Kelly WandNorth by Northwest
October 21st 2006 03:38
Hitchcock. Mistaken identity. Cary Grant chased by plane. Closing scene on Mount Rushmore. You’ve probably seen it and - if you haven’t – go see it now. No. Really. Now.
Ignore the peculiar feel of leaping between live shots and outrageous process shots. Just surrender and enjoy. I don’t want to review this film, I just want to talk about it. I was going to give it a straight review but the more I thought about the film, the weirder it got.
I was just going to tell you about the stunning use of lines to suggest depth in the camera work (a bona fide lost art). I was going to talk about the absolutely brilliant score by Bernard Herrmann (amongst his very best – and that’s saying something). I would have probably told you that Alfred tries to get on a bus and fails.
So what has got me thinking? Is it that Cary Grant’s character is just so damn unlikable? When he’s almost killed and accused of murder, don’t you just think that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow? He’s this middle class, middle aged mother’s boy and he works in advertising. His “charming” line of sexual innuendo would probably turn off anyone who did have the hots for him.
No. I can handle that stuff. Par for the course really. I can also handle the fact that Grant’s mother is played by a woman only one year older than he is.
What has got me baffled is all the sexual undertones. (And I’m not just talking about Cary and Eve Marie Saint hopping up on bed before Hitch famously cuts to a scene of a train going into a tunnel.) Let me get this straight. She’s a government agent who has been asked to fuck and tell with James Mason. James Mason tells her to go and fuck Cary Grant because he thinks Cary is someone else. Eva discovers she likes fucking with Cary (but she just needed to be told to by someone else). She is, however, told by the Government to go off with Mason and keep fucking him and she’s down with that.
Does this sound like a film made by someone who is gagging for it but thinks it is very wrong and would like someone to force them to do it? And, as director, surely he is telling her to (pretend to) fuck other men. Is Hitchcock trying to overcome his Virgin/Magdalene complex by having it both ways? Did Hitchcock make creepy films simply because he was really creepy?
See. I told you it was bothering me. Doesn’t mean the film isn’t good. The thing is, once you’ve watched enough John Waters and mid period Almodovar, everything starts looking a little iffy.
Ignore the peculiar feel of leaping between live shots and outrageous process shots. Just surrender and enjoy. I don’t want to review this film, I just want to talk about it. I was going to give it a straight review but the more I thought about the film, the weirder it got.
I was just going to tell you about the stunning use of lines to suggest depth in the camera work (a bona fide lost art). I was going to talk about the absolutely brilliant score by Bernard Herrmann (amongst his very best – and that’s saying something). I would have probably told you that Alfred tries to get on a bus and fails.
So what has got me thinking? Is it that Cary Grant’s character is just so damn unlikable? When he’s almost killed and accused of murder, don’t you just think that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow? He’s this middle class, middle aged mother’s boy and he works in advertising. His “charming” line of sexual innuendo would probably turn off anyone who did have the hots for him.
No. I can handle that stuff. Par for the course really. I can also handle the fact that Grant’s mother is played by a woman only one year older than he is.
What has got me baffled is all the sexual undertones. (And I’m not just talking about Cary and Eve Marie Saint hopping up on bed before Hitch famously cuts to a scene of a train going into a tunnel.) Let me get this straight. She’s a government agent who has been asked to fuck and tell with James Mason. James Mason tells her to go and fuck Cary Grant because he thinks Cary is someone else. Eva discovers she likes fucking with Cary (but she just needed to be told to by someone else). She is, however, told by the Government to go off with Mason and keep fucking him and she’s down with that.
Does this sound like a film made by someone who is gagging for it but thinks it is very wrong and would like someone to force them to do it? And, as director, surely he is telling her to (pretend to) fuck other men. Is Hitchcock trying to overcome his Virgin/Magdalene complex by having it both ways? Did Hitchcock make creepy films simply because he was really creepy?
See. I told you it was bothering me. Doesn’t mean the film isn’t good. The thing is, once you’ve watched enough John Waters and mid period Almodovar, everything starts looking a little iffy.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I never get sick of North by Northwest, two words- James Mason.
Comment by Bob Short