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🦋 Hitchcock: making fun

If I had it in me (if I were better versed in film criticism, if I were a better writer), I would write an essay about how the common thread running through Hitchcock's films is one of satire. I would first spend some paragraphs or pages writing about the quality which prompts me to describe a story as "corny" and then write about how Hitchcock builds his fictional world around that quality and then spends his movies poking fun at it, and at his characters and his plots and his direction. If I were able to hold more than a couple of his films in my mind at once, I would illustrate this thesis with examples from throughout his work, say that to my way of thinking, his movies were best early on when the satire was subtle and not the main point of the movie, and fell off slightly when they became more cartoonish; would paint an arc of his career and show how the trend moved, which movies exemplified it and which were exceptions to the rule. Unfortunately (or perhaps not!), I am not that kind of a writer. Instead I will merely assert the thesis as true; and the next time I watch one of his movies try to write about it as seen from this viewpoint.

posted evening of Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
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