This sort of unabashed idiocy is what stopped me calling myself a "feminist" while still in college.
I'm a women's rights advocate, thanks. Just the same as I'm an LGBTA rights advocate, and an advocate for equality for people in other historically disadvantaged categories.
Spare me the mumbo jumbo -- and that goes for Freudian pseudoscience, too.
16
Patriarchy has roots in biology and evolution. Words like "enchantment" and "spell" are terms devoid of meaning unless you mean that patriarchy is an unfounded, a canard. But although we are not "bound to it," it is a genetic predisposition. It's real but not unavoidable. We are humans beings after all.
After reading this article in its entirety, I can't help but ask myself, is this supposed to bring us together? Or further divide the sexes?
9
And then there is Notorious, that brilliant PSA about the dangers of slut-shaming, also starring Ingrid Bergman.
6
Intelligent, witty, hilarious - love your writing. You made my day.
4
Saying that sexism is the responsibity of Hitchcock or indeed of all Hollywood is to ignore the fact that almost all of history as we know it has been based on male dominance. I grew up in the 60's and 70's surrounded by macho film stars and pop-singers, with only occasional relief provided by film-makers such as Catherine Breillat. As a non-macho (neither my physique nor my personality were suited to pretending to be Bogart or Tony Curtis) I too would have been happier in a less hedonistic world. But that was how it was.
18
Is there an equating of feminine with female; masculine with male? My Mom wore the pants, my Father tried to avoid her wrath.
The matriarchs would be female, but would they be feminine? Most animals require sexual reproduction, thus males and females. Short of human technology, this is black and white territory, no greys.
Based on this movie, and this delightful column, I am not sure matriarchy would be preferable, or even different, after all, we all feel like victims of the other sex, whereas it's really our passions that we are victims of.
2
A boring analysis of a boring film.
11
Sometime ideas we have on line at a cheese stop are best left at the store.
21
Times change. In the book "Code Girls" we find women of many backgrounds enlisted to decipher enemy codes during WWII. In most cases, they were told that when the war was over and the boys came back, their services would no longer be needed. Fair, or not? And, in that era, a man was expected to support the family (funny how dual incomes were not necessary), so women who had no "man" were discriminated against. Not good the individual, but just what society wanted.
3
We need to get out of the mindset in this country that the only kind of workplace harassment that matters is the kind with a sexual component. That's a disservice to the huge number of people who feel the traumatic effects of harassment and abuse everyday, often by women managers.
If you're being harassed, marginalized, and abused by a manager, you're being made to feel as if there's nothing to complain about if they're not making you feel sexually uncomfortable.
How about a few more articles about the "other" kind of pervasive harassment that goes on with no consequences to the harasser?
8
Sometimes, a movie is just a movie.
22
Tippi Hendren, mostly known from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, was basically black listed by Hitchcock because she turned his sexual “advances”
10
In defense of Hitchcock, though he was cruel to Tippi Hendren, other actresses , including Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly were fond of him. Even Kim Novak, who fought with Hitch over interpreting her role in "Vertigo," said he had never been less than professional in their relationship . . . Ben Hecht, who co wrote the screenplay, was actually in psycho-analysis treatment when the film was made and so was the producer David Selznick. He said later that psycho-analysis gave him a scientific reason to leave his wife.
5
"It’s not about Gregory Peck’s goofy psychological problems; it’s an elucidation of women’s problems — with men."
Instead of "women’s problems — with men" how about something more specific and actionable like “commercially oriented cinematic depictions of the problems professional-class heteronormative white women faced in settings dominated by men of similar race and class in the years after World War 2 (which traumatized and slautered millions of people, along with questioning Western identity and values, causing widespread psychological problems and few culturally sanctioned outlets except for euphemisms like "goofy psychological symptoms" ) in certain North American power centers like Hollywood and Manhattan." How about that?
8
@Chris Is this an example of what the Alt-Right White Power people call cultural Marxism?
3
@Bill Wolfe
I know those words, but I'm not sure what you mean by them.
I'm just hoping to focus the discussion on something more specific than "men" which these days seems to mean all males throughout space and time. It's become a vast and vague concept that doesn't help solve real, specific problems. It's also impossible to negotiate or collaborate with "men" for anything better. It's un-actionable.
I'm definitely on board with making things better for many specific kinds of people, in certain settings, at certain times, but talking about "men" (and "women") is just kind of useless except as a general bludgeon. No-one needs more bludgeoning.
3
Who's harassing who? The therapist is absolutely always in the wrong when engaged in a romantic or sexual relationship with a patient. If we applied today's ethics, she could possibly lose her license to practice as well as being open to a huge malpractice lawsuit. At the time this movie was made, this was not the consensus view of therapists but neither were male:female relationships standards the same.
9
When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. A Marxist critic would find class conflict everywhere. And there is!
The problem here is that Ms. Ellmann's essay is so predictable. I prefer critics who show me something unexpected. This reads like the author was determined to find what she wanted from the get go. Hence she misses no opportunity to hammer home the point. The incessant 'J'accuse!' gets tiresome.
Plus, I wish she hadn't so blatantly mis-characterized how psychoanalysis actually works and what it's about.
20
Yes, patriarchy is "an idea, a spell, an enchantment" as Ms Ellmann writes. Patriarchy is a world view, a life-philosophy, a paradigm about how men and women interact with the world, nature and each other. Jungian psychology informs us about patriarchy. It is a supremacy of sensing(doing, material comforts) and thinking ( the main components of the outer world)over the feeling(heart) and soul of the inner world. Spirit and soul are not interchangeable. Spirit is mostly defined in material and ascendant and lofty terms. Soul is the descendant, essential self where those unseen intangibles:love, beauty, justice, kindness, connections to others and society and nature dwell. An excellent symbol is a tree with its branches and leaves representing spirit and outer world and bearing fruit, and the roots (as deep and large as the size of what is above) is the soul and the inner world. The masculine is the outer world and the feminine is the inner world. The worlds are quite opposite, one relies on action(doing) and logical thought, the other on being(soul), enduring and intuition. Ideally, in certain ancient religions and their concomitant philosophies, they endeavored to balance the paradox of the opposites. In Western civilization, the ancient Celts and those from ancient Crete did this. Patriarchy fails miserably because it does not embrace and champion the inner world. It tries to enslave it and define it according to its principles. Patriarchy is a war against the feminine.
2
The Wife of Bath tells us the answer to the question: "What thyng is it that wommen moost desiren?" The answer is: "Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee."
10
Some of the comments here suggest that Ellmann is outing "Spellbound" as a bad, or obviously sexist film but I don't think that's the case. Ellmann is showing how, despite (or perhaps in some strange coordination with) Hitchcock's abusive treatment of his female actresses, this film gets it just right--the egoistic male lead is nothing more than a macguffin for the real story, which is the endurance of the female lead as she runs through a gauntlet of sexual harassment. "Spellbound" is like a dream to be interpreted, and if you do it carefully, there is a meaningful feminist strain at the (hidden) heart of it.
53
@Jeremiah Crotser
Lucy Ellmann is merely demonstrating that hindsight is 20/20.
3
GREAT analysis. Way to go, Lucy!
(isn't "Lucy" derived from "Lucifer"? Then, way to shine a light!)
1
Silly me I thought women had agency too (or do feminists today no longer think that)..... but this article seems to prove that women are just victims of those evil men and their patriarchy.... yawn...
12
This article, written by a suddenly popular author, seems like a vendetta rather than an argument, filled as it is with many "gotcha" moments of misogyny, but little analysis.
Ms. Ellmann is punching way out of her league.
