Hitchcock and Painting: Spellbound by Images

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Spellbound by Images

Te Allure of Painting in theCinema of Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcocks films constitute a unique link between the early cinema o at-

tractions, the avant-garde affinity towards painting and the conventions o

classical storytelling. Te article presents how the significance of the paintings

in Hitchcocks films is not only connected to the solving of a particular story of

mystery or mysterious identity, but it also consists in raising questions about

the interpretation o images in general. In contrast with a classic dramaturgy

that neatly solves all the puzzles, the Hitchcockian painting, or painterly im-

age emerges as the medium o the unknown threatening to throw the mind

o the character (and implicitly o the viewer) into the abysmal depths o the

uncanny and the unidentifiable.

Painting or the cinema constitutes a orbidden object o desire.(Angela Dalle Vacche, , .)

Te Painting as a Demonic Image and the

Embodiment of Nothingness

Hitchcocks films constitute a unique link between the early cinema o at-

tractions, the avant-garde affinity towards painting, and the conventions

o classical storytelling, displaying in certain films a marked propensitytowards abstract imagery characteristic o the visual ornamentalism o

modernist cinema. Paintings ofen occupy key roles his films where they

always have the potential o opening up an abyss, a rupture in the texture

o a undamentally classical narrative.

Susan Felleman notes in her book on art in the cinematic imagination:

the portrait [] hangs as an index o Art and Death on the walls o the

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SPELLBOUND BY IMAGES190

moving picture gallery and its movement there should remind us that this

gallery is anything but static (, : p. ), and without doubt,

the relationship o portraiture in Hitchcocks cinema and the theme odeath, Oedipal identification as well as the aestheticism o vision is even

more complex than we grew accustomed to in thefilm noir canon. Both in

Rebecca () and in Vertigo () we have a painting that represents a

dead woman and in both films there is a live woman (the object o the male

protagonists gaze and desire) who assumes a visual likeness to the woman

represented in the painting, as i the live woman were a reincarnation o

the dead one. In the earlier film, Rebecca, the young and shy second wie

(Joan Fontaine) o the rich and elegant Max de Winter (Laurence Olivier)

tries to escape the shadow o the prematurely departed first wie (Rebecca),who was supposed to have been a glamorous society lady. Te new Mrs.

de Winter with her plain grey clothes and rail body is introduced to the

viewer against the backdrop o the huge aristocratic castle towering over

her. Te architraves o the castle become similar to empty rames that have

clearly not been conceived to surround her. In order to assume the role

she is longing or, the young Mrs. de Winter has to be transormed into a

picture that is adequate or these imposing architectural rames. And this

is exactly what happens when she accepts the demonic suggestion o Mrs.Danvers to appear in a costume that copies one o the paintings hanging

in the hallway o the castle, having no idea that her rival, the first Mrs. de

Winter, chose to dress up in exactly the same way. Te process o dressing

up becomes, without her being conscious o it, the process o becoming

a double or the dead wie, Rebecca. Te dead woman, however, remains

or her a abrication o pure fiction, as the inormation that she has about

her is so scarce that she can only fill in the gaps with her own imagination.

As we later learn in the film, Rebecca compared to the angelic young

second wie was a demonic woman who caused her husband much su-ering. So the young woman played by Joan Fontaine is actually a rival

o an image that she tries to resemble, an image that has no reerent, that

does not actually exist. Te scene in which Joan Fontaine dresses up to

become the painting emphasizes both the coming alive o a alse antasy

and the demonic power o a mental image. Te majestic presence o the

painting that she contemplates in the presence o Mrs. Danvers becomes

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 191

the metaphor o an entire world that she longs or, and at the same time

it represents the symbolic doorway through which she believes she may

enter the world o her dreams. (Ill. )

When Joan Fontaine appears as a tableau vivant, a personification

o the painting, Hitchcock emphatically conronts her with the painting,

having her look at the painting as i she were looking in a mirror, then

proceeds to rame her with the architrave o the hallway, ultimately show-

ing her almost literally as i she were stepping out o a picture rame. Afer

the vehement negative reaction o the husband who covers his eyes asto protect himsel rom this phantom-like tableau vivant the conused

young woman casts another desperate glace at the treacherous mirror

painting, and at the end o the scene, as the ironic reversal o her figure

dressed all in white, Hitchcock shows us the dark figure o Mrs. Danvers

rom the back, ramed in a similar way as we saw the beaming young Mrs.

de Winter a ew minutes beore.Te mirror-like symmetry o the images

.

A Selznick International Picture, George Barnes.

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closes the scene upon itsel: instead o being a symbolic doorway or the

young wie, the painting proved to be a trap.

Te use o the painting and the structure o presenting the figures in a

rame, the way the living is made the double o the dead image (and

dead character) serves primarily the purposes o suspense, and postpones

the solving o the mystery. On the other hand, the two Mrs. de Winters

appear in the film as Max de Winters objects o desire as two reflections

or copies o the same image and as such (romantic and ironic) doubles o

each other. Rebecca, who is revealed as the hidden reerent o the painting

in the scene, is not only dead, but as the matter o act she is also completely

unknown, and the medial alterity o the painting is also virtually effaced bythe integration o the painting as merely an object and an image linked to

the narrative and to the protagonists antasies: the painting itsel in this way

becomes a multiple sign o absence and uncertainty, a medium o the void.

