[Stuart Feedback Andrews]

MARNIE (1964)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.



"...this may sound provocative and even arrogant, but if you don't like Marnie, you don't really like Hitchcock. I would go further than that and say if you don't love Marnie, you don't really love cinema."

:- Robin Wood (1931-2009).

I picked Marnie as one of the films to discuss in this series because it was the first Hitchcock film I ever remember seeing as a kid. It's probably not my favourite of his films but it's the one I have the most personal connection to. But for those of us who now count ourselves in the 'Grumpy Quadrogenarian' set (as popularized by the Gore-Met's user title), we can remember watching television in the 70's, long before the advent of readily available home video machines.

(Incidentally, my first inkling of a home video recorder was from an episode of Columbo where the killer used one to set up a fake alibi - but I digress.)

But when I was a kid, there was a series of Hitchcock films playing on TV. I think they were running on the same night every week for a while and I remember watching them with my folks. I was probably about 7 years old. At that time, I was already accustomed to staying up late to watch horror films, usually after my folks had already gone to bed.

I'm not sure this type of thing would happen today but back then, it was a much more innocent time. My parents would let me stay up late to watch the likes of Hammer films, Amicus anthologies, Universal horrors and Vincent Price movies, all of which played regularly on British television in the 70’s. Most of that stuff was fairly harmless but quite often, they’d play films that were legitimately fucked up that my parents, lucky for me, had no I was watching. (Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde. I'm looking at you.)

But I was rarely ever disturbed or distressed by any of these films. In fact, it was the opposite. Like many of us horror fiends (and budding mass murderers), I always felt a deep kinship with the monsters on screen and was perhaps more upset by their ultimate demises than anything they perpetrated against their victims.

But Marnie was different. Even though we watched it during prime time television hours, the film fucked me up.

If you've seen it, you'd know it's definitely not the sort of thing you'd show to a 7 year old but then again, I wouldn't trade a second of the trauma it inflicted upon my young mushy brain for anything. I cherish the memories fondly because it’s unlikely a mere movie will ever be able to mangle my mind like that again.

But by this point, I was already very aware of Alfred Hitchcock. He was a household name and a cultural icon. Actually, it would be quite a few more years before I'd see Psycho for the first time but that film was notorious to me long before I saw it. Like many movie-goers of her generation, my Auntie Pat was never able to take a shower after seeing it and whenever any mention of Hitchcock came up, she would recount the terrifying trauma of the infamous shower scene.

But my first, conscious memory of Hitchcock was his cameo in Marnie. Very early in the film, he steps out of a doorway and appears in the corridor of an apartment building then turns to the camera and throws us a weird glance.

I remember my parents shouting out, "There he is! There he is!" This was the first inkling I ever had that Hitchcock made "cameos" in all his films. When my parents explained that to me, it totally blew my mind. I was completely fascinated by the concept and from then on, for the rest of that Hitchcock series, I stayed keenly glued to the television, ready to spot his brief appearances.

[orpheus]

Good review/analysis!

I rewatched Marnie I would say about a few months ago and it’s one of Hitchcock’s films that I have only watched a few times and couldn’t decide whether or not I liked it. It certainly isn’t on par with some of his greater films and many have gone as far as to say that was the beginning of Hitchcock’s decline.

After watching it again, I have to say that it’s a difficult film that certainly has its strengths and weaknesses. It works on two basic levels. First, as a story of obsession similar to something like Vertigo and it also works as a psycho sexual mystery. Soon after we learn that Marnie is not only a thief, but afraid of red, and afraid of any physical sexual intimacy we WANT to know why and that will push the movie.

I believe that much of the films strengths relies heavily on the psycho sexual tension that is certainly expressed and made to become alive in the film. Such a topic, obviously, was much more problematic to deal with in a mainstream film in that era, and the film certainly makes it disturbing and uncomfortable. In many ways, regardless of the fact that we don’t know why Marnie behaves the way she does, we are able to enter her psyche, and feel the suspense of what will happen next. Yeah, the film does have more traditional Hitchcock suspense in terms of following Marnie’s criminal exploits and wondering if and when she is going to get caught, but the sexual elements obviously overshadow.

I agree that another of the film’s strengths is the casting and performance of Sean Connery. He obviously has issues, I mean, the whole needing to save this poor distraught woman (and it also helps that she’s gorgeous), but he does seem sincere and warm. Casting such a good looking man also adds to Marnie’s, um, condition, she really feels uncomfortable around men even one as dashing as Connery.

But then we go to

Spoiler Alert!

…the rape of Marnie. I agree with what was posted in this thread. On one hand, it doesn’t involve Connery grabbing and violently restraining, but either way it’s hard not to qualify it as a rape. It’s certainly something along the lines of the therapeutic rape concept akin to say what happens in Gone with The Wind when Brett takes Scarlett kicking and screaming upstairs and then the next day she’s signing. With Marnie despite the disturbing nature of the rape, it doesn’t ‘fix’ her, and she’s the same as before. That at least to some degree doesn't condone the rape.

