William Kloezeman ENGL 49A W 12:10-3:25 17 November 2010 Hitchcocks Near-Hero The heroes in Alfred Hitchcocks films I Confess,

Strangers on a Train and Vertigo are all sympathetic yet weak-willed characters. Ironically, it is very often their seeming powerlessness that is the source of the audiences sympathy and their perception of them as somehow heroic. In this sense, they have more in common with the tragically flawed heroes of Shakespearean or classical Greek drama than the all-too-perfect heroes of Celtic or Arthurian legend. Hitchcock combines and updates both of these heroic archetypes to appeal to a more cynical modern age, without turning his protagonists into tacit villains. While Hitchcocks heroes suffer under the same deterministic worldview as the post-modern anti-hero, they are, to various degrees, culpable in their own suffering. Indeed, even though Hitchcocks heroes are often subject to the whims of forces beyond their control, for Hitchcock, its their own damn fault. Their original sin is one of ignorance rather than of knowledge; Hitchcock manipulates his heroes weaknesses to show how, in the modern world, no one is innocent because innocence itself has become a vice. In Hitchcocks world, any persons claim of innocence is tantamount to pleading ignorance. Often, the biggest mistakes his heroes make are simply not paying attention, taking people at their word when theyre lying, or not taking them seriously when they are in earnest. With the ever increasing complexity of modern life, Hitchcocks audience would recognize the common feeling of being manipulated by other people or being made to play the fool and therefore feel sympathy for the credulity of these near-

heroes. This sympathy enables a viewer to feel yes, some ofmy life is like that or could be and yes, at its darkest and most fragile, life is in danger of becoming like that (Spoto 265). Hitchcocks portrayal of the common or everyman hero creates tension and anxiety (i.e. genuine, modern fear) in his audience; this is the true source of his appeal as a director. In I Confess, Father Logan is a holy innocent whose self-belief is tested to the limit on being wrongly accused of a crime (Haeffner 61). His self-image is based on his role as a Catholic priest, and despite the fact that his sacristan confesses to an illicit murder, he holds true to the seal of confession. By the end of the film, he allows himself to potentially face imprisonment for another mans crime. Even though Father Logan is acquitted of the murder, he exposes his essential weakness because Keller not only exploits [Father Logans] goodness: he attempts to assign guilt for his own crime of murder to his friend (Spoto 201). Thus, Father Logans trust and loyalty is misplaced in shielding Keller from prosecution because true penitence requires not only personal confession but also acceptance of the consequences of ones sins. In Strangers on a Train, the fact that Guy does not take Bruno seriously in his offer to exchange murders leads to the central crisis of the film. In their personal interaction on the train, he allows himself to open up too much to the stranger Bruno. While Guy is innocent of an actual murder but not the desire to be rid of his wife (Spoto 196), he fails to understand that Bruno is truly psychotic and fully willing to carry out the intentions that Guy has merely given voice to. After Brunos murder of Miriam, the rest of the film is devoted to Guys attempt to cover-up his, as it were, psychic involvement in his estranged wifes murder.

In Vertigo, Scottie is a sympathetic yet profoundly troubled romantic who at once has the audiences sympathies but whose image suggests a kind of dark earnestness and navet rather than slick glamour (Spoto 270) He allows himself to be deceived on two different levels; first by his old college friend Gavin Elster and then by the woman Elster has recruited to play his wife. Despite his weakness of vertigo (indeed, because of it), he is offered the opportunity to pursue his failed career as a detective by following Elsters wife. Even though he, at first, expresses disbelief at Gavin Elsters insistence that his wife is possessed by a spirit, he accepts the job because he seems to desire some directed purpose in his life; his acceptance of the assignment will prove to have dramatic ramifications for his personal life because it forces him to become directly involved in the personal life of another person. Many of Hitchcocks heroes are afraid of intimacy and commitment (Spoto 279). This is expressed either by their outright rejection of women or by their passive negligence in their dealings with women. Father Logan, in I Confess, has pursued the ultimate rejection of women by becoming a priest. Guy, in Strangers on a Train has failed to be assertive with the women in his life; his estranged wife refuses to grant him a divorce and the woman he intends to marry is kept at an aristocratic distance because she is the daughter of a senator. Indeed, one theme of this film is the need for Guy to prove his masculinity by standing up to the people that are controlling his life. In Vertigo, Scottie is a textbook example of the fear of intimacy. Even though he is in desperate need of balance and direction in his life, he is afraid of letting anyone get close because his guilt causes him to worry that he will somehow hurt them. Indeed, in the opening scene, the policeman falls to his death precisely because he gets too close to

Scottie. After this incident, his career as a detective is finished, and he is rendered even more directionless than before. Spoto argues that the idea of wanderingdescribes [Scotties]physical restlessness andspiritual rootlessness (281) His condition of vertigo is also a metaphor for romantic entanglement and the concepts of swooning and losing ones way. If he is going to fall, he is going to fall hard. This danger makes him reluctant to become emotionally invested in people; when he finally does, he is overwhelmed and even driven mad by his obsession with Madeleine. The concept of obsession is prevalent in all three films. In I Confess, Father Logan falls victim to his intense devotion to a religious principle. Even when Keller makes it clear that he has no intention of confessing to his crime, Logan suffers prosecution simply to adhere to his preconceived notions. In Strangers on a Train, the innocent Guy Haines is aligned to the murderer Bruno Anthony not by action but by thought (Haeffner 15); this again suggests obsession: the protagonist is analyzing himself by comparison to the apparent opposite. In Vertigo, the obsession of the protagonist on the former love transcends death as it is applied to a physical reality, however false. These obsessions in Hitchcocks heroes are the logical results of modern mans struggle between the constant yearning for the ideal and the necessity of living in a world that is far from ideal, with people who are one and all frail and imperfect (Spoto 299) The protagonists in Hitchcocks films are very complex and conflicted individuals. In contrast to the overweening hubris that is the tragic of Shakespearean or classical Greek drama, Hitchcocks heroes are brought to the point of near destruction by their lack of strength; it is too little of something, rather than too much of something, that takes them right to the edge of the cliff yet refrains from pushing them over.

Unfortunately, this is the closest thing to hope or catharsis that Hitchcock has to offer his audiences; when life seems to suck beyond all measure, things can only get better.