9
America takes its pop-culture nonsense with a heaping dose of gorgeous face. Sure Bergman fell for Peck. He exists to be fallen for. By another beautiful face, of course. So sure, there were lots of slurs against professional women back in the ‘40s, but we get to hear them in this movie while the camera and lights lovingly caress two paragons, and everyone else gets to look like a toad. That was Hitchcock’s twist: how much unprofessional behavior will the audience let my characters get away with as long as they’re thrilling to look at? Will there ever be an #antiLookism movement? Ha! But a much more interesting topic than Feminism 1.0.
2
Oh, Good Lord. Really?
19
Freud famously said, “Human beings cannot keep a secret.” THAT profound truth is at the core of Hitchcock’s films.
18
@Donald Dal Maso Arthur Janov (The Primal Scream) believed that in some people, cancer may originate in a suppressive personalty type (the "parasympath") forged in birth trauma. That would be a secret that is generally never disclosed.
1
"If you live your life as a struggle, it will be a struggle." - Ex radical
9
Great analysis (pun intended)! I appreciate the feminine perspective that you brought to yet another grossly misogynistic Hitchcock theme.
3
Tiresome...really, really tiresome. The title should read..."How to Ruin an Extremely Good Suspenseful Movie." It was an entirely different era. And yes, in this case I'm going to say "get over it and get a life."
12
I'm outing The Bible. Let's get to the root of the problem.
12
I recently watched an old Betty Davis movie that had as its moral that "no woman is truly beautiful until a man loves her"!!?? I don't recall the name of it but Betty Davis's character having recovered from diphtheria was rendered "ugly"; but her ex husband returned blinded by Nazi's in WWII and loved her in spite of the fact that she had abandoned him for a younger man. Because he was blind he didn't see her ravaged face. Such nonsense!!
8
the "movement" has run out of steam
6
What's next? Lauding Bill Cosby for his progressive ideas on The Cosby Show?
Let's focus on the victims of predators and not laud their predators as feminist icons.
3
Wait, Hitchcock has a problem with women? Maybe this is news to you if you've never watched one. Much less heard the Kim Novak stories.
His grotesque attitude weaves through these movies so pervasively that, watching them over the years, you almost start to feel badly for him. His disdain for & fear of Emma in Shadow of a Doubt exposes Hitchcock's failings as a human being while the movie remains compellingly fraught. His inherent weakness and hate make the weak, hate-filled angry characters in the film more believable.
2
There is much more to be done here -- "Spellbound" is just the tip of the iceberg.
Consider a "beloved" classic, "The Wizard of OZ." This misogynist film features an all-knowing, all-power wizard and he is, of course, a male!
And who is the villain? A woman -- of course! A "witch" (ryhmes with ???) who casts evil spells.
The "heroine" of the movie is a naive "frail" -- nobody's idea of Laura Croft, Tomb Raider -- who, as a woman, must rely on three creepy male companions (one of which is a lion, the very symbol of male sexual excess) with strong overtones of child sexual abuse.
If we take our children to see such movies, let us take them with a woke attitude so they are not so easily indoctrinated with sexism.
10
Agreed! And don’t get me started on the flying monkeys.
7
I'm outing Barry Levinson's 1994 "Disclosure"... in the spirit of gender equality.
3
There is a place at the film critics table for feminist theory.
See Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” and Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring”.
3
This gives me more empathy for the women today who are both intelligent and competent and also beautiful and sexually attractive to men. Patriarchal men can't seem to handle women who don't fit into one box or the other and navigating their stereotypes and fantasies must be awful.
38
I really enjoyed this.
But, while I don't think it was the author's intent to co-opt Hitchcock, based on readers' comments it seems that it is being filtered through a simplistic and narrow modern @metoo lens.
Hitchcock and Bergman male/female relationships are far more rich, subtle, and complex than most of the crap that parades as metoo-ism.
3
Bit silly; and dispels (sorry) the actual scene of overt symbolism, that is the Dali dream sequence. As someone who had already seen a stack of Hitchcock movies, and some early Buñuel, before I got to Spellbound, I was quite mesmerized by the seeming incongruity.
Writers intent on dropping themselves into such hidden meaning rabbit warrens can yield fairly amusing results, I guess. Although sometimes I wonder how late the lost souls of Lynch and Kubrick fandom stay up at night inside labyrinths of their own creation.
2
"Patriarchy is only an idea after all, a spell, an enchantment. We’re not bound to it."
I can't agree with the last two lines of your column. You ARE bound to it, as long as the human male holds most of the power in society. If you can seize that power for yourself, then- and only then- will you no longer be bound by it (and will, in fact, wield the power of Matriarchy over your male contemporaries).
Power is wielded by those who are strong enough to take it, retain it, and exert it across all levels of society to their personal benefit.
It's a terrible reality to exist in, if you lack such strength, but that's the way it is, and that is the way that it will always be.
Wordy, esoteric and tiresome analysis.
Whether it was pre or post 1980 you had predators and their co dependents and enablers of both sexes.
The only different is post 1980 it is against the law and countless women complained, sued etc. and won redress.
Hitchcock was like Weinstein, both predators who came across as good guys ie gave women roles, supported their causes and put them in a good light.
2
I can’t tell if there is validity to the argument herein because they are lost in a rambling argument with too many asides to make cogent points.
8
I don't think any of the male comments are unreasonable. I think the standard reply from women to any male disagreement is "why are they soooo angry. "
As a women, I can sympathize with the male plight. We as a society have been saturated with every possible example of male dominance over women. When will it stop?
(I already know the answer. "When we destroy the Patriarchy!") Ugh. Look at all the stats comparing men to women in THIS century (med school, law school, homelessness, suicide, job death, divorce law, etc.)
I fear the #metoo movement has been irreparably diluted by this constant barrage of truly useless insight.
As a female dissenter, I know I will be kicked out of the pack for this. But what I would really love to see are more articles written by women about the struggles we all face instead of this seemingly never ending, way to deep, over-analysis of pop culture.
Sex trafficking, genital mutilation, birth control and menstrual care in third world countries....let's hear it.
A large NYT article about Patriarchy in a 75 year old Hitchcock film?
Enough said. I doubt this comment will be printed anyway. Dissent does seem to be passe.
20
Having just re-read the script for 'The Apartment' -- one of my all-time favs -- I would add that classic to the #MeTooUnearthed list as well.
(It's also an "unpaid Airbnb" film, looking back.)
1
I found this essay completely unconvincing, and I'm a feminist. Yes, in 1945, sexism was rampant and it was difficult to be a woman in male-dominated professions. It still is. But Ingrid Bergman's character, while a brilliant analyst, does some pretty unprofessional things, like falling in love with her patient and hiding him from the authorities even though he may be a murderer. It's a movie.
The Dali sequence is just crazy fun and my favorite part of the film.
10
What a bummer!!!
All psyched up to watch it again with all these great insights in mind and it's nowhere to be found steaming on line...what's up???
2
It would be fair to say that director Hitchcock led a #MeToo life. He was sadistically cruel to men as well, but he reserved his worst abuses for the women he found attractive.
21
Thank you for this holiday gift! Will dust off my DVD and view it with relish. Or at least, some milk.
4
Can we out other pop classics, too? The list would be endless.
Still, can I be the first to claim Chuck Berry’s Nadine as a stalker song?
1
I confess I am a bit of a loss as to how to take this article -- I am not sure exactly what the author was going for here. At times it seemed to satirize the sort of overheated Freudian analysis one might in a master's thesis -- fully appropriate given the movie's own Freudian kookiness. At others it seemed to simply be saying that there was a lot of sexism in the '40s, which is too obvious a thing for an entire article in the Times. Maybe the point is that things haven't changed that much?