Te story progresses towards a double revelation. Te inormation with-

held rom the viewer and rom the young wie becomes the main source

o suspense. Te viewer is intrigued by the question why the first Mrs. de

Winter died, but is equally anxious to find out how the two reflections o

the portrait, the two wives can be related to each other (and to the possiblethird reflection, the figure o the housekeeper). Tere is a continuous

dramatic tension between the imaginary portrait o the dead woman and

our impressions o the portrait o the live protagonist. Rebecca hovers

over the narrative like a demonic image, a vampire who exerts an inexpli-

cable attraction toward the emale characters (the fiendish Mrs. Danvers

can also be seen as a kind o double) who are trying to identiy with her

and sucks them into a terrible vortex threatening to make them lose their

identity. In the scene analysed beore we see both how strongly a picture

is connected to the imagination, and, most importantly, what demonicpower rests in the hands o those who use images as tools (see the fiendish

actions o Mrs. Danvers). In contrast with a classic dramaturgy that neatly

solves all mysteries, the painting emerges as the medium o the unknown,

as a racture that disrupts the order o the narration and threatens to throw

the mind o the character involved into its abysmal depths o the uncanny

and the unidentifiable.

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 193

In essence Vertigocarries on the same theme. In this film the protagonist

(who is a detective, and as such a perect embodiment o an epistemologi-

cal pursuit), Scottie Ferguson alls in love with a picture and tries to revivea dead woman by way o her image. It is not by chance that the location

or the first encounter with the woman o his affection is a cemetery. Te

Pygmalion-like story takes interesting turns in Hitchcocks film thematizing

the relationship o representation and lie, o identification and copying. In

this case we have a woman who is not only dead and thereore unattain-

able, but we also have to deal with multiple fictions, and an intrigue that

involves lies, misleadings, swindles and ultimately, sins. Te main theme

is introduced into the film by Gavin Elster who hires Scottie as a detective.

In the scene in which they meet we see them in Elsters office where thewalls are all packed with pictures. Te pictures hanging on walls become

ominous signals o the thematization o questions related to images (simi-

larly to the use o the stuffed birds in the Bates motel that are signs o past

and uture horrors to be revealed through the plot in Psycho, (). (Ill. )

It has ofen been pointed out that Kim Novak, as Elsters wie, in the now

amous scene at the restaurant, appears like a painting. Tis is not only the

result o being shown in a relatively static pose and in profile, so somewhattwo dimensionally against the background plane, but also the result o a

careully chosen chromatic scale and the presence o multiple inner raming.

Tis picture, however, will ultimately become an abysmal experience or

Scottie. First the woman played by Kim Novak lies that she is Madeleine,

the wie o Scotties employer, who being in a somewhat troubled state o

mind believes to be the reincarnation o a certain Carlotta Valdes. Tis lie

is supported by the supposedly mesmerizing qualities o a painting portray-

ing Carlotta. Te images o the film emphasize the similarities between the

painting and the live woman, strengthening the mystification. Te secondtime the woman played by Kim Novak appears in the film as Judy, she denies

to be the same person as he knew in the first hal o the film, although the

two women are one and the same. Both, however, appear to Scottie as the

image o another woman (in the case o Madeleine, it is Carlotta, in the

case o Judy it is Madeleine), both women being or supposed to be dead.

Te painting is not only the image o death, but in this case in its relation

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with reality it proves to be a multiple fiction and a lie, a duplicitous sign

o a world that does not exist. Moreover Hitchcock continuously plays with

the duality o presenting the figure o Kim Novak alternately as an erotic,

bodily presence moving in three dimensional space and as a two dimen-sional figure, ofen a silhouette ramed within a painterly composition. In

this way he practically re-enacts the main theme o the film on the level o

cinematic representation: the carnal appearance o Kim Novak is repeatedly

objectified and aestheticized as a beautiul and enigmatic painting. And this

is in act a one way process in the film: the live woman becomes a picture

(and can be transormed into a picture as Scottie demonstrates with Judy)

.

Paramount Pictures, Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions, Robert Burks.

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but the picture ultimately resists being assigned a single reerent, it resists

coming alive definitively and undoubtedly as a single person.

From the point o view o the films meta-narrative about images we may

note the significance o the scene in which Scottie is admiring Madeleine

in the gallery as she is sitting in ront o the painting as i in ront o a mir-

ror. Te figure o the man is presented as standing in between two other

paintings that rame him: on one side we have the image o a respectable

gentleman in a wig, on the other side there is an image o a young boy. It is

as i symbolically he would also be deconstructed into multiple identities,

making the viewer unable to decide whether to see him in the posture o

the mature and cultured, sel-possessed man, or as a boy who is a victim ohis own curiosity and instincts (it is no wonder that several psycho-analytic

analyses o the film emphasize the collusion o cultural and instinctual ac-

tors within the film). Te scene may also suggest that the enigmatic and

multiplied appearance o the image o the emale protagonist will be a cause

o an even more disturbing shattering o the identity o the male character.

(And indeed between the first and the second appearance o the character

played by Kim Novak, Scottie suffers a nervous breakdown.) Te theme is

emphasized throughout the film also by the multiplication o the imagesseen in mirrors at different points o the narration. One o the effects o

such compositions is an abstract ragmentation o the realistic image. Te

most extreme case o the shattering o cinematic realism can be seen in

the hallucinatory sequence afer Madeleines supposed death. What we see

as the projection o Scotties troubled mind, the clear geometrical orms

and stylizations o the image (making the cinematic image use with the

medium o graphic and painterly animation) is in act indicative o some-

thing that runs as an undercurrent throughout the whole film (e.g. the

abstractions in the seemingly realistic details like the whorl in Madeleineshair resembling a vortex, or the image o the spiral staircase becoming like

a cubist painting in motion in the protagonists subjective projection o

vertigo, the bold use o colours and points o view, etc.). (Ill. )

In this way the end o the film can be seen as an allegory o the impossible

mission o Hitchcocks cinema acting as Pygmalions camera: the multitude

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.

