I’ve always been completely intimidated by everything pertaining to Alfred Hitchcock. I think there are multiple reasons for this. Before this course, the only encounters I had had with Hitchcock and his films were the brief glimpses I would get at the covers of his films before my mother would put it back on the shelf and explain to me that “it was a big girl movie.” This was another reason I was so intimidated by his films: they were always for the “older crowd.” Fourteen years later, I have finally watched, and thoroughly enjoyed I might add, my first Alfred Hitchcock film. Upon finishing this film, I was completely stunned, which, one can only assume, was Hitchcock’s goal in constructing the film. This stunned was not a stun of shock, it was , instead, an intellectual stun in which my head seemed to be overflowing with an insane number “clues” I thought I might have missed while watching the film. As I played certain scenes over and over again in my head, I found myself consistently drawn to three in particular. These scenes were the scene in the restaurant where Madeleine is dining, the scene in Scottie’s apartment after he saves her, and the final scene of the film after Scottie has attempted to transform Judy into Madeleine.

In the first of these scenes, Madeleine is clearly intended to stand apart from everything in the room. The room itself is a red color and the colors of everyone else’s clothing in the room seem to complement this deep red. Because the color of the walls and the colors of the extras clothing bleed into one another so effortlessly, Madeleine in her stunning dark green dress is all the more noticeable. It is almost as if she is the lone actress on the stage with the single spotlight shining on her. Also allowing the audience to gain this sense is the music being played in accompaniment with the shot. As said in Jerrold Levinson’s article “Film Music and Narrative Agency,” “music composed for a film is more likely to be purely narrative in function than preexisting music appropriated by a filmmaker.” This is exactly what is happening in this scene. The music being played in conjunction with the camera pans and eventual movement towards Madeleine clue the audience in to the significance of the shot. To continue with this idea of her occupying a stage, it is also in this scene where I really took notice of Dr. Campbell’s comment about Madeleine “posing” for Scottie and the audience. The means by which the camera pans the room, stops on her and begins moving toward her made me as an audience member feel as though I had lost focus of all the other people in the room. While I am very aware of the fact that it was the camera that was doing the moving and close up, the way this scene was conducted it made me feel as though I was the one behind these actions. I felt that I was the one who wanted to see more of this creature in green, and that I was the one focusing in on her as she dined.

In viewing the film a few more times, I realized that I still felt the same way about this particular scene. I was still incredibly intrigued by Madeleine as she became the focal point of the camera. Her posture and facial expression as the camera first moves in close enough to see her clearly were actions that made me reflect again on Dr. Campbell’s comment about Madeleine’s posing both for Scottie and the audience. In this initial scene, she appears as though she were a picture painted just for us. While the idea of her posing to be seen is a solid one, one must also take into consideration the fact that we as the audience may actually be voyeurs in this situation. Even if she is posing for us, we are looking at her through an outside source. We are staring at her though this medium, the camera, as she poses.

Another time we see this concept of her posing is in the museum as she admires the art on the wall. This scene is especially poignant as she appears to the audience to be imitating the woman in the picture. Her hair is similar to the woman’s hair in the portrait and she has an exact replica of the woman’s bouquet. Even the jewelry Madeleine wears in this scene is similar to that jewelry seen in the portrait. These similarities give the reader a possible reason she has been posing for us throughout the film: she wishes to be admired as though art. Madeleine clearly has intended for “us” to find her there in front of that portrait appearing very similar. In fact, the shot of her sitting there in front of the portrait could actually be a portrait itself. She offers several instances of these portrait opportunities. Another instance in the film in which this appears is when Scottie peers into the flower shop to see Madeleine standing there amongst the flowers. Her movements in this scene are very intentional and very soft. She moves as though gliding, but does not move too much as though not to disturb the picture we are taking of her. Even the results of her movements could be pictures themselves. Another way of viewing this scene that interested me was the idea that by peering into this flower shop, Scottie was actually objectifying Madeleine. In watching her move gently through the store, he gains pleasure.

