: Study Questions: Week One

Hitchcock and the Visual Medium

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho offer a good introduction both to Hitchcock's distinctive style and to the way in which Hollywood films encode the social and ideological conventions of the culture which produced them. Shadow of a Doubt uses the genre conventions of the melodrama as a vehicle for many of Hitchcock's recurring themes: family discord, repressed emotions (especially sexual), murderous impulses, and entrapped heroes and heroines. Notorious uses the conventions of the Film Noir to develop many of the same themes. What we want to look for in these films are the common themes and the filmic techniques employed by the director to express them.

Psycho exemplifies the recurrance of certain images and themes we will encounter in Hitchcock's other films: i.e.the destructive influences of mothers on their sons, attaching sinister qualities to familiar and harmless objects, and the dangers of sexual desire.

Shadow of a Doubt: Dark Shadows in the American Heartland

1. Consider the images which dominate the opening sequence (before Uncle Charlie pays the Newton family a visit). What part of America forms the setting? What is the significance of the scenes of industrial rubble surrounding Uncle Charlie's apartment? What is the significance of the overlapping shots of a costume ball with the soundtrack deliberately distorted by slowing it down?

2. What do the sequence of images and the sound track tell us to expect of Santa Rosa. Is this a red herring?

3. What is the first image of Uncle Charlie? Where is he, and what is he doing? What is the first image of Charlie Newton? Where is she, and what is she doing? What is her complaint about life in the Newton family of Santa Rosa?

4. Does the behavior of Charlie's parents tend to support her judgment? Does Hitchcock elicit admiration for them or seem to satirize them? What about young Ann? Is she to be taken as the Hollywood "bright child" or as a little pain-in-the-neck?

5. How does the arrival of Jack Graham set up Charlie's crucial moral dilemma?

6. Charlie repeatedly claims that she knows what goes on inside her Uncle. What is the irony here, and how does that irony cast doubts on her romantic dreams?

7. How convincing is the explanation that a childhood accident turned Uncle Charlie toward cynicism, misogyny, and rage? Could the film suggest other possible explanations (consider the relationship with his sister who calls him "the baby").

8. Uncle Charlie spends dinner recounting his glamorous past and then hands out presents. Where do these presents come from, and how do they serve as an ironic comment on the way the naive Newtons (and especially Charlie) judge their relative? Would knowing that Joseph Cotten was known for his roles of gracious, upright, noble heroes have an influence on your reaction to Uncle Charlie in this film?

9. What is the thematic (and plot) significance of Herbie Hawkins? What does his obsession with tales of murder say about the nature of experience gotten vicariously or at secondhand? In what ways might his fanciful conversations with Joseph Newton be said to parallel Charlie's dreams of her uncle changing the lives of the family?

10. Is there some sort of psychic connection between the two Charlies, who are often described as twins or doubles? What is the thematic significance of this doubling? Is this a familiar motif in Hitchcock's films you have seen?

11. Jack Graham arrives presenting himself as a reporter interviewing "representative American families". How many levels of irony and deception can you find in this apparent dishonesty?

12. When Charlie realizes that Jack's a detective, he insists that she trust him and keep her "mouth shut." Why does she agree? What burden must she take on herself to protect the feelings and reputation of her family?

13. How does her Uncle's plea to give him a "last chance" force Charlie to become even more morally compromised?

14. When Charlie says to her Uncle. "Go away, or I'll kill you myself," she seems to have understood secrets that she never knew existed at the beginning of the film. How will her knowledge forever separate her from her family?

15. A rather pompous clergyman appears several times in the film, and in the final scene he can be heard eulogizing Uncle Charlie after the death all but Charlie believe to be a terrible accident. How does this ironic moment, comment on the innocence promised in the sequence that introduces us to Santa Rosa?

Strangers on a Train: You're a Free Man Now.

1. How does the idea of "criss-cross" (Bruno's description of his murder plans) appear in the images of the film's opening sequence at the train station?

2. How does Bruno's manner of speech and his expression (often at odds with what he is saying) serve to characterize him?

3. Why does Bruno want to kill his father?

4. This film, perhaps more than any other, develops the idea of the double. Bruno and Guy, Miriam and Ann's sister are the most obvious. How many other pairs can you find?

5. To what degree could Bruno be seen as a manifestation of Guy's repressed fears and desires?

6. What explanation does the film offer for Bruno's behavior? What particular scenes, images, actions support this explanation? Is this explanation satisfactory?

7. How does Hitchcock use familiar settings to build suspense? Consider the music store, the amusement park, the merry-go-round. What is the significance of the murder taking place on "Magic Isle" that is approached through the tunnel of love in boats named Styx (Miriam's) and Pluto (Bruno's)?

8. In what ways is sexual desire an underlying cause of the protagonist's troubles?

9. What is the significance of Bruno's helping the blind man across the road?

10. In what ways do Miriam and Ann represent rather stereotyped images of women as they appear in our popular culture?

11. What does Guy's alliance with Ann promise besides love? In what way is she the symbolic prize of someone who achieves the American Dream?

12. How does the clever editing of the tennis match and Bruno's struggle to retrieve Guy's lighter contribute to the film's suspense?

13. Can you identify shots in which a film noir style (the use of off-center camera angles, patterns of shadows, and images of entrapment) is used to advance the film's themes? Why, for instance, does Bruno so often emerge from a shadow to haunt Guy?

14. What is suggested by also having Bruno appear against the background of Washington's most familiar architecture (the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery, Union Station)?

15. Why does Hitchcock have Bruno attend the Morton's party?

16. What is the significance of Bruno dying with a lie on his lips? How does it negate the idea of the death-bed confession? Or that Bruno is weak?

17. Why is it a clergyman whose foot crosses Guy's in the final scene repeating the gesture which brought Guy and Bruno together in the opening scene?