Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Year Released: 1964
Rating: 2.5
I'm going to quickly whisper that I don't like this film and then immediately duck behind the nearest counter to avoid the (presumed, implied) tongue-lashings by film scholars, who praise this as a "great flawed film" (Truffaut), "a mature masterpiece" (Wood) and "one of the best films of the year" (Cahiers du Cinema). I'm as gung-ho Hitch as anybody - the guy was, and don't even try to argue with me to the contrary, a potent genius (and I do so hate that "g" word) - but can't quite gasp some of the pieces: the convenient and inconsistent use of the color red, triggering Marnie's "seizures" (which is what I take them for - some types of epilepsy are triggered by colors or patterns), the enigma that is Sean Connery (I sort-of "figured out" his desire for Marnie before I read Hitch's own explanation - and defensive remarks - in Hitchcock/Truffaut) and the last twenty minutes, which, to me, kill the film's impact/effect due to the lazy use of pop psychology to wrap up dangling. This wouldn't be the first time the big H would so openly use Freud in his movies (he also tried it in the terrible Spellbound), but it would be his last. The initial scene between Marnie and her mother doesn't come across as convincing, nor does the flashback with drunken rapist/molester Bruce Dern.