While the theme of posing and peeping are seen throughout the film, I also picked up on color schemes as a possible theme. Throughout the film, the colors green and red seem to occur purposefully rather than randomly. In my initial viewing, I took the color green to pertain specifically to things belonging to Scottie. My reasoning in using the color green to indicate Scottie first hit me as I watched the scene in his apartment. The number of objects in green hues were astonishing, especially for a single shot. We saw everything from ice cube boxes to walls and back. While these details may not seem too significant, the fact that this color green is essentially plastered all over his apartment and the times in which it recurs come to be incredibly significant later on. Hearkening back to the scene in the restaurant, I took particular notice to the color of Madeleine’s dress during my second time watching the film as it was green. Since I had already seen Scottie’s apartment and noticed the colors within it and now have seen Madeleine in the color I had deemed property of Scottie, I could not help but think to myself that this could possibly be another lens through which this film could be viewed. I decided to take this idea and run with it and I discovered quite a number of points that could be made in favor of this idea. Another time this color appears on Madeleine is after Scottie has saved her. Here, she is wrapped in his green bath robe. The significance behind this scene is actually two fold. For starters, she is wrapped in his bathrobe, which is generally a sign of intimacy. Also, the bathrobe is green, and if using my idea of green equaling Scottie, she is wrapped up in him. While these three scenes definitely give some evidence as to why I read the cues of colors in the film a certain way, the scene in which Scottie achieves his ultimate goal in turning Judy into Madeleine was the biggest reason why I decided to keep my original views. Referring to Serena’s block post <span> entitled,”Shades of Gray (and red) (and green)” she raises a really good point in the fact that red and green are complementary colors. I had never quite put that together. We had seen red in the beginning of the film as if a precautionary measure to give the audience one last chance to change their minds and leave. The fact that this red is a warning sign and complementary to green, one may infer that the green too is a sort of warning. Serena also points out that in the “reaction shot,” as she calls it, Scottie’s eyes are green. This information helps my point that things in green belong to Scottie as he has seen them with his own green eyes.

In this scene, as Judy emerges from the bathroom, the rays of green emanating from the street sign and the curtains drench her in green color. It is at this point that the audiences loses track of who she is. Is she Judy or is she Madeleine? She possesses characteristics of both women at this point. When the camera cuts back to Scottie, he too is engulfed in these green hues. Another interesting bit I got from this scene was the immense imagery towards the concept of duality.

Within this freezeframe alone, there are four symbols of duality. For starters, the two images of the doors represent the two different sides to Judy/Madeleine. Note that one of these doors is case in the green light from the street. The two light bulbs and Judy’s reflection in the mirror also give a sense of duality. However, Judy herself in this scene is the ultimate depiction of duality. If one were to simply look at this picture, he would not be able to tell whether or not this is Madeleine or whether it is Judy. Because she possesses characteristics of them both at this point, she seems to be lost within herself as to who to portray. It forces the audience to ask the question, has Judy lost herself within Madeleine, or is she playing the role of Madeleine to keep Scottie happy? Another interesting point in this frame is how there is only one image of Scottie. While everything around him seems to have two sides, he is the only object in this frame that does not have another part. He seems to be the constant in the frame while everything else has double meaning. This duality is also mentioned in Nathan’s blog (http://blogs.elsweb.org/nathan/2007/04/) as he mentions the two very distinctive parts of Judy’s persona. In his blog, he is actually referring to another frame from the film, however, also involving a mirror. He points out a very distinct difference between Scottie actually seeing Madeleine versus him seeing a representation of her, ie the mirror. To quote directly from his blog, “A reflection does not represent the reality of a person, as in their inner-thoughts, feelings, and whatever else makes them unique individuals. It merely represents their appearance.” Nathan’s very astute point may also be applied to the end of the film where Scottie is trying to transform Judy into Madeleine. Although he may be altering her appearance, he is incapable of changing who she really is. While she may resemble someone he once loved, she is in no way similar to that person in her ‘inner-thoughts, feelings,”etc. Using one of Nathan’s idea, Scottie is in love with the image of Madeleine and since Judy looks similar, he tries to force Madeleine’s life onto Judy in an attempt to reconstruct the love he has lost.

The innumerable layers found within this film initially left me dumbfounded. I was in complete awe at how a film could have been written and directed in a way that allowed the audience to get lost in the layers of meaning. Being an English major, I am quite accustomed to these types of things occurring while reading literature, I had just never imagined that these same principles could have been applied to creating and directing films. While I feel a bit silly for having noted that, I think it is significant for the sheer fact that it gives just one example of something I have pulled from this class.

In class, we talked about the relationship between art, time and love. One of the relationships we came up with was that “Great art transcends time” and “Great love transcends time,” as well. One thing I was thinking during that part of the class was how certain characters can be taken to represent one of these aspects. For example, Arne could be seen as the representative of art while Jennie was the figure for time and Eben was the representative of love. I configured the characters in this order for a few simple reasons. The first reason being that Arne’s qualifications for art seem to be more stiff and rigid than Eben’s. I chose to have Eben represent love instead of Jennie because ________. Lastly Jennie representing time seemed fairly obvious because she transcends times to be with her love. In this way, Jennie too can represent love, but Eben may also represent art being as he is an artist. If thinking about it this way, Arne could represent time because his art seems to be focussed on a different time in the artistic world. I feel that in order to gain a full understanding of these 3 aspects, we must assign each to a character and take a look at how that character interacts with the other characters aka the other aspects. To understand more fully, take a look at Jennie (time) and Eben’s (love) relationship. The fact that the love between them

