Marnie 's struggle reaching into the safe. Profound or too much?
I can't decide. Would that be a realistic reaction from a person, for it to be that overt? (and was the red-flashing happening then also)?
shareThat's pretty much the worst scene in the film (alongside Hedren's falsetto babbling in the end). It's just ridiculous, how it's acted and filmed. Otherwise, my impression of the movie changed for the better quite a bit the last time around, but these few instances remain the unfortunate holdovers.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I never knew if it was great or bad, one of those instances. In reality, would a person with her pathology really act that way. Since Hitch was an expert with detail and a great director, I am wondering what he was intending.
shareI don't think Hedren jerking her hand back and forth there was ever supposed to be "realistic", exactly, but doesn't even work as this sort of hyper styllized rendering of a thief in two minds about committing the crime. It just looks silly.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Hitch was an expert with detail and a great director
Indeed, on both counts you are correct.
However, Hitch was horrible at psychiatry. For further reference, check out his 1945 "Spellbound" (Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck) which is just completely ruined by the terrible and phony "psychiatry" we see. For example, the amnesiac's dream. A patient with suppressed memories dreams of EYES all over the curtains, representing the asylum guards? He saw the murderer--who in his dream is holding a wheel in one hand and that's supposed to represent the pistol with which he shot the victim ("revolver", get it? /wink wink). He remembers a seven of clubs, representing the Club 21.
These images seem to have been made up by a goofy child, and I don't think it can simply be blamed on psychiatry being a "new" science (it wasn't all that new) as I have never seen goofy stupidity like this in any other movie from the Thirties or Forties.
Note the titles of the books Marnie makes up in the "You Freud, Me Jane?" scene: "Frigidity in Women, The Psychopathic Delinquent in Criminal?" How about the putative "real" books being read by Sean Connery: "The Undiscovered Self" (by Jung), or "Sexual Aberrations of the Criminal Female" (a title which, if you search on amazon, you only get results with names like "Films of Hitchcock" har har).
The "Force Field keeping me from robbing the safe" scene was hilarious, honestly. Especially when Hitch had the cameraman zoom in and out and in and out on those packs of bills, like a parody shot from "Vertigo". Fighting with her gloved hand to force it to take the money...I don't know whether it was great or bad, either, but it sure did make me cringe.
And Marnie reverting to "five year old child" and squealing "You let my mama go!" et cetera was equally bad, not to mention the sepia flashback. Poor Bruce Dern, what a godawful scene to start your career with.
share
'And Marnie reverting to "five year old child" and squealing "You let my mama go!" et cetera was equally bad, not to mention the sepia flashback. Poor Bruce Dern, what a godawful scene to start your career with.'
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I also can't tell if the baby=voice worked, or whether it worked with Hedren enacting it. I would like to think Hitch would had make a good objective judgement call on that one.
Actually Bruce Dern started his "bigger" career with "The Incredible Two-Headed Transpalnt in 72' with Pat Priest from The Munsters