Hitchcock retrospective at Utan Kayu
By Tam Notosusanto
JAKARTA (JP): Yes, the master of suspense is a hundred years old. Too bad he is not around anymore to say "Good evening. Welcome to tonight's program..." with his thick English accent and sardonic charm.
Alfred Hitchcock is no longer shooting films or hosting the hit TV shows The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He's been dead now for nineteen years.
But his films are always with us. And the Hitchcock centenary only provides a perfect reason for film institutions around the world to hold retrospectives of his cinematic work. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, for instance, showed his complete repertoire -- all 53 of his films -- from his 1925 The Pleasure Garden to the 1976 Family Plot.
We're not as fortunate here. While many of Hitchcock's films are available from various laser disc rentals in Jakarta, one can only wish to see his entire body of work, especially the hard-to- get ones from his pre-Hollywood British years.
Some people around here tried their best though. Teater Utan Kayu (TUK), that little, burgeoning cultural center in East Jakarta, is having its own Hitchcock retrospective. The six films to be shown between Friday, Oct. 15 and Sunday, Oct. 17 are Rebecca, Spellbound, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho.
It may not be a fair representation of the man's creative genius, but at least film buffs who are not knowledgeable about Hitchcock can get a taste of the director's flair for thrills and his sense of the macabre. And, if they like, they can join the discussion on Hitchcock that follows the screenings on Sunday night.
To watch Hitchcock's movies, according to film scholar David Sterritt in his book, The Films of Alfred Hitchcock, is to see a number of recurring things.
We see influences of the German expressionist style in his lighting and camera angles, most evident in Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Notorious (1946). And there's also inspiration from the Soviet montage theory, put into practice in the editing of many classic sequences such as the shower scene in Psycho (1960).
And then there are the Hitchcockian themes: the ambiguity of guilt and innocence, the transference of guilt from one individual to another, the fascination of a guilty woman, the therapeutic function of obsession and vulnerability and the equation of knowledge and danger.
Hitchcock taps into the deepest well of the human psyche with his intricate, complex tales of psychological terror and murder. As three of the films to be screened at TUK will attest, the stories may be different, but there's a common underlying factor of evil and menace.
Rebecca, Hitchcock's first American production, which won the Academy Award for the Best Picture of 1940, is a terrifying tale that can effectively generate fear and suspense from the figure of an unseen, dead woman.
Based on Daphne Du Maurier's novel, the film features Joan Fontaine as a character only referred to as "the second Mrs. de Winter".
She is newly married to Laurence Olivier's stoic millionaire widower Maxim de Winter. But when he takes her to his private estate Manderly she doesn't find marriage bliss. Instead, she is constantly tormented by the head servant Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who doesn't hide her veneration of Rebecca, the deceased Mrs. de Winter, and her apparent disdain of the new one.
Rebecca's presence can be felt through her belongings and collections preserved in the mansion, and in the horrifying secret that threatens to shatter the de Winters' lives.
The memory of a dead woman also haunts James Stewart's character in Vertigo (1957). He is Scottie Ferguson, a private detective hired by a wealthy magnate to keep an eye on his suicidal wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak).
In the process, Scottie falls in love with Madeleine, but his acrophobia eventually keeps him from going up a church tower to prevent her from leaping to her death. Devastated, he meets another woman who has an uncanny resemblance to Madeleine.
As they begin to go out together, Scottie indulges in a disturbing obsession to change the woman's style in order so that she may look exactly like his lost love. But finally he discovers a murderous secret that is worse than his own psychotic behavior.
One cannot relate the similarities of the two stories to Psycho without revealing its shocking ending. But let's just say that once again, Hitchcock uses the lingering impression of a most influential woman as the device that can drive a person to extremes.
The device is woven into a perfectly made film that has become one of the all-time favorites of his output. And those who have made the mistake of watching the 1999 colorful remake can redeem themselves by going to see this unforgettable classic.
Alfred Hitchcock Films at Teater Utan Kayu: Friday, Oct. 15, 1999: 4:30 p.m. (Rebecca); 7:30 p.m. (Spellbound)
Saturday, Oct. 16, 1999: 4:30 p.m. (To Catch a Thief); 7:30 p.m. (Vertigo)
Sunday, Oct. 17, 1999: 2:00 p.m. (North by Northwest); 4:30 p.m. (Psycho); 7:00 p.m. (Discussion)