Strangely, this has been my favorite read of this class. As weird and kooky as it is, I really appreciate Robert Nathan’s style. I had hoped to spend more time on it today, but sadly we had to talk about that silly final paper. We had began to pin point which genre this work could possibly fit under. Many people said either sci-fi, ghost story, or fantasy, but I feel like there is no real way to configure exactly what genre this would go under. My initial thoughts upon reading it was that it was fairly creepy and eery much like a ghost story would be. In the scene where Eben first encounters the girl, it’s just a very strange set up. We see the little girl playing by herself at dusk in an empty park with empty park benches. I half expected the Zombie mother to crawl out of the shrubbery; however, as the book progressed, I began to see different angles. I also thought, at one point, that this poor man was simply dreaming up this girl because he was lonely. I was willing to brush it off that the landlady saw her because, as a reader, I didn’t feel that she was a reliable source, but after Gus took them out to the country and exchanged glances and such with her, I was convinced that she was real. After I had gotten through most of the book, I took on a different approach. I had decided that she was real and was there to show how love transcends time and space. The more I think about it, the more difficult I find it to describe what type of book this is. I feel that she is definitely there to act as amuse, but also as an inhibitor to Eben. (The thing that inspires him most is the thing that he is so fixated on that he finds it difficult to do much else than think about her.)

After taking a deeper look at some of the underlying messages of “Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control,” I feel like Morris was serving more than the audience can digest in a single sitting. The images and the words being spoken as these images are seen are startlingly connected. For example, as the topiary gardener is shown with a seemingly celestial light shining on him, the robotics specialist is speaking about how we will eventually be replaced by other life forms. Since we know how the topiary gardener has talked about not finding anyone to take over his gardens after he retires or passes, as the robotics specialist talks about us being replaced by other life forms, we can relate his message to the knowledge we already have about the topiary gardener. Also, as we see the elephants walking along chained to one another, we hear a troubling instance being discussed. Lastly, as the documentary comes to a close, it’s almost as a show is coming to an end in that we see the elephants making their grand exit and the castle in the Clyde Beatty film crumbling. We are also shown the image of the lion tamer firing his pistol into the night as though to say his career was over. Lastly, we see a volcano erupting and essentially ending the life of everything in its lava’s path; however, at the same time, it is also an opportunity for new life and new beginnings. With the lion tamer ending his career, he opens the door for new tamers to start their career just as Clyde Beatty did for him.

Errol Morris’ documentary entitled “Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control” is just that. It seems to move at lightening fast speed with no real sense of direction. As a first time viewer, I was completely baffled at what was happening on the screen in front of me. It was not until about 3/4 of the way through the film that I began to pick up on the larger themes of the film. As embarrassed as I am to admit that, I feel as though that was the way Morris intended his film to be perceived. I feel as though Morris had wanted the audience to feel a little unsure, and nervous about the possible way the film could go. However, about half way through the film, the craziness seems to make sense. Maybe you’ve been successfully sucked into the world of Morris, or maybe the insanity is actually not insane at all but rather a meticulously planned overlap of subjects. I was so confused, intrigued, and overall excited at the end of the film that I actually had to see it a second time to see if I could pick up on things I had not seen the first time.

I really enjoyed the way 4 seemingly unrelated subjects and fields of study are woven together in ways one would never imagine. One would never guess that robotics, a lion tamer, a topiary gardener, and a man seemingly obsessed with mole rats could be related, but Morris strings them together in what can only be described as editing and documentary genius.

By using his invention the Interrotron, Morris gives the viewer a sense of authenticity in his films. Since he has his subjects looking directly into the camera, it’s almost as if they are addressing the audience and not him. In turn, this establishes a sense of personal communication for the audience through the eye contact with the person on the screen. I found it very interesting to find out that he used to simply put his head on the side of the camera so as to still have that personal connection between the viewer and the speaker. It seems so simple, but at the same time it’s completely different than other films. In watching other films, I always feel like an outsider looking in and having no real interaction with what is going on in the film. With Morris’ films, I feel like I’m a part of their world and that they are speaking directly to me and in some cases answering my questions. In watching The Thin Blue Line, it was almost as if the people on the screen were answering my questions as they came to me. I have included a diagram I found on Craig’s blog because I found that it really helped me envision what Morris’ Interrotron really looks like, and truly helped me get a feel for what went into his films as far as interviewing the subjects goes.