Paramount Pictures, Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions, Robert Burks

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o images, antasies, dreams and tableaux vivants can only fleetingly as-

sume the orm o a bodily shape and the illusion o reality within the film.

Tis on the one hand can be interpreted as the metaphor o cinematic me-diality itsel: it presents the primeval attraction o cinema originating in the

ascination with phantom images. Consequently, the kind o necrophilia

that appears in the painterly objectifications running as a leitmoti through

the film can be seen as the equivalent o the directors (and the spectators)

cinephilia, the ascination with seeing the lights and shadows produce the

magic presence o things that are in actuality unattainable or us, the revival

o dead persons and long lost worlds or us.

On the other hand it is also remarkable how the tangible orm o the

desired woman appearing in the film always means the identification withanother image, and how ultimately the object o desire alls by way o the

whirlpool o images into the void, into a mesmerizing nothingness. Sla-

voj iek who analysed Hitchcocks film rom the point o view o Lacans

psychoanalysis sees one o the main problems raised by Vertigoin the act

that reality is ruptured by the presence o the emale image that acts as a

vertiginous gap into nothingness. Te painting and the woman presented

as a painting is nothing else but the material orm, the embodiment o

nothingness (, : p. ).

Painting as the Dislocation of the Narrative, the

ransposition into an Abstract Space

In several o Hitchcocks films we see the use o paintings or painterly

images as vehicles or a specific philosophy o morals. In these films the

medial alterity o paintings or painterly compositions placed in the context

o cinema become not only signs o a world o fiction as opposed to real-

ity, but appear as the explicit projections o the subjective and inscrutable

world o sin itsel.

Tere is an interesting scene in Suspicion () in which we see a seem-

ingly unmotivated introduction o a cubist painting. In this disruption

Stephen Heath () sees a repetition o other unmotivated spatial jumps

which all convey a sense o unsolved mystery. As the film does not make

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it clear even at the end, whether the charming male protagonist played

by Cary Grant (Johnnie) is a killer who also intended to kill his wie, Lina

(played by Joan Fontaine), or the suspicion was merely the product o theimagination o the overly sensitive wie (and o the spectator manipu-

lated by suspense). Te painting on the wall can be interpreted either as

a materialization o the nervous state o mind that begins to dominate

Lina and the tension o the narration, or it can be seen as a diversion, as

another space wedged into the cinematic space that has nothing to do

with the main story. We will never find out the real significance o these

shots, just like we will never find out whether Johnnie is guilty or in-

nocent. We should note, however, the presence o shadows that racture

the cinematic space in a similar way to a cubist painting. In the sceneshown afer the departure o the inspectors Lina appears as i entangled

in the network o shadows, enmeshed in the spiders web o her doubt

(, p. ) Johnnie, on the other hand, appears as an enigmatic

dark silhouette ramed by the doorway, thus making the viewer question

whether the handsome and debonair Cary Grant could in act be a ruth-

less murderer. What Hitchcock does is nothing more and nothing less

than to challenge our reflexes, and emphasizing once more the obscure

nature o all images. Te abstract painting in this way does not seem tobe merely a Hitchcock joke, as Heath considers (op.cit. p. ), it seems

to be much more the representation o the same fictional space that we

see in Rebecca and Vertigo. Compared to the realist space o the narrative,

the painting appears as an opening towards another level o existence: an

abstract space onto which Hitchcock displaces the horriying presence

(or suspicion) o moral sin, ear or (as we saw in Vertigo: desire border-

ing on perversion). (Ill. )

We can see a similar play with the expectations o the viewers and the

use o abstract compositions in Stage Fright, a film made in . Here it isnot only that the narration leaves the spectator uninormed, but the narra-

tion deliberately misleads the viewers. Te events shown in the flash-back

scene placed at the beginning o the film are not real. But the viewer has

no clue that would suggest that the character is lying, and thereore no

reason to doubt the images. Although Hitchcocks trick works flawlessly,

there are some elements that may betray the duplicity o the flash-back

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 199

images. In the whole sequence Hitchcock insists on marking the images

as subjective visions: we see Jonathan peeping through the window, we

see his memories in the orm o images overlapping through dissolves.

At one point the protagonist catches a glimpse o an abstract painting on

the wall, in a very similar way as we saw Benson in Suspicion gazing at

.

R K O Radio Pictures, Inc., Harry Stradling Sr.

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the cubist painting, and the sight o the painting seems to exert the same

inexplicable attraction or a moment that almost disjoints him rom the

flow o the narration: we see him in several shots in the same rame with

this enigmatic painting. Te spiral orm seen in the painting may be again

a visual representation o the duplicitous vertigo o sin, and, as such, an

image pre-figuring other vertiginous images within the film. Te image o

the staircase in itsel, enhanced with the unusually requent repetition o

the dissolves and superimpositions o images, also projects spiral ormsover the close up o the character. Te abstract geometry o the vortex is a

recurring visual moti o Hitchcocks cinema, only this time there is no psy-

chological motivation or the characters to eel as i caught in a maelstrom

o emotions. Te layering o these vertiginous orms ultimately results in

the shattering o the image into abstract ragments. Tis can be interpreted,

without doubt, as a conventional figure representing the mad murderers

abulations, only this time the murderer is not mad, he is more likely cold

and calculated: it is the act o the crime, o the sin itsel that appears as

madness, and the evil that is present in the world. (Ill. )

Te racturing o the visual composition, the displacement o the world o

crime into an other, abstract space (by the introduction o paintings or

visual effects resembling paintings) is something that we can also observe

in Strangers on a rain (). In this film we have a murderer who relates

to his victim as a double, an evil doppelgnger, who threatens to dislocate

.

