i really don't want to get embroiled in the hitchcock
debate . . . life is too short . . . but i would like to adduce
one simple "fact" in response to the following argument . . . .
Mindaugas Genutis argues that the "Problem with both Hitchock
and Powell is their 'expressionism" by which he seems to mean
his manipulativeness which comes from his films "putting a card on
each character "good guy", "bad guy", "angry" [telling us] what
to think watching such a movie?"
ignoring for now the question of whether it is possible [or desirable]
to have any discourse which is not manipulative in this way, it's
certainly important to point out that in hitchcock the guy the movie
seems to be tagging as the hero very often turns out in the final moral
analysis to be corrupt in some very important way, a way that
completely evades the radar screen of any conventional melodramatic
reading . . . and for many of us that is a central source of hitchcock's
achievement . . . to let us see that the various characters portrayed by
stewart, grant, fonda, connery, even teresa wright in SOAD, are morally
compromised precisely WITHOUT putting "cards" on them is a not
insignificant achievement in moral discourse
there are problems in hitchcock, but moral reductionism sure as
hell ain't one of them
mike
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