This isn't intended as snark, I honestly don't know what I was supposed to take away from this. Any opinions are welcome.
1
I little late for a review, isn't it? I guess you didn't have to say "spoiler alert." How many tomatoes did it get? To paraphrase someone, sometimes a good movie is just a good movie. Or sometimes it is just a product of its times - I'm glad we have grown up and moved on.
1
I totally agree! I've always understood Hitchcock's movies as ones that assert female perspectives in spite of their glamour requirement. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Hitchcock's wife was behind and influenced the excellence of his films when she participated in their production.
1
Interesting piece, and some good points. However, it seems a bit disingenuous and misleading to leave out the fact that in 2019, in the field of practicing Psychology, there are more women than men working in it by almost 15% (and it's been this way for over a decade, it's a good thing, take a look at the most recent DSM).
7
I was unsure about what the author meant in her final paragraph: "Patriarchy is only an idea after all, a spell, an enchantment. We’re not bound to it."
Patriarchy, whatever that might be, is precisely what generally binds men and women in much of human society. It is not simply the "idea" of patriarchy that persons seek to escape and/or overthrow, but social, political, economic, religious etc. constraints of patriarchy.
8
@Doctadorje Ask the Nubians or Trobrianders about that, you are not correct. Patriarchy is nothing but a social construct.
1
@Doctadorje, the author was simply trying to come up with some clever word play. "A SPELL, an enchantment. We're not BOUND to it."
Get it? The article uses as its springboard the movie SPELLBOUND.
PS - to the author, Lucy Ellman: milk is not a "distinctly female secretion."
Please check your medical facts before publishing in the NY Times. Men (as you would have discovered) have also been known to secrete milk.
You might have said, "a primarily female secretion" or "a secretion for which women (or 'females', if you wish to include mammals other than humans) are known".
@Justaguy Hmmm. I was taught that the Trobriand Islanders have a matrilineal and matrilocal system, where the mother's brother has a great deal of control over the family unit. Which Nubians are you referring to? As to patriarchy being "nothing but a social construct," that is different from the author's assertion that "Patriarchy is only an idea after all, a spell, an enchantment. We’re not bound to it." How, for you, is patriarchy as a "social construct" different from, say, capitalism as a social construct?
Let me see.
We have a psychotherapist having an affair with a patient.
Apparently this is okay if the therapist is female and the patient male.
And, wow, the cops in a 1945 movie are all male, because in real life in the 1940s, there were so many women in the police force.
Startling
16
@Steven i just read about a female oncologist in Toronto who had an affair with her male patient while she was treating him. She lost her license.
2
Lucy Ellmann was quoted in The Guardian as saying, "You watch people get pregnant and know they’ll be emotionally and intellectually absent for 20 years." What she thinks is feminism, this obsession with some disembodied patriarchy that seems to act all of its own volition is not only dated but also so ghost-like as to be meaningless as a tool of analysis. I doubt I will ever forget her outrageously sexist, anti-woman comment about "people" and pregnancy. Ellmann seems to think feminism is about women taking on men's roles, and so she admires and feels for Bergman in Spellbound. Fair enough, but women of my generation--younger than Ellmann---have learned the hard way that Ellmann's generation's idea of feminism serves to accommodate men, or the patriarchy as she might call it, and does nothing to re-structure the world around women's physical and emotional needs, including pregnancy. Its comments like hers, not just patriarchy, that keep younger women from becoming mothers when they want to and not when their bosses say it's okay. In short, as a woman, I'm burdened by both Ellman's ideas of feminism and patriarchy, as they are mutually reinforcing.
12
The article uses today's trends to judge the conventions and values of he past. At the time of the film's release, psychoanalysis was just coming into its heyday, which helps explain the film's commercial success in the mid-40's. Today, the same film would not attract as much of an audience, any more than would many films admired for their relevance in the context of their times 70 or 80 years ago. Like medical science, accepted thinking and behaviors sometimes undergo radical change over time, which is healthy and normal.
8
You have provide a sound reason for me to see “Spellbound” again. Enjoyed your analysis of the film.
8
There is no evidence Hitchcock 'Abuse " any of his leading ladies except for Tippi Hedren. A fact that will always taint his reputation.
If by abuse the writer refers to what performers (both male and female) were subjected to by this towering genius:
Endless takes , rigorous unbend able on- set directions, dismissing the the contributions actors brought to his work. Absolutely!!
By these rules most of the great film auteurs, circa mid 20 Century ,were abusers of women.
First they came for 'Spellbound" and we said nothing.
Then they came for 'Vertigo' and Rear Window.
9
@Serg So, abuse at work does not exist, simply because the boss is a genious... interesting theory.
5
"Matriarchal cultures" are about "female supremacy?"
Cultures that were simply "egalitarian" between the sexes were labeled "matriarchal" by male anthropologists with a Western male supremacist bias who had no other way of conceptualizing women with power and who also had a bias of seeing "power" as "power over" and not "power with."
For example, when women do exercise power--as in the Iroquois Nation, whose women inspired the American Women's Suffrage Movement--they are more of a checks and balances of shared power with men. The Iroquois female Elders had the power to remove males from the Chief's Council, but the all male Chief's Council still made the day to day decisions for the tribe.
There are other options besides "supremacy" of any kind, male or female. As female anthropologists discovered when they exposed the male supremacist bias of male anthropologists.
9
Lucy Ellman veers into incredulous territory in her failed attempt to deconstruct a movie released in 1945 through the prism of 2019. A work of art must be understood in terms of its historical context and Spellbound is no exception. The US dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, Japan formally surrenders and the US becomes a superpower. Women had only gotten the right to vote 25 years earlier. They were expected, after the war, to return to their homes to make babies and be waiting at the door, hair combed, lipstick on, to greet the man of the house, ready for his cocktail and dinner. Women were seen as inferior beings whose place was in the home while husbands brought home the bacon and ruled the roost. Hitchcock would be the last person on earth to make a movie empowering women.
Constance, perceived by her colleagues as a sexless workaholic, falls in love with the imposter Edwardses and stands by her man to prove his innocence. She is merely a vehicle to showcase a woman’s unending support for the man she loves, crossing ethical boundaries as a mental health provider to treat a patient with whom she is having an affair. There is no limit to this ice-woman’s love. She uncovers the mystery of her lover’s childhood guilt over the accidental death of his little brother and our hero is exonerated and liberated by her devotion.
If Spellbound is a MeToo film, Gone With the Wind is an unbiased portrait of how slaves were treated. Spare me the nonsense.
19
Hitchcock's Spellbound?
Hollywood should do an update and newly conceived version of it. Keep to a man going to a psychologist, in fact make it a white man and white woman, but tackle head on what amounts to identity politics and grievance to point of mad vanity. Have the man go the psychologist and declare that he doesn't know how to think or act anymore because although he's aware it's possible to transgress, offend people in a variety of ways, whether slighting their religion or race or sex or sexual orientation or what have you, he can never get a clear definition of words such as racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, or even what it means to be a patriot or American.
It appears exactly an unclear definition of these types of words serves people well, brings them rapidly in service of their vanity; an unclear definition makes it possible to bring a word up, to use it as an accusation, as vanity turns, while clear definition makes it possible for the accused to know exactly where to stand to avoid accusation.
Now have as the movie progresses the psychologist insinuating her patient is misogynistic and beyond that, racist and so on. Make it a constant back and forth cat and mouse, ratcheting up the intellectual power of film. Ideally you would want the film despised from Hollywood to New York to Alabama, make it a truly intense work of art. Fury of vain people and their crude group identities and crude accusations peeled back. Little people, little lives.
