The Evolution Of The Individual In Hitchcocks Films - Assignment Example

 After settling in America at the end of the 1930's, the subject matter and presentation of Alfred Hitchcock’s films evolved as the American culture changed. His film Lifeboat reflected the unselfish, hopeful attitude of the country during World War II, but later, after the war ended and much of the optimism in America began to disappear, his films took on a darker view of society. Particularly in The Wrong Man, Hitchcock portrayed the helplessness of the individual being overwhelmed and disrupted by authority and poverty. By the end of the fifties, though, Hitchcock seemed less interested in social commentary. He took a similar story of false identity in North By Northwest and made a film that was much more lighthearted. Lifeboat and The Wrong Man showed how life could be tolerated and obstacles overcome through the strength of the community and the unity of the family. North By Northwest shows no concern for either of those themes and instead reveals how the individual can overcome even the most dangerous and helpless situation with wit and ingenuity. Lifeboat is the story of a varied group of survivors huddled on a boat after their ship was sunk. In his review when the film was released in 1944, Bosley Crowther in the New York Times describes the story line of Lifeboat as “a theme which is startling in its broad implications, especially in this critical time.” (Bosley Crowther, New York Times, January 13, 1944.) Much as the country and all allied forces needed to pull together to win the great conflict, so, too, did the people on the boat have to sublimate their personal interests and prejudices to survive their ordeal. The group of survivors could not be more diverse. There were differences in age, gender, race, wealth, sophistication, even political belief. The whole group eventually learned to work together to overwhelm Willy, the one German on the boat. They acted like “a pack of wild dogs,” according to Francois Truffaut. (Hitchcock/Truffaut interviews, French Radio Broadcasts, Part 12, 1962.) As the story progressed, the survivors on the boat changed to support the group. The most notable example of this was the character of Connie, a society columnist. The word snooty could be used to describe her attitude through most of the picture. But as Truffaut mentioned to Hitchock during their discussions, “She becomes a human person. She abandons her accessories for the effort.” She gives up an expensive bracelet she was wearing to help lure a fish so that everyone can eat. The role of Willy created controversy at the time of the film’s initial release. In Bosley Crother’s review, he says of Willy, “He is practical, ingenious and basically courageous in his lonely resolve.” Crowther continues that Hitchcock (and screenwriter John Steinbeck) “failed to grasp just what they had wrought...We have a sneaking suspicion that the Nazis, with some cutting here and there, could turn ‘Lifeboat’ into a whiplash against the ‘decadent democracies.’ And it is questionable whether such a picture, with such a theme, is judicious at this time.” Hitchcock told Truffaut that this criticism is based on “the mistaken thought that a bad German could not be a good sailor.” He also addressed the controversy in an interview in 1963 with Peter Bogdanovich. “There were screams because I appeared to make the Nazi stronger than anyone else,” Hitchcock said. “I had two reasons for that: a) the Nazi was a submarine commander and knew something about navigation, more than the others did; b) in the analogy of war, he was the victor at the time. The others, representing the democracies, hadn't gotten together yet, hadn't summoned their strength...It took a coalition of them to finally gang up on that guy and get rid of him.” (spout.com/groups/ Alfred_Hitchcock/Peter_Bogdanovich_Interviews Alfred_Hitchcock.) Eventually, the group’s efforts were rewarded as an allied ship came to save them. In Lifeboat, Hitchcock thus showed how individuals can overcome their prejudices and weaknesses for the good of the group. It is a far different world which Hitchcock displayed a little more than a decade later in his grim drama, The Wrong Man. This film from 1956 was based on a true story of a man wrongly accused of a crime. The film explored how the false accusation not only effected him but eventually institutionalized his depressed wife. Even though the world seen in Lifeboat was imperiled by war, Hitchcock gave a hopeful outlook to that film. With determination and an egalitarian attitude, the enemies can be overcome and the conflict can be won. The American culture as seen in The Wrong Man was a much less optimistic one. The world of the fifties was one of air-raid shelters, Joe McCarthy and blacklists. Hitchcock hints at much of the era’s paranoia with his location shooting for The Wrong Man in New York City, which provided an impersonal, unfriendly background. The main protagonist in the film, Manny Balestrero, worked as a musician in the famous Manhattan Stork Club. Balestrero himself made very little money. His solace came from his family-a wife and two sons-as well as his reliable daily routine. All of this was shattered when circumstances lead to his arrest for a robbery he did not commit. There are eyewitnesses and coincidences which pointed towards his guilt and his lack of money provided something of a motive. Much of the film centers on the despair of his wife Rose when her husband is taken away and apparently to be imprisoned for a long time. Eventually and fortunately for Manny, the actual criminal tried to commit the same crime and was caught. Manny was freed, but the lingering effects of the experience did not go away. As the actual criminal was brought to prison, he walked by Manny. The similarity in appearance of the two was evident. At that moment, Manny uttered the telling line, made much more dramatic by the powerful acting of Henry Fonda: “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to my wife?” he said. Manny’s thoughts at that moment were not of himself and his imprisonment, but rather the effect the whole incident had on his children and especially his wife. Amidst the grim world as shown by Hitchcock in The Wrong Man, the strength to survive is not found in the community, as it was in Lifeboat, but in the family. The film Hitchcock made three years after The Wrong Man, North By Northwest, is a far different presentation, even though the storyline is quite similar. The tone of North By Northwest is much lighter than The Wrong Man. And even though the film starts out in the same city, this was not the unpleasant, black and white New York of The Wrong Man, but a sparkling, colorful city. It was also not the grimy, unpleasant world of the early and mid-fifties shown in The Wrong Man, but rather one of luxury hotels, upper-class train travel and beautiful people. North By Northwest offered another example of mistaken identity and inaccurate eyewitness accounts. The main character, Richard Thornhill, was mistaken for someone else by a group of dangerous spies. Then it appeared that he committed a murder, with a newspaper photograph of him holding a weapon next to a man who was stabbed. Thornhill was actually in much greater danger than Manny Balestrero ever was. He was forced to drive at high speeds while inebriated, had shots fired at him by the group chasing him and later, he was subject to attack in the famous airplane scene. But while Balestrero in The Wrong Man was helpless and at the mercy of circumstances, Thornhill eventually triumphed, continuously outsmarting his enemies. So in the fifteen years from Lifeboat to North By Northwest, Hitchcock moved from the celebration of community during World War II to the individual resourcefulness of Richard Thornhill. In Lifeboat, the individual cannot survive without the group. In The Wrong Man, the individual is helpless against an unjust society. But in North By Northwest, with just a little help, the individual survives and flourishes.  Works Cited Bosley Crowther, New York Times, January 13, 1944. Hitchcock/Truffaut interviews, French Radio Broadcasts, 1962. spout.com/groups/ Alfred_Hitchcock/Peter_Bogdanovich_Interviews Alfred_Hitchcock Read More