being. But the mechanics of storytelling in the movie, presenting the action as in a single, mostly-unbroken take (save for a truly high-impact close-up) move the thing along beautifully, making for a dense and entertaining 80 minutes, the last three of which are absolutely stunning.