5
Trump - Trump - Trump - Trump - Trump
Me Too - Me Too - Me Too - Me Too - Me Too
Climb out of your binary world and learn to appreciate great art and a fabulous woman in their own time and place.
My late wife was the most wonderful person I ever met and I love her forever.
12
Some people apparently can't see two aspects at the same time. I can (and do) enjoy Hitchcock films while at the same time recognize the inherent misogny. Brilliant films can also demonstrate horrible facts of life. I wonder why some people can't see that both aspects co-exist.
It's the same thing in general life situations. Many people are stuck in an either/or right or wrong mindset. They can't seem to recognize complicated both/and aspects that are very often the reality of a situation.
11
I thoroughly enjoyed this read, quite amusing and I always thought watching Spellbound that she could never win with all these men around her. It’s a men’s world and it’s suffocating.
138
I can’t stop laughing at the comments here from men, telling the author to get over it. Dudes, we KNOW this about “prevailing attitudes of the day”. Just because “everyone” did it and “everyone else” accepted that doesn’t mean it wasn’t harassment.
I do so appreciate the comments that prove the author’s point.
268
@CaliMama I'm with you. And I find it interesting that these male commenters are soooooo angry. This essay is an example of the kind of exegesis that I was taught in English classes in high school. Nothing more than that. And, I think she does a very nice job of proving her point. Why in the world should that make anyone so defensive and angry. Sheesh.
94
@CaliMama -- When one has been quite comfortably postitioned at the top of the food chain, by luck, the threat of having to share that entitlement is . . . disconcerting.
E pluribus unum, baby -- let's pass the Equal Rights Amendment. It's well-past time we (Legally) respected (just over) one-half of the Citizenry.
52
@CaliMama, you gave me my own me too moment though mine is harmless with no visible repercussions. How can something so obvious to you and me, be so obtuse to others. Are you as tired of defensive men as I?
I love lucy's writing style; I love her look back and her quick comments on the obvious. Her dismissive air about misogynistic beliefs I grew up with - "... frigidity — that old myth, that salve to the male ego. (Maybe she's just not that into you, pal.) "
And her quick recognition of what is still so confounding. "So, what pops out of Hitchcock here is, on the one side, the mammalian female, creating and nurturing life (and psychoanalyzing people), and on the other, the intense male urge to kill somebody, anybody: ..."
13
Why should anyone care that you are, absurdly, "outing" a film produced nearly 75 years ago? To what end? A proscribed list? Keep going, way beyond film history, and make hay with the literature of the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries, on and on. Go back to Homer, Catullus, the Gilgamesh poet, and Lady Murasaki, the first great world novelist, who can surely be outed for her depiction of certain female characters in The Tale of Genji. There is plenty of germane outing to do in the present, in both the cultural and political treatment of women, the blatant sexism, the misogyny running rampart in our government and much of our press. But films from wildly different eras? I'm sure there is some scintillating theoretic basis for this, or maybe it's just a way for a writer to get a little easy publicity. Faux- outrage -- the outrage de jour.
19
A Hollywood film from nearly seventy-five years ago endorses patriarchal assumptions? Alfred Hitchcock was misogynistic? Great Caesar's ghost... stop the presses!
10
Some random guy immediately hits on her in the lobby, smoking his cigar in her face and squeezing her into a corner of the couch. Peeved but still sparky, Bergman asks, “Do you mind not sitting on my lap in public?”
While I find most of this article a stretch, I LOVE that Bergman did not freeze into speechless victim mode. Instead she speaks up! I believe every article chronicling a metoo moment should implore those on the receiving end of such harassment to SPEAK UP! A firm "Please, stop", "I don't like that", "That is not okay", "F off!" can go a long way not only to ending the inappropriate behavior, but to teaching the perhaps ignorant aggressor as to what is and isn't acceptable. Standards are changing so quickly that education should be part of the multi-pronged approach to reducing these instances. Some well-intentioned, decent (mostly) men just need a gentle nudge or a sledge hammer to the head to change their perspective and their behavior.
17
@cp Please remember that it is not always safe for women to speak up. Sometimes they are injured or killed for doing just that.
5
@cp
Men are not stupid. They know what they are doing.
2
Blah, blah, blah. I'm so sick of hearing from women who seek out patriarchy everywhere--now it's in the distance past. Of *course* patriarchy ruled the distant past. Guess what--so was The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and Shakespeare. Get over it. This is today.
12
@globalnomad
"Of *course* patriarchy ruled the distant past."
Unfortunately, it's not so distant... see the disparity in power used to determine the social, political, and economic positions of women (and other marginalized people) in society.
This "distant past" is reflected urgently in the legislation of women's bodies and the gender pay gap today.
In fact, anyone who says "get over it" frequently is using flippant language of a by-gone age that is no longer relevant.
24
@Candice Try emulating European and Chinese women from Asia--they're nobody's kitchen slaves and yet they're not at war with men. Ultimately, some of forms of feminism are pure narcissism, given the women's proclivity to go on and on about themselves as spiritual beings and "strong warriors."
2
Ellmann's analysis is fascinating, possibly right on. But the enlightening take away for me is her tag line: "Patriarchy is only an idea after all, a spell, an enchantment. We’re not bound to it."
9
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. Ralph Waldo Emerson
5
I believe it was the old male doctor who cured Peck.
2
"When Peck suddenly disappears from the psychiatric institution, fleeing the police (they, too, of course are all male — the comradeship of women is way out of reach)"
What, Hitchcock portrayed a competent female in the early days of the new field of psychoanalysis but didn't completely reinvent 1945 society by casting female police? Monster!
How much of Hitchcock's movie was controlled by the studio and not Hitchcock, d'you suppose?
7
I don't think her point was that Hitch should have cast a female police officer. Her point was the total lack of female camaraderie available to Ingrid's character in her world. How that added to Ingrid's isolation. As many women today felt/feel isolated by misogynistic men, but find comfort and support among other women. For example, those abused by Cosby individually said they felt when they found each other, the gymnastics scandal, etc.
17
Nice article. Makes me want to see the film.
13
I think I’ll just ignore this absurd critique of a classic film, released when my Grandparents were still in their prime (and I’m 58), and sit back and watch it again and enjoy it for the vintage art that it is.
#MeToo will have better effect if it sticks close to current times and to promoting better behavior in our modern world of real people who may be breaking laws or at least being unethical and smarmy.
And please don’t analyze Shakespeare. The borishness of that would be infinite. You might be shocked to know that nearly every depravity known to human behavior is there somewhere — even patrimony and women being treated as chattel. News flash! Humans are primates and men can act like... well... apes. There are even treacherous and murderous women. Who knew? Alert the media!
16
You can ignore it because you're a man. True, it was in the past, but then, every History department in every university should be eliminated, by your logic. Why study the past, it's in the past, after all? Will you ask the women in your life how they feel about how they're treated by men in their world?
3
@Jon Phillips
1st paragraph says it. Stop.
1
Go watch Bombshell instead.
4
I am a fan of the movie and you are right she was sexually harassed by a least one of her colleagues and the others shamelessly tolerated it--much like today. But I would like to think that Gregory Peck's sexist comments during his amnesia reflected the subconscious sexism of that era and at heart he was a good man, who ultimately accepted that she was smarter than him and a better analyst than all the others including her mentor who doubted her assessment and felt her judgement was affected by female emotions. In the end, she proved all of them wrong and her psychiatric and interpersonal assessments were correct and she was not only the best qualified person to be head psychiatrist at Green Manor but also a desirable woman --worthy of pursuit by a handsome man like Peck/Dr. Edwardes.