Warner Bros., Wilkie Cooper.

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the victims whole world into this chaos revealed in the painterly spaces.

Te film itsel is a nightmarish story o an absurd antasy coming to lie. Te

secret wish o Guy (Farley Granger), a celebrated tennis player, to have hiswie killed is ulfilled by a lunatic murderer, Bruno (Robert Walker), who

appears not only as the negative alter-ego o the protagonist, but who is

also requently associated with painterly compositions, the most revealing

analogy being the painting shown at the beginning o the film. Tis picture

painted by his mother is remarkable first o all because o its ambiguity:

Bruno considers the ghastly, expressionist style portrait to be a representa-

tion o his ather, while his mother claims that it is a portrayal o St. Francis,

the viewer, nevertheless, may be drawn to sensing in it a portrait similar

to the picture o Dorian Gray, a romantic mirror image revealing the trueace behind the otherwise impeccable aade o a dandy. Te murder

itsel in the film occurs within the heterotopic location o the Magic Island,

among the carnivalesque constructions o an amusement park enveiled in

darkness: a site o fiction and imagination. And afer having successully

placed his heroes onto the island o fiction Hitchcock also transports

the viewer into an even more surrealistic and painterly setting. Te actual

scene o the murder is shown rom the non-human, abstract and distorted

viewpoint o the lenses o Miriams glasses that all on the ground as Brunobegins to strangle her. Te broken glasses that the murderer later proudly

produces as evidence or the accomplishment o his hideous deed become

the emblem o the violently shattered vision and the symbolic gateway into

a world (again a distorted, crushed space) in which such murderous acts

can take place. (Ill. ) Te mesh o dark lines o shadows projected over

the walls o Brunos flat where Guy apparently goes with the intention to

finally pay his debt and kill Brunos ather reiterates this visual pattern

established in the film moreover the spider-web composition is remark-

able this time also because the shadow projected over the wall that we seebehind Guy can be ambivalently seen as belonging to both o the men. Te

shadow that appears between the two doppelgnger characters seems to

be placed in between them, as i the evil embodied in the shadow would

not actually be part o any o them, but would exist only in this immaterial

orm: as an abstract image projection that can be linked to both o them

as a third entity.

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Reading Images in Hitchcocks Spellbound()

In essence Spellboundcan be seen as a film about the passion or the inter-

pretation o images: elucidating the enigma o a crime in the film means

no less and no more than solving the enigma o a series o pictures. In the

film we ollow the story o John Ballantyne (Gregory Peck), who suffers

.

Warner Bros., Robert Burks.

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 203

rom amnesia and whose identity is thereore uncertain (he might be a

murderer or a victim, or just insane). In the course o an amateur investiga-

tion he is helped by a young woman psychiatrist, Dr. Constance Petersen(Ingrid Bergman) trained in Freudian psychoanalysis who interprets his

dreams. Cinema and painting are intertwined in three major scenes in the

film; all three scenes are at key points in the narration (at the beginning

o the romance between the main characters, at the climax o the film and

at the end, when the mystery is solved. All three scenes can be interpreted

metaphorically and all three scenes are centred on the moti o the eye or

vision (and imply the necessity o reading the images).

. Te Image o the Series o Doors Opening UpTe moment in which John Ballantyne and Constance all in love is depicted

in the film by a beautiul metaphorical composition o images. John and

Constance look into each others eyes and, suddenly, over the closed eyelids

o the woman images o a series o doors appear that gradually take the place

o the eyes and open up one afer the other deeper and deeper within the

rame. Te close-up o the eyes would be a typically cinematic solution or

eliciting a direct psychological identification o the viewer (it would seem

as i we ourselves would lean towards the ace o the woman and look intoher eyes). Te doors appearing instead o the eyes, however, can remind us

o paintings like those o Magritte where similar surprising substitutions

or ramings occur. In this way the conventional scene between the two

people alling in love gains an almost surrealist stylization. Te meaning

o the scene is ar rom being explicit. We may interpret it as the opening

up o an inner vision, or as the metaphor o the eye as the doorway to

the soul. But is the image a metaphor standing or the gaze o the man or

the woman? Does the male gaze penetrate the image o the woman here

(and objectiy her as eminist theories have taught us), or is this the pro-jection o the inner emotions o the woman (letting down her guard and

opening up)? Unlike in classical Hollywood genre films, the mans gaze

does not make the ace o the woman emerge rom the background in this

sequence, but instead, quite the opposite happens, the charming ace is e-

aced by the superimpositions, so we might rightully consider the images

as attributes o the woman hersel. Te overlaying o the images may also

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appear like the metaphor o metaphor itsel within cinema, an image o the

image opening up towards yet another image, the way a metaphor always

operates, revealing at the same time one o the basic mechanisms o the

transition rom the language o cinema into the language o painting as we

progress rom the concrete image towards an abstract composition. (Ill. )

Hitchcocks unusual poetic moment dislocates the image rom the context

o the narrative into an abstract space once more, just like in the previous

examples, surprisingly, Hitchcock places the moment o pure erotic attraction

into the imagery o the same unsettling vortex that is usually the marker o

the inscrutable world o uncontrollable and sinul impulses (crime, lust, etc.).

What is an interesting eature in the sequence in addition to all these is the

act that it is the moti o the door that appears here and not what would

have been much more conventional the image o the window in association

with the eyes. Te window would have emphasized the gaze itsel, the world

.