And then the mystery of why Marnie is that way is difficult and doesn’t quite make sense to me largely because it deals with a lot of Freudian mumble jumble.

Spoiler Alert!

…Basically, what was stated before that an encounter with one of his mom’s Johns leads to his murder, and that results in being a thief, sexually confused, and afraid of the color red! I don’t get how this ties in with being a thief. The red thing, obviously, is clear, BUT it seems too Freudian, I mean, red is associated with so many things and her freaking out like that seems excessive. And the whole fact that she completely repressed this and needs to remember it also seems unrealistic. It may be possible, but I really don’t see it.

However, the sexual repression here does make much more sense. The Bruce Dern character seems to be comforting her, but who knows? And really, I was thinking this, even if the Bruce Dern character was not molesting her, the fact that Marnie’s mother went nuts after she comes into the room seems to imply something. Maybe a previous John did attempt to fondle Marnie and causes the mother to be wary of men getting near to her daughter. And it is also possible or likely that despite being a prostitute, Marnie’s mother disliked men and taught her daughter to dislike men possibly in a way that Norma Bates taught her son that all women are whores. Obviously, having a prostitute for a mother will most likely result in issues.

.

Long winded, I know, haha! I would have to say that taken together I do like the film despite its shortcomings. Saying that it’s weaker than the films preceding isn’t too fair since Hitchcock like any director would eventually peak. And Marnie is generally more enjoyable than the next two films that followed it, which also have some merits. What I really do enjoy about the film is that despite the fact that it shares some similarities with other Hitchcock’s films, it really feels unique, and up to that point, pushes the concept of female sexuality further than most of his films. And like it was mentioned, the film just makes you uncomfortable, and gets under your skin making you want to watch it again and not watch it anytime soon.

[Stuart Feedback Andrews]

Thanks for chiming in, Orpheus. And don't worry - 'long winded' is what The Ludovico Film Institute is all about!

A couple of things I'd like to comment on:

First of all, with regards to the psychology of the main character. I'm not fully versed on the subject so I'm not sure how accurate the idea is that she'd be a compulsive thief based on a childhood trauma - although a quick search on kleptomania and abuse yields more than enough results to suggest that many experts consider there to be a possible link.

But I'm not really concerned with the accuracy of the psychology. The important thing is that Marnie has a traumatic past and it forces her to do fucked up, perverse things as an adult. THAT I can go along with so I think the conceit works, especially for Hitchcock's more expressionist approach to the material.

And secondly, with regards to...

Spoiler Alert!

...the sexual molestation of the young Marnie.

What's interesting is that you question whether or not it actually happened. I've never looked at it this way. I've always been of the impression that it's presented as an 'implication' merely to get around the prevailing Hollywood film standards of the time. I'm not sure how far Hitchcock could've gone to show such a scene explicitly in 1964.

But, the next time I watch this, I'll consider the possibility that an ambiguity exists here but then again, that wouldn't explain why Marnie has repressed the memory and why she'd be haunted by it as an adult.

So, really, I think we're supposed to infer that, yes, Marnie was subjected to the experience that's implied.

[Nut of the Living Dead]

Random thoughts… they’re the only ones I have.

“Can't you understand? Isn't it plain enough? I cannot bear to be handled.”
There is a moment in the stable scene when Mark Rutland and Marnie Edgar kiss that as soon as they part lips she gives an emotionless blank stare.

Spoiler Alert!

Being a good thief and liar she is also a very good actress and she is playing this ‘Mark’ for all he is worth or at the very least what is in the safe at Rutland Co. I’d say that in a good 90% of the film we don’t see the real Marnie, just her playing a part. The only time she ever lets her hair down, literally and figuratively, is when she’s riding her beloved horse, Furio. She only smiles genuinely once in the film as Mark buys Furio and has him delivered to the doorstep.

“Billy said that if I let him, I could have the sweater”
Marnie has a somewhat estranged relationship with her mother, Bernice Edgar. She has had an accident and needs a cane to walk. Marnie sends her money to get by but her Ms. Edgar is very cold to her. Even as Marnie brings her a gift, a mink scarf, she implies that Marnie gets her money by being more than an employee to her boss,

Spoiler Alert!

which is ironic considering her own history. At the end as we hear Ms. Edgar’s tale of how she became pregnant with Marnie, she reveals that she wanted a basketball sweater a boy named Billy had and let him have sex with her in exchange for it. Just prior to this it is revealed that Ms. Edgar was a prostitute and this lifestyle on a stormy night led to her accident, and Marnie’s psychological and pathological problems. Ms. Edgar claims that she tried to raise Marnie to be decent. It’s funny then that this woman who played a part for men, as prostitutes do, to get money has raised a woman who plays a part for men to get their money. In Marnie’s case, however, she then sails off to another port much like the sailors her mother entertained.