6
@EPMD Yes, she was not only the best qualified person, but also a desirable woman, a woman worthy of having the pedestal on which you've place her scaled by a handsome doctor, banishing the rest of us slugs to ground level, scurrying about in search of the less desirable female remnants.
I suggest watching Slavoj Zizek’s Pervert’s Guide to Cinema if you already haven’t. Zizek breaks down Hitchcock movies scene-by-scene revealing the Hitch’s deep reliance on Freudian psychoanalytic theory. In PGTC Zizek shows how Hitchcock employed Freud to create a deeply misogynistic and phallocentric cinematic style that has unfortunately endured. It would be interesting to get Zizek’s take on Spellbound!
8
Some interesting (and troubling) insights here. Much of it rings true to this old guy who first thrilled to Bergman as a clueless awestruck teen from the cheap seats. To the snark-sensitive guys commenting here, I say: if the snark fits, bear it.
137
Can we stop evaluating the past in terms of a present zeitgeist moment? Analysis like this might be pithy but it lacks in its understanding of nuance and history. The author notes that the world in which Spellbound takes place is one full of male aggression. Um, yes, I think that's the point. Further in the essay, the author states how she wants to see Bergaman "all leggy" etc. Wow. and Why? And doesn't this also frame Bergman in the language of the male gaze? Maybe some of us want to merely appreciate Bergman's characters, her roles, separate from Bergman the person, and do not want to engage in a hyper-conflation of the two. Let Bergman's characters exist in their own universes, in their own historical times, free of #MeToo revisionist interpretations, and let Bergman the woman be whomever she was in her life and in her times.
83
@TS
"Can we stop evaluating the past in terms of a present zeitgeist moment?"
There goes the humanities department at the local university.
83
@TS Surely the title of this piece suggested that Spellbound would be evaluated using modern standards. I, for one, welcome this evaluation.
Perhaps you might try to avoid these pieces in the future. I would hate to lose such work due to the complaints of a admittedly vocal minority of critics.
13
@Sue
Hear, hear.....
3
The witty and provocative quotes culled from the movie were written by Ben Hecht and Angus MacPhail. Hitchcock directed the finished product from their script. I kept hoping Ms. Ellmann, a novelist, would credit her fellow writers for their work.
39
I am an employment attorney who has represented dozens of women in sexual harassment claims. I will say this without any hint of exaggeration: Articles like this do a massive disservice to women who are subjected to sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace. These irrelevant, even incendiary pieces delegitimatize the entire movement and serve as fodder for sexists looking for an excuse to ignore allegations of sexism.
I am especially bothered that Ms. Ellmann, a novelist with feminist leanings, though without any experience in the field of battling bigotry, would seek to publish this article.
43
@Mark What is your definition of “battling bigotry”?
13
@Mark
Please explain. It isn't obvious to me what you object to about the article.
19
@Thomas Zaslavsky
Thanks for your comment. I think this article minimizes a serious issue (sexism/sexual harassment) by alleging it exists, where it does not.
There are actual battles of sexism to be fought, rather than writing about a movie from 70 years ago.
7
Several Hitchcock movies and other movies of the 50's and early 60's involved men slapping women across the face "for their own good." I was treated that way at home and thought it was normal, if cruel and mean-spirited.
21
What? No discussion of Dr. Peterson's Elektra complex directed towards Dr. Brulov? Come on, now...
1
How can we discuss Hitchcock's "Spellbound" without one reference to the Salvador Dali dream sequence? Probably the greatest dream sequence in any film ever, and the "kissing bug" character would have still fit the author's analysis.
Honestly, I love Hitchcock, but the Dali dream sequence is the only reason I watch "Spellbound." If you haven't seen the movie, then please at least watch that scene.
33
@BG She did mention it, although not in away that you will approve of if you liked the sequence: "Dalí was enlisted for the awful dream sequence of this movie — you can drag an artist to Hollywood but you can’t make him a shrink."
22
@BG Salvador Dalí's dream sequence is mentioned:
"Drawings are dangerous, as Salvador Dalí surely hoped. Dalí was enlisted for the awful dream sequence of this movie — you can drag an artist to Hollywood but you can’t make him a shrink."
6
We now have the Cultural Revolution in the arts.
13
Just look at all the negative, “authoritative” comments by men. How dare a woman author share her feminist analysis of an old movie!
Feeling defensive, guys?
78
@Mom
Men held a protective role with women for many centuries. Men stoically risked their lives to protect and defend women and children. On the Titanic, the male officers’ order was “women and children first” to safety of the boats. That male role also brought with it, envy and resentment and misogyny when women stepped up to formerly exclusive male leadership roles. Men were/are threatened. (Donald Trump obvious case in point.) Today, with the “Me, too” that is rapidly changing — it was a very long time in coming but it could not have happened without many courageous outstanding women as role models for young girls. Women no longer need view themselves as doomed to be hapless victims but now can see themselves as empowered to be strong equal partners with men in creating healthy families and healthy communities where everyone thrives and grows to their fullest potential. Men and women need to work together — there is a lot of work to do!
11
@Mom
As a man, I'd argue that calling this movie -- and many other movies of the period -- "feminist" is too obvious to warrant an article here. There are multiple books written about feminism (and misogyny) in Hitchcock, as well as various scholarly articles and dissertations. Spellbound isn't overlooked.
Similarly, dozens books (and articles, and dissertations, ... ) have been written about the clear feminism of the "final girl" in early '80s slasher movies.
The only thing added by this author is the #MeToo hashtag, presumably because that delivers clicks from a more modern audience who likely doesn't remember this fine film.
But I guess being well-read of the subject of feminism in horror -- as well as a Hitchcock fan -- is just me being defensive. So be it.
5
@Michael-in-Vegas Rather dismissive of the writer given the alleged lack of defensiveness.
1
The suffocating male characters in Hitch’s films are stand ins for Hitchcock himself.
Tippi’s description of Hitch hitting on her with his fixation and then escalating into an obsession was pathetic for him and frightening for her.
Hitchcock was a very neurotic character that went scooters for Tippi, propositioned her, and then threatened to destroy her career.
19
Wonderful "analysis" of not only the movie Spellbound and of the iconic Ingrid Bergman's role in it, but also of the apparent and ubiquitous misogyny continuing during the 21st Century. I had to ask myself if Alfred Hitchcock would cheer on women's ongoing suppression of their intellects and abilities, ever-so insidious now other than Mr. Trump and his fellow good-old-boys, or would he stay true to his portrait of a strong woman as depicted in this movie. Unless he had an epiphany, he most likely would persist in his notorious harassment of beautiful actresses. What is indeed a sad commentary is how we women still in so many ways are viewed by too many men as a gender which belongs in the home, pregnant, and washing their underwear. I do not know if my male counterparts will ever fully accept that we are as strong, as smart, as capable as they. Maybe they will, who knows, if we finally have a woman sitting in the Oval Office.
12
Like racism, misogyny surfaces in old movies as we "review" them. Bing Crosby's "hip" interaction with Louis Armstrong makes one cringe more almost than Step and fetch N scenes. But here we see all the old "cold" women stereotypes, the dichotomy of thinking vs. feeling with the woman only able to manage one if she's to be true. And Hitchcock, whatever his off-screen crimes, seems to capture the dilemma expertly.
11
When I look at old movies I see them as a mirror into the past : black servants, women in domestic roles mostly, and white men being the movers and shakers and always in the “boss and owners’ positions. Their are exceptions however, particularly in Betty Davis moves. I look at them with a that was then, but look how far we’ve come attitude.