Selznick International Pictures, Vanguard Films Inc., George Barnes.

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 205

as a picture revealed within a rame. In this way, it is an emotion, a sensation

that is emphasized. Moreover, the door suggests a threshold and an aperture.

Te door does not only divide space, but it stands between worlds, signiyingat the same time separation and passage.Te two worlds that are connected

in this Hitchcock sequence are, o course, the man and the woman, John Bal-

lantyne and Constance. In what ollows the dramaturgy o the film will be

built on a chiasmic inversion o the situation (the two sides o the threshold)

presented in these images: instead o the active man who takes possession

o the woman with his gaze, we will see a helpless man under the constant

scrutiny o the woman, moreover, the moti o the closed eyes o the man

will prove to be extremely important, as it will be his dreams that will help

solve the mystery, and the woman seen in this sequence surrendering to theconquest o the man, is the one who will interpret the dreams o the man

and will be able to actively penetrate his dream world and find the source

o the trauma that haunts the man. Te mechanism o the film rests on the

situation o one o the characters (the man) seeing certain images (with his

closed eyes) and the other character (the woman) reading these images

by inverting the relationship seen in the image o the opening doors and

stepping into the mysterious world o the mans dreams.

. Te Dream Sequence

In the amous sequence based on Dalis designsin which Constance and

the proessor analyse Johns dream, it is not only cinema that is doubled/

overwritten by painting but the protagonist himsel becomes also doubled.

On the one hand we have the man (Gregory Peck) we see at the beginning

o the film arriving at Green Manors as Dr. Edwardes, but this proves to be

a misconception, as it turns out to be merely an assumed identity. On the

other hand we have his real sel that appears in the dream projection o

his unconscious; however, we can only see this as a painting.Te dreamappears as a painterly veil that overlays the screen and conceals the images

o reality rom our sight (the gesture o covering up reality is emphasized

by the symbolism o the theatrical curtains and the masks that hide the aces

in the dream). What is also remarkable in the sequence is that it reflects not

only Dalis surrealist style put in the service o the Freudian concept, but

it also makes extensive use o the type o deep ocus cinematography that

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became the trademark o Orson Welles and Gregg oland in the s. In

order to unveil the truth we have to make the correspondence between the

world o the dream (the painting) and the world o reality (the fictive world

created by the film), we have to be able to cut the cover and step into one

world rom the other, the image o the giant scissors cutting through the

image o the eyes (as the eyes are in act painted on sheets that cover another

layer in the dream) suggest the necessity o the cutting open o the world o

the painting in order to reach the transparent cinematic representation

we are looking or in a classical film.(Ill. )Te possibility o cutting through the painting and reaching the reality

hidden behind it is paradoxically acilitated by its inversion. John Ballan-

tyne is or example repeatedly shocked by the appearance o parallel lines

on different objects around him. In his obsession with these lines it is the

transormation o the concrete reality into an abstract visual orm that

can make the viewer aware o the existence o another type o perception,

.


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PASSEPARTOUT 34 207

and the dream sequence only makes this already introduced other gaze

explicit by the introduction o the eye that has to be cut, o the covers that

have to be removed, and allegorizes the whole process o crossing rom oneontological level to another in the orm o overwriting cinematic transpar-

ency with painterly obscurity, abstraction, and surrealism.

. Te Painterly Effect o the Squirt o Blood towards the Off-Screen Space

At the end o the film when Constance uncovers Dr. Murchison as the

real murderer, we see how the doctor first threatens Constance with his

revolver, then turns the weapon towards himsel, and commits suicide. We

see the woman in the ar background opening the door and leaving the

room behind the giant close up o the revolver. Te weapon is then turnedslowly towards the camera like a cannon barrel and the shot is fired. For a

moment the screen turns blank and, in the context o the black and white

film, as a highly unusual effect, or a ew seconds we see a splash o red

colour filling the rame. Te splash o red colour lasts only a ew seconds

and puzzles the spectator. (One may even not be sure i ones eyes have not

been deceived: did we really see red, or was it just our overexcited imagina-

tion?) What is even more important is what this fleeting image perorms

in the film: this is a kind o transgression again rom a perceptible, outerworld into an emotionally charged inner image, rom the visible into the

invisible. What we do not see is the death o the character, Dr. Murchison.

And what is not clear to us is why the splash o red colour covers the screen

as the gun goes off. Naturally, it could be interpreted as the image o blood

spilt by the gunshot, signalling the death o the character. But why does

Hitchcock use such an unusual way o showing the death o the character,

and why the sudden, unexpected use o colour within an otherwise all black

and white movie? Moreover there is also a logical inversion in the scene

that blurs the boundaries between cause and effect as we are shown theeffect (the image o blood that shocks the viewer, spilt as the consequence

o the shot) through the image o the cause (the image o the shot itsel is

coloured in red). As a result o this condensation it is the same rame that

shows within a flash as i a mirror image reflected upon itsel the gun

and the result o the shot, and elicits the immediate, instinctive emotional

response o the viewer who sees the suicide. (Ill. )

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Te image thereore is primarily not recording the suicide, but seems to be

anticipating, triggering in the viewer (as the gun is also pointed at the

spectator) the eeling o the imminent death o the character.

Such a complex perormative effect o the filmic image is present in all the

three sequences discussed so ar, and it is always made possible through a

painterly vision that cuts through the conventional transparency o the

screen. Tis does not only acilitate an imaginary leap beyondthe world

o the screen, onto another level in the fiction (where crimes and hiddendesires are lodged), but it can as we see it in this final painterly effect

acilitate a transgression into the opposite direction, towards the world in

ront o the screen, towards the inner vision o the spectator. Te image o

the series o doors opening up one afer the other is a metaphor among

a series o other things o the viewers passage rom the concrete, tan-

gible representation towards the abstract and the figurative. Te dream

.


