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Portraits & paintings in Hitchcock's films
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Rebecca (1940): The portrait of a dead ancestor of Maxim De Winter, the powerful husband. The portrait also links the movie's heroine (the second Mrs. De Winter) to the dead Rebecca, when she is tricked into wearing a ball gown modeled on it--as Rebecca had done previously.
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Suspicion (1941): Patriarchal portrait of Lina's father. "He doesn't trust me": the portrait represents suspicion of the lower-class Johnnie who aspires to marry (and perhaps to murder?) the wealthy Lina. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| According to Michael Walker in Hitchcock's Motifs (Amsterdam Univ. Press, 2005), portraits in films can signify a number of ideas: the power of a patriarchal figure (or less frequently a matriarchal one); the power of family tradition; a lost loved one; or the desire of the beholder. Between them, the above portraits from two films illustrate all four of these notions. The continuing presence or power of a dead person can be the point of portraits in all the categories. Hitchcock's films place unusually great emphasis on the relationship between a portrait and the person who views it, "as if the portrait were a projection or a part of the character, or bound to him/her in a peculiarly intimate or intense way." |
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| Blackmail (1929): the clown portrait mocks Alice after she has killed its painter, who sexually attacked her. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Vertigo (1958): the "Portrait of Carlotta" as obsessively viewed by Madeleine--and by Scotty. |
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| In Vertigo, both Madeleine and Midge model themselves after the portrait of Carlotta. As also happens in Rebecca, the obsessed male (Maxim de Winter / Scotty) gets angry at the innocent imitator (the second Mrs. De Winter / Midge) rather than the 'guilty' imitator (Rebecca / Madeleine). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Rear Window (1954): The negative fashion portrait (followed by a shot of the portrait on a magazine cover) conveys Jeff's ambivalence about women, in particular Lisa Fremont. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Frenzy (1972): Left: Kitschy paintings of women in Bob Rusk's apartment (reproductions of paintings by Vladimir Tretchikoff, popular in the 1970s) convey his bad taste as well as his peculiar fixation. Right: A photo portrait of Rusk's mother figures prominently in scenes set in his apartment. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Psycho (1960); what is that portrait over Mother Bates's bed?
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