In watching The Thin Blue Line a second time, I realized that it had a number of parallels to the Salem Witch Trials. I know this may seem a bit far fetched, but it makes sense. In Salem, Massachusetts, 1692, there was utter confusion surrounding the trials of 19 accused witches. By getting the majority of the townspeople to agree with one or two people, they caused a great stir and a bad case of mob mentality. For any of us who have read Aruthur Miller’s The Crucible, we can understand the general hysteria that surrounded the village. While I was watching the film, I began to see how a single person’s accusation influenced an entire town’s opinion. They allowed a person to point their finger and , instead of taking the facts and analyzing them, they took the information at face value and went along with it. I thought it was very interesting how, even in our society today, mob mentality can have such a profound effect on a person or a judicial system.

This was my favorite film to date. I am a complete pop-culture documentary (20/20, Dateline, 60 Minutes) junkie! I really appreciated Morris’ approach to the film in that he showed all sides and did not try to sway the audience in any way. He shows the two different cars according to the source that’s being interviewed, the two different accused in both the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat, and the female cop both behind the car and drinking a milkshake in the cruiser. In doing this, Morris allows the audience to make their minds up. To be completely honest, I was certain it was Randall Adams who had committed the crime and wanted to see him pay for it. I hate to sound prejudice, but to me, Randall Adams looked the part of the convicted murderer; however, as the film progressed I found myself feeling sorry for Adams. This irritated me greatly. How could I feel sorry for a man who shot an innocent police officer? As much as I still wanted to believe that he had committed the crime, I couldn’t help but feel that maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, the more I thought about it, the more I came to think that David Harris was just a bit too smug while Adams’ interview seemed to convey a sense of fear.

I really liked the ending shot of the recorder as we hear Harris’ last interview with Morris. Accident or no accident, I felt that this was much better than seeing Harris saying these actual words. Over the recorder, based on how we’ve already seen him act and talk, the audience has the opportunity to imagine how Harris was saying these words that would inevitably convict him and free Adams. I found a very interesting but very creepy website that lists a great deal of information on Harris. It states everything from his last meal to his last words to his inmate number and back to the procedural history of the court. Harris’ last words were “Sir, in honor of a true American hero, ‘let’s roll. Lord Jesus receive my spirit. I’m done.” Here’s the link to the website.

I found the theme of what is real versus what is not real to be very interesting. When the man is sitting on the bench with his jewel, I felt that he was showing a bit of inner conflict. He was debating with himself whether the jewel he was holding and somewhat appraising was real or not. He wants to believe this jewel he sent away for is the real deal, but his common world knowledge is telling him otherwise. Later in the film we see the same man standing by a lake holding several pictures. He is discussing whether or not God is real. I think he believes that there truly is a God, but just not in a conventional sort of way. He, instead, believes in each race or nationality having their own Heaven. Another place where this is seen is when the turkey hunter hears what he believes to be a great number of turkeys, but when he finds them, they are nothing more than buzzards. This fits in with the theme because from far away, he saw “turkeys” but as he approached he realized that they were simply buzzards. Taking a closer look for truth is something that we must all do in order to find our own personal truths.

In his interview with Bill Moyers, Errol Morris is asked “How can we convince ourselves that something is true even though it isn’t?” Morris responds by saying that in our search for truth, we will find anything that makes sense and apply it. This is just what the characters of Vernon Florida are doing. The man with the pictures for example is taking common beliefs and putting his own spin on them because that’s what makes sense to him. The turkey hunter just had to take a closer look to realize his turkeys were fakes. This is also what the man with the pictures was doing when he was on the bench looking at his jewel. He was trying to take a closer look to figure out whether it was genuine or a fake.

Upon first seeing Vernon Florida I was utterly confused. As I was watching I took notes, which may have distracted me from the film just enough so that I missed the larger point. At the end of the film, I knew all of these characters were connected, but I was really unsure how exactly they fit together. I found in my notes that a few times in the film the topics the people are discussing are so drastically different, but the last few words they say feed directly into what the other person is discussing. For example, the man by the river who is talking about the photograph of the star has his footage cut right after he says it’s not a very good shot of the star, but he likes the photograph. The next scene is the police officer who is telling Morris about how sometimes he is shot at to be frightened. The next scene is the turkey hunter talking about hos his goal is to not frighten the turkey but the tension builds and he ends up being the one that gets frightened.

I also saw religion as a strong motif in this film. There is the preacher who prayed for everything he wanted and felt that he received these things (his van and land) through prayer. Also the man with the photograph of the star talks about how each race will have its own Heaven. Lastly, the old man in the boat talks about how no one really knows what God has planned.