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PASSEPARTOUT 34 209

sequence is an allegory: it sets up a parallel between a painting coming

alive and a filmic sequence o events and the relationship between the two

levels (painting and film) becomes the organizing principle o the narra-tive: this correspondence has to be discovered, the meaning o the details

in the painterly dream have to be ound and rom those a logic o cause

and effect must be reconstructed, and in this way the interpretation o the

dream images is equated with the solving o the murder. Te last sequence

o the spurt o red colour does something entirely different: namely it does

not metaphorize or allegorize, it does something: it startles us, it exerts

and immediate emotional and intellectual response, it is directed towards

us, it addresses us directly, as i splashing into our ace. Te connection

between techniques o painting and cinema is established here too (justlike in the dream sequence) through the use o the extreme depth o field

within the rame. Hitchcock seems to consciously give a visual render-

ing o the eeling we have when seeing such images, as Bazin describes it,

this technique resembles a ully extended slingshot in which a kind o

systematic extension in depth o reality, as i that reality were sketched on

a rubber band that he would take pleasure first in pulling back to scare us,

second in letting go right into our aces (, : p. ). Tis time we

have literally a shot into our aces (not o a sling but o a revolver), thepicture that was previously extended excessively towards the depth o field

now smashes into our eyes making us blink. Te image at the same time

seems to paraphrase the emblematic image o the cinema o attractions

that om Gunning speaks about: the close up o the gangster shooting to-

wards the audience in Porters Te Great rain Robbery () that can be

considered as a direct assault on the spectator (the spectacularly enlarged

outlaw unloading his pistol in our aces) (, : p. ).

Te sudden appearance o the colour red should also be addressed sepa-rately. First o all because it is something that can be directly linked to the

attractive style o Expressionism (as practiced by Eisenstein, or example),

Deleuze considers that: expressionism keeps on painting the world red on

red; the one harking back to the rightul non-organic lie o things, the

other to the sublime, non-psychological lie o the spirit. Expressionism

attains the cry [] which marks the horror o non-organic lie as much as

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the opening-up o a spiritual universe which may be illusory (,

: p. ). Tis image o the spurt o red is such a cry, what makes it

remarkable, however, is that it is more like the ragment o a cry whichnonetheless manages to introduce afer all the ambivalences disentangled

in the narrative yet another puzzle that remains unsolved. Tere are a

series o questions that arise in the viewer: is Hitchcock painting the image

o the sound o the revolver (as i in a cartoon?) or does he want to signal

the death o the character in a single metonymic image, is it an icon or an

index? Or is this a way o making a visual representation o the astonish-

ment o the spectator? Is this a banal image o blood or is it again an image

that flashes through the screen coming rom a world that only painting can

portray, rupturing the conventional cinematic space o the narrative? Doesthis red mirror a sensation or introduce a moment o (ironic) reflection over

the action? What is more emphatic: the cinematic aspect o the image

or the painterly vision? Did Hitchcock film something here (the squirt

o blood) or he merely covered the celluloid with a blotch o red paint, so

literally the realistic filmic image disappeared behind the layer o paint?

(And i we make a rame by rame analysis o the sequence we will see that

this is exactly what was done here: the black and white images were painted

over; moreover, the orm o the splash resembles very much the orms wesee in the graphic novels rendering shots or loud noise effects.) But is this

almost subliminal effect a mere play upon our sensations? Te spellbinding

bond between cinema and painting has never been more conusing as in

this racture o a minute. Te flow o the narrative denouement subsumes

this strange image, and the film quickly moves towards the finale o the

story, nevertheless, the painterly splatter o colour is also a mark o the

rupture in the cinematic vision, something perceivably other (even i or

a very small time) in the context o a classical film language. So, eventu-

ally, while the enthusiastic and ingenious woman psychiatrist continuallyworks on the deciphering o images, the viewer experiences the irreducible

polysemy and sheer thrill o the synesthetic imagery. Eisenstein wrote: In

art it is not the absolute relationships [between the image and its significa-

tion] that are decisive, but those arbitrary relationships within a system o

images dictated by the particular work o art (, : p. ). In

this spirit Hitchcocks film, in this last flash o paint, with this arbitrary

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 211

shot, disqualifies the intellectual victory o reading the images that the

narrative presents us. At the end o the film the suspense is released, the

mystery is solved, the murderer is unmasked. Dalis canvas is successullyripped open by the Hitchcockian scissors: the symbols o the dream are

given proper interpretation, and we can rest assured that John Ballantyne

will lead the charming Constance Petersen to the altar as elegantly and

sel-assuredly as any leading man would in the happy ending o a typical

Hollywood romance. Te mystery, however, that is presented in the im-

ages balancing on the borderline o painting and cinema, the spellbinding

effect o pure visuality as the essence o Hitchcocks relationship with

painting stays with us.

As a conclusion we may state that Hitchcocks imagery bordering on ab-

straction is able to activate the undamental effect o abstract painting: it

drives cinema into the dimension o the unnameable o the unspeakable.

In his films painting does not absorb cinema, nevertheless, it effectively

challenges its transparency. What is characteristic o Hitchcock is that he is

able to show the ambivalence o the images (o being able to both telland

show things) in a specific duality that resembles the workings o the figure

o the double in a narrative, and that always undermines to certain degreethe sel-enclosed order o the narrative, and the seemingly unproblematic

(sel-effacing) mediality o classical cinema. His attractive plays with

the visual layout o his films transer the dramatic tension rom the level o

the narrative onto the level o the cinematic language, positing the images

themselves as the ultimate mystery that have to be solved by the viewer.