I am not a fan #metoo. I feel like it has done far more harm, then good. It’s a vehicle for revenge and casts women in the victim role - again.
I thank God the hysteria of it’s peek time is over, when some good (and innocent) men were brought down in the winter of 2018 without due process and with plenty of venom and media hysteria also. Al Franken is much needed now in our deteriorating politic scene, and would very likely have been a strong presidential candidate. I miss the voice of Garrison Keillor who effectively campaigned in Minnesota for Democratic candidates from John Kerry to Obama. We needed them.
36
@Gwen Vilen If #metoo brought down some 'innocent' men - huh. What about the women who've been brought down by them? Just smile at indignities? Although some of the behavior has been egregious while some of it has been relatively mild - it still points out the power difference in the business world.
And yeah, we need to get people out to vote and stress that voting in every election is an obligation as a citizen. If you want change, vote. Get rid of the dead wood.
14
Thanks for this article. I was never a big fan of this movie, and you've helped me better understand why. Watching poker Ingrid battle all those male egos! Even of her mentor and the man she's trying to help! (And falling in love with smh!)
This movie has always just *exhausted*me, and now I know why! It's bad enough to constantly battle male egos in real life. To watch a professional woman battle them throughout a movie and never have it let up, and never even have it *acknowledged* in the world of the movie, is just not fun for me.
Now we know that Goddess works in mysterious ways. What influenced the male writer and director to spotlight women's struggles? And what is the answer for Ingrid in the world of the movie? Can one imagine her making babies in the 'burbs with Gregory? I don't see that marriage lasting too long...
Of course, men will say this is just how women were treated "back then". Men who have never been treated that way. What these men don't realize is that there's a clean line to the present. Professions, especially STEM, are still not welcoming to women. Women who do happen to make it through the door are patronized, put down, marginalized, silenced, not listened to, not given opportunities for advancement, and, worse, ignored when they speak out. Men, listen to the women around you. Ask them how they really feel. It may surprise or even shock you. Then do something amazing, and change: yourself and the culture.
21
@Earthling
"What influenced the male writer and director to spotlight women's struggles?"
I would venture to guess that, just as there have been male chauvinist pigs (remember "male chauvinist pigs"?) and sexual harassment since long before those terms gained currency, there have also been men who were sympathetic and even empathetic toward women and their challenges.
(Case in point: my grandfather supported his daughter's -- my mother's -- decision to go to medical school in the 1950's, on the grounds that getting married and having babies wasn't the only thing women are good for.)
1
I enjoyed the article and it's analysis of "Spellbound". One of the conclusions however is problematic. Whereas I am all for women emerging into their rightful place in human cultures there is vanishingly little evidence of any "matriarchal cultures that dominated prehistory." It's an appealing idea but prehistory being what it is, the very evidence of this is unrecorded and virtually impossible to substantiate. The current habit of cherry picking scant bits of archaeology is hazardous at best and can (and does) result in all kinds of erroneous interpretation and conclusions. Thus the idea that (uncorroborated) narratives of female supremacy currently lurk in our collective unconscious is, in all likelihood, wishful thinking. The concept of matriarchal supremacy may be attractive to many but to date, it is as much a mythology as is Wonder Woman. What women want however is another question altogether.
14
@Sorcha McEwan That bugged me as well - the consensus is that there is no evidence of any matriarchal culture whatsoever, so why mention it?
3
@Susan Yes, but inasmuch as there is no historical "evidence" there is a powerful narrative strain within certain (not all) feminist communities that matriarchal supremacy was a once upon a time reality. It is a very appealing theory that would potentially right so many historical wrongs. Ms. Ellman is obviously a student of that particular school. But I , for one, do not find female supremacy alluring because I do not find any gender supremacy alluring. Same insanity, different mask. And re-writing history to suit such an agenda never turns out well.
3
Hey, we love old films, especially thrillers and film noir, but of course these films carry with them contemporary sensibilities about women and men and their relationships. And a very large percentage of them include what are now very cringeworthy scenes, large and small, important to the plot or just character development or sub-pots, that exemplify the kind of behavior we just don't or should not tolerate today.
13
"Oddly, he settled on Hedren for “The Birds” and “Marnie,” an awkward actress at best, brittle and shaky." I disagree with the author here and suggest that this assessment is a left handed compliment in part. This assessment is precisely what makes Hedren so perfect for both roles. Marnie in particular is a disturbing movie even today due in no small part to Hedrens deer in the headlights portrayal throughout. As far as trying to "woke" on Hitchcock well good luck shooting fish in a barrel. Anyone familiar with the Hitchcock legacy understands he was a deeply self centered jerk. The history of his relationships with his film composers is evidence enough of his narcissism. He wanted the shower scene to be without music. When they tried it out on an audience they laughed. Hermann was ready with some screeching violins already in the can and Hitchcock was furious even as the music finished his film product perfectly. He never worked with Miklos Rozsa again after Rozsa won an Oscar for best score in one of his films. He was a petty, nasty, jealous tyrant. Good to remember that when watching his films.
12
Great Line: "Detailing the faults of mothers has worn out the velvet of many an analytic couch."
And wonderful, affirming article. Thanks.
20
Geez. And all along I thought of Spellbound as just entertainment, and maybe great art. But now I see that everything in it was concocted to preach today's politically correct, "progressive", academic catechism.
34
@DG
As another person remarked, it's interesting to see the knee-jerk rejections by some of the (probably male) commenters. It's just an opinion piece, DG, you don't have to agree with it.
21
@DG Not "politically correct" (whatever that means), not "progressive" (whatever that means) and certainly not a catechism. Just a critical review that makes some interesting points that you are under no obligation to agree with, but that are kind of fun to read regardless of the degree to which you agree with them (at least, I found them so.) Lighten up.
25
@Jesse Larner and Thomas Zaslavsky
If DG is indeed free to disagree, then why do you have a problem with DG's disagreement?
The author's critique of a movie made 75 years ago is, honestly, not that interesting; 75 years is a long time. More interesting, and revealing, is the general air of anti-male snark that runs through the essay. If a reader generally likes this sort of thing, he or she will be fine and probably feel pretty good about themselves after reading it. If you don't happen to like the snark, or agree with the point of view that sees men, always, as the problem in relations between men and women, well, let's say you probably won't like it as much. But the real questions are: what purpose does all this snark serve; whom is the author trying to convince; do you feel better about yourself after reading a piece like this?
40
@Peter
This article seems to have struck a raw nerve with you. First, you say it's irrelevant because it was made 75 years ago and then you state that it "sees men, always, as the problem"
It's either irrelevant history or its a continuum of patriarchy that leads to this day. It can't be both.
16
@Peter I didn't see any snark in this essay. I haven't seen the film so can't comment on it, but you seem to be suggesting that women couldn't possibly have been sexually harassed 75 years ago because the term didn't exist. So if something isn't named and is socially acceptable at the time, it means no one suffered? I guess no one suffered under slavery in 1800 because it was socially acceptable at that time. And by the way white people were responsible for slavery in the US. Or do you think the slaves played a role in their slavery?
6
@Mark
Peter was not referring to the film when he spoke of "anti-male snark that runs through the essay," and of the author's "point of view that sees men, always, as the problem in relations between men and women." He was referring to this article, published in today's NYT.
