Moments and Elaboration

The Lodger - The Lodger Dislikes Golden Curls - 00:20:00

While Novello’s performance is the centerpiece of The Lodger, I find the sparse dialogue equally important. At 00:20:00, the landlady opens the lodger’s door to discover he has turned around all the photographs of the woman in golden curls. This obviously relates him to the killer, but what stood out to me was how the way in which he carried himself- the cautious gait, the slow turning, even the way he carries and holds up his hands rather femininely- was at odds with his imposition into the house. Here, he slowly turns like a kid caught climbing atop the fridge for the cookie jar, before asking, “I’m afraid I don’t like these pictures. Can’t they be put somewhere else? [emphasis added]” The lodger’s (vie for) control over his lodging- over this room- is intimated through the suggestion that he knows what does and does not need to be in the room, his demeanor at odds with his audaciousness. 

Vertigo - Scottie Steps onto the Ledge - 02:47:45

I, too, wanted to figure out why Vertigo’s closing shot mattered. The assertion that Scottie metaphorically steps out from the film’s veneer is an interesting one (and probably holds more merit) but I interpreted it as Scottie’s strange attraction to (entertainment of) death, or vice versa. Before we even know who he is, we see him running on and dangling off rooftops before watching a man plummet to his death. The opening and closing scenes are then certainly parallels, so why is Hitchcock satisfied with this banal pull out? I can only assume that his refusal to reveal the source of the final scene’s tension (to show the dead body of Judy) is because- as displayed by the final (much more subtle) dolly zoom- the source of the film’s tension (Scottie’s acrophobia) has been resolved through exposure therapy as Midge predicted. Not only does he stand on the ledge, but the viewer understands that he is not sick nor will he fall because the pull out replaces the dolly zoom at its most crucial moment. As Hitchcock demonstrates in this single shot, the fear of something brings us closer to it than ever.  

Psycho - Norma(n) and The Birds - 00:38:15

The extremely uncomfortable conversation between Marion and Norman in his parlor is a great example of how Hitchcock formalizes the cinematic modus operandi of suspense through the calculatedly gradual parceling of information surrounding his Bad Object. 00:38:19 is the first cut away from Marion’s perspective, saved until the conversation finally turns to Norman’s mother- when subtext meets text, the inner conflict of his psychopathy meets the outer conflict of Marion’s diegetic world. Norman is literally surrounded by his dead stuffed birds for a few seconds while getting heated about his dead mother’s austerity. This incredible foreshadowing- tensely sustained by fill light shining on the owl high up in the background, continuing to loom over Norman during the next two minutes of this shot-reverse-shot sequence- creates an entire scene full of more dread than what it portends: Norma’s skeleton rotting in the basement; this would have been much less effective had he not jigsaw cut it to harmonize with the dialogue.

The Birds - The Glass Cage of Emotion - 01:26:19

I was undecided on which moment from The Birds to investigate until Dr. Connor cited Will Ferrell’s magna opera. As some of the first films to spark a passion for screenwriting, the opportunity to draw parallels between Anchorman and The Birds is an exciting task (my aunt just recently told me that when I watched The Birds as a toddler I kept asking her why are they doing that??) but obviously McKay is not an exemplar of technical audacity like Hitchcock. Alfred constructs a cinematic synecdoche within these eighty seconds of terror; my eyes were glued to the screen during this segment like no other, including the birthday party attack which often receives so much more focus due to the sudden narrative shift. 

At first, it was simply cathartic reaping of the inciting incident’s sowing- back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels- but vertiginous editing quickly transforms the scene into something much more sinister. Perspective is never fixed- shifting above, below, and eye-level with Melanie; inside and outside the phone booth; from extreme closeups to wide angles- while the sound unleashes the new electronic terror of a thousand birds. Much like the crows screech at much higher pitches than they would have realistically- thus drowning out the kids’ screams while also lending them a more eerie tone- the albatrosses screech at a wide range of pitches to blend with not just the faint screams of the men outside the phone booth but also the winds of the raging fire. The dampening created by the glass door drowns out everything but the birds; more accurately, it slightly drowns out the birds for a few seconds before their terror returns. Sound and editing place us nowhere and everywhere at the same time, all while in the phone booth.

This is all compounded by Hendren’s performance- at Hitchcock’s direction- as damsel in distress. The phone booth doubly symbolizes traversal- both a message and its messenger whose very existence outside the home implies a journey, a day being seized- in a situation that mortally requires its opposite, but Melanie is not here to use a phone; in fact, why is she here? This entire scene is bookended by a return to the restaurant- a scene which also includes several moments- out of which she just ran! Her repeated attempts to flee the phone booth are promptly thwarted by an invading albatross, and then- just before her knight in shining armor swoops in from stage right- two of the birds smash into and almost break the glass panes. Why on earth would someone run out of a restaurant into a glass enclosure to run from a monster? 

While it is the equivalent of a Leatherface victim running into an open field, Hitchcock seems to be purposely putting his audience in the glass cage of emotion. The superfluity of this scene is not vertiginous editing or eerie albatrosses, not Hendren’s volucrine performance either, but the scene’s existence itself! This is the first attack that anyone survives alone- the second and last being in the attic; the two fallen loners being Annie and Farmer Fawcett- but with the phone booth it especially calls attention to the audience’s spectatorship as a reflection of Melanie’s. We only step into the phone both when looking at Melanie- there are always only two visible corners of the booth at a time- and step out when looking outside; the camera is always positioned inside the cage of emotion, whether that is with the conflict outside or Melanie’s psychological conflict within. Visually- thus psychologically- there is never any physical border between the audience and the chaotic conflict unfolding on either side of those glass panes.

It is a very choreographed chaos, forboden by the God’s eye view of the fire before Melanie escapes the restaurant for no good reason. The entire scene could have been avoided had she stayed back with the rest of the women; much like the entire film could have been avoided had she stayed in San Fransisco rather than chasing Mitch. Yet here she is, because she knew once she stepped out that door that she was safer inside, but still ran into a phone booth; and here we are, because we knew a movie called The Birds by the Master of Suspense would involve no less terror than a convoluted yet unmistakably avian threat, like a convoluted but unmistakably psychotic serial killer.