"Money answereth all things."
Mark Rutland. I’m still trying to figure this guy out. He’s all about the unexpected. You would think he’d go for Lil, someone with status like himself, even if she is somewhat of a hanger on. She also “steals the show from an eye candy perspective” as Feedback put it. Yes, personal taste and all that - I agree. Why go for Marnie? She is the unexpected. She is a challenge. She comes from a world not his own. He wants to understand her.

Spoiler Alert!

He is a predator and she is his prey. He wants to make her his possession. How else do that than by blowing a wad of dough. He spends $42,000 on an engagement ring, goes on an expensive honeymoon cruise, buys a horse and pays off Strutt.

“I’m, ah, boning up on marine (Marnie) life.”

Spoiler Alert!

Mark’s predatory tendencies culminate in the rape scene. It shows that he’s as much an animal as the one he’s trapped. It also shows he has a self destructive streak. After this he basically becomes Marnie’s partner in crime in the sense that he will use all his stature and wealth to ensure that Marnie is never made to properly pay for her crimes. I have to wonder how Mark was to his first wife, being that he made such an extreme left turn in his life with Marnie. He wasn’t too broken up about the loss of his deceased wife’s pre-Columbian art either. Besides, as he said, they weren’t the only thing left of his wife but rather they were all he had left that belonged to her. Seems cold and it was said that she died of a broken heart, so to speak.

“Help me! Oh God, somebody help me!”
There is more going on in this movie than you might think after a single viewing. Therefore I watched it twice this week. Most of the conclusions I came to were during that second viewing and I still have questions. There seems to be a theme of gifts or things given that don’t exactly pan out the way they were intended:

Spoiler Alert!

The mink scarf, the ring, Forio, the sweater. What does it all mean? As I said before I’m still trying to figure out Mark. Is he bored with his current standing? Blowing all that money becoming accessory to a criminal, it’s irrational. Will he move on from Marnie at a whim? Sadly, I think so. I also want to draw a connection between Forio’s broken leg and her mother’s but…

I guess that’ll come with repeated viewings.

“Goodbye, Sugar Pop.”

[Nut of the Living Dead]

Originally Posted by Stuart Feedback Andrews

So, really, I think we're supposed to infer that, yes, Marnie was subjected to the experience that's implied.

I agree and one might also infer that

Spoiler Alert!

a previous incident(s) had a part in the RED aversion which was fully realized after the Sailor's bludgeoning. This could also explain Marnie's mother's reaction to the Sailor although he may have been innocent.

Sorry to be so spoiler tag crazy. I just don't want to ruin anything.

[Stuart Feedback Andrews]

Originally Posted by Nut of the Living Dead

There is more going on in this movie than you might think after a single viewing.

This is true of all of Hitchcock's finest films.

But I think you're right to key in on Rutland as a hunter. There's nothing rational about his obsession except that he's attracted to Marnie very much how the young Charlie is attracted to Uncle Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT.

Rutland is desperate to escape the doldrums of his life and privilege. So for him, Marnie, with her continual associations with wild horses, represents an escape from domestic tedium.

Again, it's Hitchcock revealing his 'anti-social' inclinations. It's clear he empathizes with characters on the fringes of society, often with criminal dispositions.

I won't say Hitchcock is an overtly radical filmmaker but there's a radical impulse in his work, a secret desire to decimate conformity and tradition in favour of something far less predictable and infinitely more dangerous.

And this may go back to his strict upbringing and his own adult neuroses. I'm gonna get into this more when I talk about FRENZY but I view Hitchcock as a very repressed filmmaker who lived a life of frustrated desires. But like many great artists, he managed to live through his work.

And the thing that makes him so interesting is that boiling torrent of repressed, anti-social desires he managed to elegantly pour onto the screen.

And this is another very interesting element of classical Hollywood cinema. With the Hays code, censors and with the moral dictates of individual studios and producers, the Hollywood film was a very restrictive medium (it still is but perhaps to a lesser degree today.)

So in order to be radical, subversive and intellectually transgressive, individual filmmakers had to be very sneaky and clever in hiding their true impulses. And I think Hitchcock, more than any of the greats from the period, concealed much beneath the surface of his work, both consciously and unconsciously.

In a strange way, the art of Hollywood cinema is weirdly diminished without these restrictions. It's like boxing compared to mixed martial arts. I much prefer boxing because it's within the restrictions where the athlete has to use skill, endurance & psychology to defeat their opponent. With mixed martial arts, perhaps those things apply as well, but it's such a free for all that it seems to be missing the 'elegance' of boxing (if one can use such a phrase.)

I'm not saying I'm in favour of censorship. I'm not. But the constraints on the artist in the traditional Hollywood studio system did yield some interesting strategies designed to circumvent the restrictions.

[orpheus]

I agree that constraints sometimes leads to more creativity from writers or directors like Hitchcock. Hitch was very skilled in using subtext throughout his career, but he seemed to be the most creative when he was implying sexuality whether it's sexual repression in Marnie, sexual power in Notorious, or homosexuality in Rope.

And that's why I am a big fan of older horror. I mean gore and violence, lol, certainly has its place, but there's something special about movies that manage to be creepy by suggestion.