Painting or Hitchcock is very much like the intermedial demon o the

cinematic image, a double o cinema, something lurking beyond or hov-

ering over the enthralling tale, a shadow, a doppelgnger that is ready at

any time to take charge (just like the doppelgnger characters in the film:e.g. Bruno appearing beside Guy in Strangers on a rain), threatening to

disrupt the reasonable (and discursive) order o the world and to invade

it with abstract shapes and colours, with images that resist to tell and

impress the viewer with what they show: with their spellbinding visual

presence. On the level o the cinematic narratives Hitchcock usually solves

the mysteries that intrigue the viewer; however, his painterly images orever

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haunt the cinematic universe with the impression o the inscrutable nature

o things, the indelible trace o Nothingness, and the mesmerizing attrac-

tion o a orbidden world.

gnes Peth is Associate Proessor at the Sapientia Hungarian University

o ransylvania in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) where she is currently head o

the Department o Film, Photography, and Media. She has written several

articles on cinematic intermediality. She is the editor o the volumes Words

and Images on the Screen. Language, Literature, Moving Pictures, , and

Film in the Post-Media Age, , and she is the author o Cinema and Inter-

mediality. Te Passion or the In-Between, published in by Cambridge

Scholars Publishing.

Spellbound by Images

Te Allure o Painting in the Cinema o Alred Hitchcock

Hitchcocks films constitute a unique link between the early cinema o at-tractions, the avant-garde affinity towards painting and the conventions

o classical storytelling, displaying in certain films an abstract imagery that

can achieve a sel-reflexion o cinema as a visual medium that resembles at

the same time the techniques o modernism. Te paintings introduced in

his films always have the potential o opening up an abyss, a rupture in the

texture o classical narrative, and transpose the story over a meta-narrative

plane by dislocating the narrative into an abstract space. Te reerents o the

painterly images are always revealed to belong to an ontologically different

plane; such images being always strongly connected to pure fiction andimagination. Te article presents how the significance o the paintings in

Hitchcocks films is not only connected to the solving o a particular story o

mystery or mysterious identity, but it also consists in raising questions about

the interpretation o images in general. In contrast with a classic dramaturgy

that neatly solves all the puzzles, the Hitchcockian painting, or painterly

image emerges as the medium o the unknown threatening to throw the

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 213

mind o the character (and implicitly o the viewer) into the abysmal depths

o the uncanny and the unidentifiable. (One o the most eloquent examples

o this is the startling image o the squirt o blood painted over the blackand white images and thrown towards the off-screen space, implicitly

at the spectator at the end o Spellbound.) It seems that or Hitchcock

painting acts like an intermedial demon o the cinematic image, a medial

doppelgnger that is ready at any time to take charge, threatening to disrupt

the reasonable (and discursive) order o the world.

Te article is an abbreviated version o a chapter in my book Cinema and Inter-mediality: Te Passion or the In-Between (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ,). I have also addressed the role o paintings used in film in my article TeVertigo o the Single Image: From the Classic Narrative Glitch to the Post-Cin-ematic Adaptations o Paintings, orthcoming in , Vol.. oActa UniversitatisSapientiae: Film and Media Studies.

Hitchcock ofen resorted to construct his scenes (ofen entire films) on the re-versal o significant images/scenes that we have seen earlier (like the scene oMadeleines death in the church in Vertigo). Richard Allen considers these rever-sals in the narrative as maniestations o romantic irony in Hitchcocks films (c., ).

Marc Vernet considers (c. , ) that the introduction o the painting canbe seen as the way in which the paradigm o classical narrative cinema deals withthe power o the imaginary, criticizing it in avour o a sense o realism.

Richard Allen notes that Hitchcock emphasizes the figure o the double in therelationship o the two Mrs. de Winters, and associates the notions o demonicand sublime with their antithesis. Others see the relationship o the new Mrs.de Winter and Rebecca in Oedipal terms, as the relationship o a daughter anda mother figure in the course o which the daughter identifies with the image othe mother, and she can present hersel in society only the way the image o themother has been constructed within her imagination (c. , , p.

and , , p. ). Te moti o alling in love with a woman as a picture and the haunting image

o a dead woman has not only several literary antecedents (like Edgar Allan PoesLigeia and Gustave Rodenbachs Bruges-la-Morte as Bronen points out, ),but it became one o the motis characteristic o film noir narratives as well. C.Elsaesser () and Felleman ().

Many analyses point out the significance o the act that Elster does not produce aphotograph o his wie but stages the introduction o a live double within a painterlysetting: a tableau vivant (c. , , , , , ).

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Te interpretation is urther complicated by ruffauts hypothesis that in actHitchcock attempted to use the image o Kim Novak to revive on the screenanother, already unattainable actress or him, Grace Kelly. ruffaut writes: Vertigo

was undoubtedly a film in which the leading lady was cast as a substitute or theone Hitchcock had in mind initially. Te actress we see on the screen is a substi-tute, and the change enhances the appeal o the movie, since the substitution is themain theme o the picture. A man who is still in love with a woman he believesto be dead attempts to re-create the image o the dead woman when he meets upwith a girl who is her lookalike. [] I realized that Vertigowas even more intrigu-ing in the light o the act that the director had compelled a substitute to imitatethe actress he had initially chosen or the role (, , p. ).

