week 13 lecture: the higher meaning of frenzy (1972) and family plot (1976) screening: frenzy and...

Week 13 Lecture: The Higher Meaning of Frenzy

(1972) and Family Plot (1976)

Screening: Frenzy and clips of Family Plot

Readings

Reading: Cohen Volume 2 Part IV

Recommended reading Sloan, J., Hitchcock: The Definitive Bibliography (pp331-341)

Frenzy Origins

Anthony Shaffer novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern, and was adapted for the screen by Anthony Shaffer La Bern later expressed his dissatisfaction with Shaffer's adaptation.

Cast

Jon FinchBarry FosterAlec McCowenBillie WhitelawAnna MasseyClive SwiftBarbara Leigh-HuntJean MarshVivien MerchantBernard Cribbins

Hitchcock to the letter!

FrenzyFrenzy (1972)1 is an Hitchcockianauteur film à la lettre with Hitchcockriffing on Hitchcock throughout.1.Fre Fnzy Screenplay Anthony Shaffer based on Novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Hello Leicester Square byArthur La Bern

Themes

– wrong man theme, doubles, classed difference revealed through accents and the contrasting of low and high taste in food,

– French gourmet (cordon bleu) cooking versus standard English fare, especially breakfast of sausages, (bangers) bacon, fried bread and tomatoes), tea; alcohol (brandy).

Apothegms

Hitch apothegms, proverbs, stock phrases hackneyed sayings, ironic slogans, catchwords. “Bob's yer uncle;” “I'm alright Jack and pull up the ladder;” “you know what they say ‘virtue is its own reward,’” and “everybody expects a bad penny to turn up sooner of later.”

Strangling

There is also a focus upon strangling Hitchcock’s preferred mode of dispatch, occurring in fifteen of his films, several of the television series and a couple of notable photographs, (one showing off Hitchcock’s chubby hands around his daughter Patricia’s neck), jails, blondes, mother

Whistling & Art

Frenzy includes two whistling scenes, since Blackmail (1927), almost as common a feature in Hitchcock’s films as his cameo, and each significant space for the interior scenes: apartments, pub bars, hotel room exhibits specially chosen art works on the wall, providing some additional signifiers to the character of the protagonists, or to the film’s diegesis.

Popular Art

Bob Rusk's walk-up apartment near Covent Garden has two famously reproduced and popular (factory produced) prints on the wall of black velvet paintings, beautiful Polynesian women inspired by the work of Albert Leetag, and a cheap reproduction of a group of flamenco dancers to emphasize his bachelorhood and low brow (low competency), working class attitude to culture.

Locations

The Old Bailey Court, with narrow alleyways between Bow Street, Oxford Street, County hall, the Coburg Hotel, pubs near Covent garden and for Bob Rusk, the killer’s residence, a flat above Duckworth and Company, where Clemence Dane a real murderer had previously lived.

Foodie

Hitch affirmed that he had “had a happy time with the writer of Frenzy” “It’s a crime story but I wanted to avoid the inevitable scene among the detectives at Scotland Yard. So we had the plot points discussed by the inspector and his wife at home over meals. And I made the wife a gourmet cook.

Childhood associations

Hitchcock was clearly revisiting his early life history. According to his biographers, he spoke to anyone who would listen about his childhood in London, and of the Moroccan tomatoes available at Convent Garden in both 1901 and 1971, the year in which the film was made. He marveled at the citrus fruits from Israel, Spanish grapes, vegetables from California a constant reminder of his father’s life as a green grocer in Leytonstone. Details about food in Frenzy became somewhat of an obsession for Hitchcock.

Truffaut interview anecdote

An anthology on food, showing its arrival in the city, its distribution, the selling, buying by people, the cooking, the various ways in which it is consumed. What happens to it in various hotels; how it’s fixed up and absorbed. And, gradually, the end of the film would show the sewers and the garbage being dumped out into the ocean. So there’s a cycle, beginning with the gleaming fresh vegetables and ending with the mess that’s poured into the sewers. Thematically, the cycle would show what people do to good things. Your theme might almost be the rottenness of humanity

Reverse zoom tracking The famous scene containing the single reverse zoom tracking shot is provided by the camera tracking away and down from door of Rusk’s second story flat and it descends seemingly without a cut, to the ground floor level out of the front door of the building and then to the opposite side of Henrietta street. Always interested in the technically innovative strategy for filming a scene, Hitchcock in his discussions with Truffaut, spoke about the overhead tracking rail he used for the camera and the concealed edit point made during the passage of a worker carrying potatoes across the camera’s path.

hitHitch’s cameo cameo

Hitch is in the center of a crowd, wearing a bowler hat he is the only one not applauding the speaker.

Origins

• Director: Alfred Hitchcock • Production: [uncredited] • Screenplay : Ernest Lehman from Victor

Canning's British novel, The Rainbird Pattern • Photography: Leonard J. South • Editor: J. Terry Williams • Music: John Williams • Art Dir: Henry Bumstead

Cast

• Karen Black

• Bruce Dern

• Barbara Harris

• William Devane

• Ed Lauter

• Cathleen Nesbitt

Hitch’s cameo

• is a signature occurrence in most of his

In Family Plot he can be seen (38 minutes into the film) in silhouette through the glass door of the Registrar of Births and Deaths.

Hitch’s storyboards

• http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/storyboards/family-plot/storyboards-2.html

•

Week 14Lecture: The Meaning of Dec 11th 1960 and

other details in Psycho.

Screening: Psycho (1960)Reading: Cohen Volume 2 The Black Sun Coda: Trouble at the Séance pp 197 -267Recommended Readings: Sloan, J., Hitchcock: The Definitive Bibliography (pp. 300-305)Raymond Bellour "Psychosis, Neurosis, Perversion (On Psycho)" (Reader)

Origins and Cast

Writers Robert Bloch (novel)Joseph StefanoCompose Bernard HerrmannDirector of PhotographyJohn L. Russell

Frank Albertson Tom CassidyJohn Anderson California CharlieMartin Balsam Milton ArbogastJohn Gavin Sam LoomisPatricia Hitchcock CarolineTed Knight Prison GuardJanet Leigh Marion Crane John McIntire Sheriff ChambersVera Miles Lila CraneMort Mills Highway PatrolmanSimon Oakland Dr. Richmond Anthony Perkins Norman BatesVaughn Taylor George Lowery Lurene Tuttle Mrs. Chambers

The film only cost $800,000 to make yet has earned more than $40,000,000.

Hitchcock used the crew from his TV series to save time and money. In 1962 exchanged the rights to the film and his TV-series for a huge block of MCA's stock (he became their third largest stockholder). Robert Bloch's original novel was inspired by the notorious serial killer Ed Gein who was also one of the inspirations for the character of Hannibal Lector (The Silence of the Lambs/ Manhunter).

Hitchcock makes his cameo appearance 4 minutes in wearing a cowboy hat outside Janet Leigh's office.

Useful Web links

Psycho http://users.netreach.net/treyl/psycho.htm 

Psycho (1960) http://www.filmsite.org/psyc.html   PSYCHO 1960 http://www.psycho1960.co.uk/home.html   Psycho www.geocities.com/Hollywood/1645/index.html   Ray Stone’s PSYCHO

http:www//members.aol.com/psychothemovie/