Bright Lights Film Journal | Hitchcock Photo Essay: Notorious

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Alfred Hitchcock

A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone

Around and around

By Alan Vanneman

See the introduction to this nine-part photo study.

In the conclusion of the famous bathtub murder scene in Psycho, Hitchcock shows a close-up of the water swirling down the tub's drain, a shot that then is transformed into a close-up of Marion Crane's eye. As the camera pulls away from her eye, it slowly spirals clockwise, as if to "undo" the counter-clockwise swirl of the water. Having spiraled into the vortex, we must spiral our way out once more.

Fourteen years earlier, in Notorious, Hitchcock showed us a very similar spiral, this time seen from inside. A hung-over Ingrid Bergman gets a slanted view of secret agent Cary Grant.

As Cary comes toward her, he starts to spiral.

Ingrid refocuses as Cary approaches.

Ingrid obligingly rolls over so that she can get the full effect.

Hitchcock often tried to show us what his characters were seeing. Sometimes, the effect is dismayingly literal: a character is hit on the head, so her vision is blurry. Here he uses an elaborately disjointed shot (it's awfully hard to figure out exactly how Ingrid is supposed to be turning her head) to express both Bergman's inner confusion and the ambiguous nature of Grant's presence in her life.

Click any of the links below for additional categories/motifs, or to return to the intro page:

Houses † Staircases † Women's Hair † Hands † Eyes

The Uncanny † The Vortex † Notorious Sequence

The Man Who Knew Too Much Sequence

ALSO: Check out other fine articles and reviews by the author.