Susan Felleman considers: Hitchcocks Scottie is not the only one who indulgesin a orm o necrophilia. Tis orm o necrophilia, a orm without cadavers thisspecular necrophilia we all suffer rom it: all cineastes, anyway. (,

, p. -.) We should note how the main plot o the film is doubled by a subplot involving

Midge, Scotties confidant, who is a designer and an amateur painter and wouldvery much like to become Scotties object o desire. In her jealousy over Scot-ties inatuation with Madeleine, she is also presented as a painting, her ace beingsubstituted or that o Carlotta (and implicitly, Madeleine identified with Carlotta).

Tomas Elsaesser () describes the dandy not only as a recurring figure oHitchcocks films, but as a model or the personal myth o Hitchcock himsel. Temain characteristics o a dandy according to Elsaesser are: rituals that give the im-pression o perect idleness and sel-control, the elimination o randomness rom

lie, the rule o artifice over naturalness, a wish to be in perect control over every-thing, the goal to make lie ones own creation (lie imitates art, as Oscar Wildebelieved). It is not only Bruno who can be seen as such a dandy, but it is Hitchcockhimsel with his trademark, sphinx-like silhouette image who is obsessed withstyle and pursues perection to the point o perversity like a dandy (,, p. ). Te attitude o the dandy, the theme o the demonic doppelgngerconnected to the moti o the painting already occurred in a emale version in thealready mentioned earlier film, Rebecca. In Strangers on a rain because we seethis Dorian Gray-like painting beore the murder taking place and the unoldingo the nightmarish plot it actually appears as i lie in the film would imitate the

art seen in the picture.

From an anthropomorphic viewpoint the windows can be equated with the eyeso the body, while the door to the mouth that leads the way into the inside o thebody (one can see this in drawings made by children or made or children). Tewindow connecting the notions o knowledge and vision is ofen interpretedas the image o consciousness, o being alert, whereas the door is usually seen asan aperture or closure towards more mystical and hidden contents (c. ,, p. ). Te archetypal narrative o this can be ound beside in several olktales in the story o Bluebeards Castle in which a series o locked doors hiding se-crets play the central role. Hitchcocks Spellbound could also be compared to Fritz

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PASSEPARTOUT 34 215

Langs film Te Secret beyond the Door () in which similarly we have a womanin the role o an amateur detective who tries to uncover the secrets hidden in thesubconscious o the loved man, and in which these secrets are materialized in a

bizarre collection o rooms. As we know rom ruffauts discussions with Hitchcock (, p. ), the direc-

tor adjusted Dalis sketches to his own concept and was only partly aithul to theoriginal ideas o the painter. Hitchcock conesses: I wanted to convey the dreamwith great visual sharpness and clarity, sharper than the film itsel. I wanted Dalibecause o the architectural sharpness o his work. Chirico has the same quality,you know, the long shadows, the infinity o distance and the converging lines operspective (, , p. ).

Te film offers a notable inversion o the way Rebeccaand Vertigo presentedpaintings: in those films pictures only seemed to contain relevant inormation,but in act they deceived them. Te identification with paintings did not result in

the strengthening o the identity o the characters; on the contrary, they lead tothe questioning o their identity.

Brigitte Peucker () suggests several other instances in Hitchcocks films inwhich some kind o other representation (e.g. a statue in North by Northwest)has to be shattered in order to (metaphorically) reach the film itsel, in which thecinematic appears in the cut o representation.

Allen, Richard. . Hitchcock or the Pleasures o Metaskepticism. October, No.

(Summer): .

Bazin, Andr. . Bazin at Work. Major Essays and Reviews rom the Forties andFifies. New York, London: Routledge.

Bronen, Elisabeth. . Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic.New York: Routledge.

Cirlot, Juan Eduardo. [].A Dictionary o Symbols. London: Routledge.Dalle Vacche, Angela. . Cinema and Painting: How Art is Used in Film. Austin:

University o exas Press.Deleuze, Gilles. []. Cinema . Te Movement-Image. London: Te Athlone Press.Eisenstein, Sergei. . Film Form. Essays in Film Teory and the Film Sense. Cleve-

land, New York: Meridian Books.Elsaesser, Tomas. . Te Dandy in Hitchcock. InAlred Hitchcock: Centenary Es-

says, eds. Richard Allen and Sam Ishii Gonzales, . London: BFI Publishing.Elsaesser, Tomas. . Mirror, Muse, Medusa: Experiment Perilous. Senses o Cin-

ema, Issue , January/February. http://sensesocinema.com///perilous/Felleman, Susan. .Art in the Cinematic Imagination. Austin: University o exas

Press.Gunning, om. . Te Cinema o Attraction: Early Film, its Spectator, and the

Avant-Garde. In Early Cinema. Space, Frame, Narrative, eds. Tomas Elsaesserand Adam Barker, . London: BFI Publishing.

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Heath, Stephen. . Narrative Space. In: Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, ed. PhilipRosen, . New York: Columbia University Press.

Modleski, ania. . Te Women Who Knew oo Much: Hitchcock and Feminist

Teory. New York: Methuen.Peth, gnes. . Cinema and Intermediality: Te Passion or the In-Between. New-

castle upon yne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Peucker, Brigitte. . Te Material Image. Art and the Real in Film. Palo Alto: Stan-

ord University Press.ruffaut, Franois. []. Hitchcock. New York: Simon & Schuster.Vernet, Marc. . Figures de labsence. De linvisible au cinma. Paris: ditions de

letoile.iek, Slavoj. . Looking Awry: an Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular

Culture. Cambridge, MA: Te MI Press.

Documents

Hitchcock and Painting: Spellbound by Images