1
Everything leading up to #Me Too was #Me Too Too. The movement began when it began but the circumstances around which it rose have existed forever. The trajectory of awareness, intersecting with enough-is-enough, coupled with the arrogance of someone who looks like Harvey Weinstein adamantly maintaining anything he did was"consensual" was a bridge too far for anyone of sound mind and even marginal vision. When I last looked, the patriarchy showed up for its last court hearing with a sympathy walker. Nice try Harvey.
33
Spellbound is one of my favorite "crazy" movies. Noting makes any sense, even as a kid (watching the late, late move) I knew it was full of nonsense. Don't care. I love the craziness of it all.
6
@sjs
Good review. Now I want to watch it.
As someone who loves and has seriously studied Hitchcock's films, I say "Brava!" to this cine-analysis. I've always found "Spellbound" a sort of guilty pleasure since it's considered at best a 2nd-tier Hitchcock, but this interpretation helps explain why it's appealed to me.
But I disagree with you about Hedren. I think she's terrific in "Marnie," which is one of my favorite Hitchcocks. It's often held in low esteem, but I agree with Martin Scorsese, who has said that you're not a true Hitchcock fan unless you love "Marnie."
26
A few years ago, I heard Kim Novak speak at a pre-concert talk for a screening of “Vertigo” at The San Francisco Symphony with the movie score performed live. She told all present that Alfred Hitchcock was a perfect gentleman to her. She was only 18 when filming began, and she shared a charming story about visiting his office with feedback about her wardrobe. She told us he listened politely to her suggestions and went on to use his original clothing choices.
While this opinion piece is compelling and Hitchcock certainly did behave badly with other female leads, the author might want to check further in Novak’s account of her work with Hitchcock.
13
@Victor Davis Kim Novak was 24 when VERTIGO was filmed.
2
@Victor Davis Other women saying "He was always a gentleman to me!" is proof of nothing. Predators are experts at choosing targets as well as creating smoke screens about what upstanding people they are.
37
@Victor Davis
Novak was born in Feb, 1933 and filing for Vertigo began in Dec, 1957 - so she was 24.
1
Movies aside, the references to mother's milk is key...I have had more than one man admit that the fact that women can conceive, carry and nurture the human race is an undeniable power and supremacy of which they are both afraid and envious.
The bottom line is most men are afraid of their mother's power from their earliest years and that (subconsciously) affects every aspect of their relationships (work and personal) with women. Take that, Hitchcock!
31
@Bluebird
I do believe this, coupled with superior male strength & size, is the bedrock upon which patriarchy is built.
Men are often afraid of women's innate power & hate how it feels to want & need us.
2
Hitchcock films make great conversation. Ask anyone what is the real meaning of “The Birds” and you will be off to the races.
34
OK but its also come to light recently that Hitchcock might have also sexually molested some of his female stars including Tippi Hedren.
How does this figure into the author’s intellectual analysis? https://variety.com/2016/film/news/tippi-hedren-alfred-hitchcock-sexual-abuse-birds-marnie-1201919851/
9
@Brett B Old stories in a new book that will sell in the current 'me too' time could explain it.
I've never seen this film, and now I don't want to. Again, a therapist sleeping with her patient. Doesn't this seem like a male perspective? The vast majority of therapists who have slept with their patients have been men.
11
He wasn’t officially her patient. She fell in love with him and was helping him.
15
@Anne Well, perhaps because the vast majority of therapists were men? But that does bring up the old joke about "therapist" typo "the rapist".
Also, fiction isn't real. Do you get upset at the violence in Star Wars, too?
3
You should see it. In fact I recommend all of Hitchcock’s films.
Silly misogynistic me. I simply enjoy old movies. And, unlike, the writer, I find that many of the best old movies portray women in the best and strongest light.
What an overwrought and tiresome analysis.
167
@dmckj I personally appreciate reflecting on the day-to-day challenges that every one of our grandmothers, great-grandmothers (and, in my case, mother) experienced as a result of the open contempt that Western "democracies" heaped on any female trying to make their way in this world.
Let's NOT forget that it was only in 1981 when all Ivy League schools FINALLY permitted women as students. The last holdout, as I recall, was Columbia. And as an aside, it irritates me to see that The Marvelous Mrs Maisel overlooks the fact that Columbia did NOT permit female students till the late 20th century and featured classes with women. HAH. Let's get history right. Let's face it. And let's move on. Love the article.
58
@dmckj --- what I got from the article is that the author thought the movie DID portray Bergman's character in the best and strongest light. It's the men she has to deal with who come out looking bad.
23
Women who were enrolled in Columbia University's School of General Studies could take classes at Columbia long before the College admitted women. (This goes back to 1891, in fact.) So it is not an inaccuracy in The Marvelous Ms. Maisel that classes could 'feature' female students. And by the way, as an undergrad at Columbia when it was still all male, there were lots of Barnard students in my many of my classes, and General Studies students too.
What a shame that you are irritated for no reason.
Barnard, across the street, is still all women. Should it be forced to start accepting men...
5
Ellman nails it, hilariously, too!
30
Hitchcock was a sexual harasser.............a great director but terrible history with women. Ask Tippe Hedren. She claims he sexually assaulted her.
10
@Julie Hitchcock was not a very nice person to work with in general. He had a penchant for playing practical jokes that were designed to humiliate. In a biography of Hitch, it describes one joke where he challenged a member of the crew to stay all night handcuffed to a piece of equipment (I don't remember if it was a cameraman or other crew member.) He managed to slip the gentleman some ex-lax. You can imagine how horrible things were for this crew member in the morning.....
1
An enjoyable if totally inane piece on a movie I've seen many times but do not really recognize very much in Ms. Ellmann's take on it. Ms. Bergman's main Hollywood career started with her getting murdered by Spencer Tracy and ended with her being burned at the stake. And Ms. Ellmann finds a #MeToo movie in SPELLBOUND? I can't wait for her take on ARSENIC AND OLD LACE!
71
Interesting article, but a thought or two. David O. Selznick produced "Spellbound", and exerted great influence over Hitchcock regarding psycoanalyses, not to mention wardrobe, etc. Your references to other actresses is spot on, but I argue Carole Lombards' inclusion. She and Hithcock were good friends, and he made the movie as a favor. Straight up comedy was never his forte. Again, very interesting. Anything that keeps folks talking about Hitchcock is a good thing. For anyone unfamiliar, check out "The 39 Steps", "Strangers On A Train" and "Vertigo". Masrpieces then, masterpieces today.
9
@Randy N.
Re: "Strangers on a Train," the real masterpiece is the book by Patricia Highsmith, the move version of which is a travesty in comparison. I read the book first, then watched the film, which didn't even ascend to cartoon status in comparison.
3
@Randy N. & DaveB
Re :"The 39 Steps", the book is weak and the movie makes a real thriller out of it. I read the book after seeing the movie and was sadly disappointed.
I mention this for contrast.
@Thomas Zaslavsky
I haven't read 39 steps or seen the movie - but I will do both now - will be interesting to see if I share the same view as you.
The “Twist” in Hitchcock’s films is that the “MacGuffin”, or plot device driving the story, is not what the film is actually about! “Psycho” is not about the stolen cash, but rather about a pathological killer with unresolved mother issues. “The 39 Steps” is really a love story, as are its cousins “Saboteur” and “North by Northwest”. So is “The Birds”, despite the titular role and ubiquitous presence of the feathered flock. Each of this master’s films brings new light with each viewing. (Janet Leigh in a white bra while having “lunch” with John Gavin, but now in a black one while preparing to skip town instead of depositing the cash!)
8
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967) is now a literal horror show, with the worst aspects of #MeToo played for yucks.
