Universal
Hitchcock
Cinema 21616 NW 21st Ave., 223-4515
May 28-June 6
$6
For complete schedule click here.
Forget what you've read. Alfred
Hitchcock, contrary to popular critical opinion, understood
women. Or rather, he understood their perfected calculations,
their sexual mystery, their age-old competitions, and their
alternately reserved and hysterical glamour and power. With
the benefit of Cinema 21's week-long retrospective, this power
can be seen appropriately on the big screen. His women demand
as much.
Three of the festival's kick-off films--Vertigo,
The Birds and Marnie--reveal the director's
predilection for leaving his heroines vulnerable to danger,
dementia and doom. In these films, we can see Hitchcock's
bent, or as Camille Paglia states in her excellent assessment
of The Birds, his "perverse ode to woman's sexual
glamour...in all its seductive phases, from brittle artifice
to melting vulnerability."
Who more perfect to represent Paglia's declaration than
Kim
Novak, who gave the best performance of her life in
Vertigo,
and Tippi
Hedren, a woman whose career seems to have revolved
around Hitchcock's? The luminous Grace
Kelly may be considered the quintessential Hitchcock
blonde goddess: She's an assured actress with mathematically
perfect features. She's a patrician on the outside and a
sexual animal underneath, but Kelly is too perfect. She
never displayed the wounded, transgressive eroticism of
Hedren or Novak. Remarkably, the more nervous Hedren and
Novak appeared, the more responsive they seemed to the situations
that auteur Hitchcock placed them in.
Hitchcock explored truly disturbed female protagonists
in his early films, but none matched the wrenching melancholy
displayed by Kim
Novak in Vertigo. While Stewart was lauded for
his flawless performance as the detective who becomes morbidly
obsessed with resurrecting the image of his dead lover,
Novak unjustly received criticism for her uncomfortable,
nervous portrayal of that lover. She presented a woman whose
beauty bequeathed her a power she was ultimately unable
to control. Novak's Madeleine/Judy ends up appearing both
wise and naive. Novak reveals the sadness that lurked beneath
the smiling façades of bombshells like Marilyn Monroe
and Jane Mansfield.
Like Novak, Tippi Hedren was criticized for her performances.
Hedren starred in The Birds and Marnie, and
both films were considered weak when released. But time
has proven them to be just as brilliant and challenging
as Vertigo. In The Birds Hedren plays Melanie
Daniels, an independent rich girl in pursuit of Mitch Brenner
(Rod Taylor). She journeys to Bodega Bay where she meets
with all sorts of problems, including resentment from every
other female character in the film. Oh, yeah, and millions
of birds show up, attacking and killing people. In addition
to the film's tightly written screenplay, terrifying bird
sequences and magnificent art direction, The Birds
is a movie of endless complexities--all helped, not hindered,
by a terrific performance from Hedren. The decidedly non-method
actress fits perfectly in Hitchcock's precise frames, and
each movement is appropriately calculated. Though a "carefree"
playgirl, Melanie is truly a tightly wound bird herself.
Her biggest challenge is in handling the numerous flocks
(human and otherwise) inhabiting the town. Mothers, sisters,
earthy women, common townsfolk and birds crack Melanie's
pristine exterior of white gloves, mint-green suits and
matching handbags.
In the psychosexual thriller Marnie, Hedren plays
the title role, a traumatized woman whose criminal past
leads her into the imprisoning, Freudian arms of Mark Rutland
(Sean Connery). Hedren again plays an independent spirit
of sorts, albeit an icy, frigid and screwed-up one. It's
hard to blame Marnie, though--men are terrible beasts who
have only done her harm. In return she violates them by
lying, cheating and stealing from them, without ever giving
them the pleasure of her lovely body. Like Novak's Madeleine/Judy
in Vertigo, Marnie is also a magnet for freaky men.
Still, there is a feeling that somewhere in her mind, a
ravenous woman could emerge oozing kinky sexuality. Is this
Hitchcock's dream? Probably. His warped vision of such highly
sexual madness, is likely an American dream as well.
The Birds
7 pm Friday, 2 and 7 pm Saturday, 2, 4:30
and 7 pm Sunday, May 28-30
Torn Curtain
9:20 pm Friday, May 28
Marnie
4:20 and 9:20 pm Saturday, May 29
Topaz
9:20 pm Sunday, May 30
Vertigo
1:45, 4:15 and 7 pm Monday, 7 pm Tuesday-Wednesday, May
31-June 2
The Man Who Knew Too Much
9:25 pm Monday, May 31
Rope
9:25 pm Tuesday, June 1
The Trouble With Harry
9:25 pm Wednesday, June 2
Shadow of a Doubt
7 pm Thursday, 9:10 pm Friday, June 3-4
Saboteur
9:10 pm Thursday, June 3
Psycho
7 pm Friday, 2:15 and 7 pm Saturday, 2:15,
4:30 and 7 pm, Sunday, June 4-6
Frenzy
4:30 and 9:10 pm Saturday, June 5
Family Plot
9:10 pm Sunday, June 6
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Willamette Week | originally
published May 12, 1999
|