7
Sure, it's time to go back and with CGI and deep fakes, with some slight alterations in text too-- time to re-educate the movies, speeches, novels, poems and newspaper columns. Let's make Penelope much stronger and her husband Ulysses less vital. Maybe start there 2,800 years ago and work forward. Surely, all women in art can be turned into Don Quixote's vision of Dulcinea, Becky can be more fully realized in Tom Sawyer and Paul Henrid's character in Casablanca can be erased and make Bergman the threat to the Nazis. Will those changes serve? Is female empowerment "only an idea after all, a spell, an enchantment" too? Let us move boldly back in time and fix the past.
68
@profbart
Or maybe it’s just time to look at the past with fresh, non-male eyes. You know, so we don’t repeat it in the future.
97
@Profbart
All works of art and literature are reviewed and renewed by each generation. Jenny Lewis just did a new translation of Gligamesh. I believe its one of the first by a women and its great. Books and films I loved as a kid, often make me cringe now. Books and films I dismissed when I was young, when I revisit, look new and exciting.
28
brilliant / this resonates with me and some current relationships i have with women in my life / facing the obliviousness with which i have demonstrated my own patriarchal tendencies has not been easy / those attitudes go back thru a line of protestant preachers to William Bradford the puritan colonist who came to the new world seeking religious freedom (as long as it was for his religion) and back and back i suppose to the battle between Gilgamesh and Ishtar in old Uruk of the fertile crescent precursive to the development of Abraham's misogynistic religion / maybe it's thru art that we can begin to understand these pathological tendencies and regain some kind of true humanity (hu-man-ity see how deep it goes?) and rebalance ourselves
6
The name of a brave and talented man is missing from this otherwise interesting and informative piece: Ben Hecht.
All he did was write this picture and many other good and great ones.
While he was otherwise occupied doing whatever he could to save the Jewish people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/books/review/adina-hoffman-julien-gorbach-ben-hecht-biography.html
40
@A. Stanton. Thank you! Screenwriters are often considered as integral to making a movie as the catering crew which is largely a function of director arrogance and insecurity.
The first movie I had made as a screenwriter was a fairly autobiographical script about a struggling novelist and his young daughter which I wrote shortly after my first child was born. I took many details directly from my own life and set it in my UWS neighborhood.
It got a huge cast and budget and as I watched a rough cut of the film I saw at the end of the movie the director had dedicated it to his own daughter.
And that is the life of a Hollywood screenwriter in a nutshell.
22
Snow White was overworked and underpaid.
Female supremacy is alluring.
Trump 2020.
13
Ok. Point taken. You’re right. But it’s Spellbound. Get on with it.
Please don’t do another revisionist review on The Wizard Of Oz. That could be really creepy.
21
I don't think I have ever seen this film, or if I have, I wasn't paying very close attention. Lucy Ellmann makes it sound like a comedy that ought to be turned over to Mel Brooks or the Coen brothers for a suitably flavorful parody. I wonder if I can find it in some hidden corner of my television On Demand menu. I absolutely have to watch it after reading this.
3
The depictions in “Spellbound” of everyday workplace inappropriateness are sadly true to life, and watching Ingrid Bergman fend it all off is deeply satisfying. The film is also about what we do for love, and the power of beauty. Men give her a hard time because she’s beautiful but not interested in them, and would Ingrid Bergman have gone to all the trouble of rescuing her troubled colleague if he hadn’t looked like Gregory Peck?
86
This writer, and many others, both male and female, criticize Hitchcock for mentally torturing and abusing his female starts.
Why did he do it? I won't answer the question directly, but consider this: in 1936 Victor McLaglen won the academy award for best actor for his role as Gypo Nolan in 'The Informer.' In that part he was required to behave as a man who was perpetually confused. Director John Ford succeeded in getting the McLaglen to give the greatest performance of his life by having him prepare to perform one scene or group of scenes in the movie each day and then filming a totally different scene or scenes that day. McLaglen was kept in a total state of confusion throughout the filming and the result was a display of greatness as an actor that one would hardly suspect from his previous work.
Hitchcock succeeded in getting performances out of his actors that other directors frequently failed to secure. Actors like James Stewart or Cary Grant always delivered, but others needed more help. Ingrid Bergman was the one of the finest actress' of her generation and was at her best in Hitchcock films. Grace Kelly was fantastic in most of her films, but especially in her Hitchcock work. Alfred Hitchcock got exactly the performance the film needed in every movie he directed.
He also got a very nuanced performance out of Bergman in Notorious. As with John Ford, Hitchcock's was a cruelty with a purpose. His work with women speaks for itself and so do the roles created for them.
17
@Joel Friedlander Well,that was the story Ford told--and as Joe McBride wrote, admiringly, Ford was a master b-ser. Andrew McLaglen has described his father coming home at night, enthused by the way that filming was going and certain that he might get an award for his work.
I agree with "Hexagon" that Lucy Ellmann and I saw different films, but I enjoyed immensely her imaginative review. As a psychoanalytically-friendly psychiatrist, I think her interpretations of a lot of the symbols is considerably "over-" but no more obsessive than SF himself did at times.
I had forgotten many of the put-downs Dr. Peterson had to endure (and dished out) but what-the-heck, I am am an ancient medico fossil who *tried* to respect women colleagues but figure I enraged a few in my day.
I've always been very fond of "Spellbound", from the theme by Rosza to Ben Hecht's script to Michael Chekhov's mentoring Dr Brulov, and above all Ingrid Bergman in her heyday. What a "colleague"!!
6
A little search would have disclosed that Hitch was working with a script by Ben Hecht and under the memos of David O. Selznick, both enthusiasts of psychotherapy. Hitch's own enthusiasm was guilt, and camera angles.
4
I had never noticed until this moment that all of those movies from the 1940s had different ideas about gender than those popular today.
Thank you, Dr. Zaius!
42
@Locho
The scene that hooked me on the series "Mad Men" came very early in the first episode when Betty Draper is seen in her gynecologist's examining room. The doctor walks in and both of them immediately light cigarettes. Now I know where Matthew Weiner was getting that stuff: Alfred Hitchcock.
2
The author and I obviously saw a totally different movie. I guess a person can twist any story into a woke narrative depending on their weltanschauung and fervor to rewrite the obvious. Spellbound is not a "Me, Too" movie and the movie is about repressed movies and how past actions affect our present day. That Dr. Peterson is an independent woman working in a hospital was uncommon in the 1940's and the attitudes of the men reflected the era, not sexual harassment.
121
@Hexagon Oops...it should read the movie is about repressed memories...not repressed movies.
8
@Hexagon How did you miss the fact that the era was sexist, and guess what, as a woman with a long career in hospitals, I can report that it still is! The author is brilliant and brave, and got it just right!
55
@Hexagon
"...the attitudes of the men reflected the era, not sexual harassment."
The attitude of the time was that sexual harassment was OK. Of course nobody (i.e. no men) called it that, just as nobody in "The Merchant of Venice" calls the prevailing attitude toward Jews antisemitism. Doesn't mean that's not what it was.
As with the term antisemitism, "sexual harassment" is a [relatively] new name for a very old phenomenon.
34
A great article; women are often the protagonists (the ones who get stuff done) in many of Hitchcock's most well remembered films: Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, who provides a more supportive "antidote" to Cary Grant's hostile mother; the mysterious woman in "Vertigo,' and even in "Psycho, where we have not just the Janet Leigh character, but the terrifying "Mother.' In all cases, the supposed "main characters" are men but much or everything they do is heavily influenced by, and often controlled by, the actions of the women. Reminds me of watching the entire series "Rome" and realizing it was the women, not the generals and emperors, who were really pulling all the strings.
29
I can recommend “I, Claudius.”
3