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IN YOUR SHADOW RESEARCH
https://kelseyprofcomm.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/the-male-gaze-in-hitchocks-vertigo/ Continuing from my prior research into Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory, I was inspired to re-watch Vertigo (1958). Directed by master craftsman of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo is a taunt, mysterious thriller that explores the theme of obsessive male desire through an evocation of the male gaze. Detective John 'Scottie' Ferguson (James Stewart) retires from the police force after an intense bout of acrophobia, more commonly known as a fear of heights, causes the death of a colleague. An acquaintance of Scottie, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), then asks him to spy on his wife Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak), believing that she is possessed by the spirit of her dead grandmother. Scottie reluctantly accepts the job and starts to fall in love with Madeleine. Declaring their love for one another, Madeleine tells Scottie about a recurring nightmare that takes place at a church. While visiting this place, Madeleine throws herself from the bell tower, Scottie unable to reach the top in time to save her after suffering from another attack of acrophobia. Scottie becomes catatonic, spending a year in psychiatric care unable to overcome the lose of Madeleine. When he is finally released, he starts dating Judy Barton (Kim Novak) who bears a striking resemblance to Madeleine, Scottie becoming ever more obsessed with changing Judy’s clothes and hair until she resembles Madeleine down to the very last detail. Both modes of the male gaze that Laura Mulvey defined, the voyeuristic and fetishistic, are represented in the key plot points of Vertigo. The voyeuristic male gaze is strongly evident in the first act of the story. Madeleine is unquestionably presented to Scottie as an object of his desire to be lured towards. Scottie spends a large part of the first act literally gazing upon Madeleine as he tails her, becoming more intrigued with the details of her appearance. In a scene where he follows Madeleine into a museum, he looks at Madeleine’s hair, tied back in a spiral, then up at the painting she is contemplating, noticing that the hair of the subject in the painting is tied back into the same spiral. She is unaware that he is watching him at all times. In the films third act, Scottie’s attention to the details of Judy’s appearance will take on a fetishitic form as he obsesses over every detail of it, turning Judy into a near perfect replica of Madeleine. Neither Judy nor Madeleine are allowed to exist as themselves in the shadow of Scottie’s desire, only as one and the same in his disillusioned fantasy. Vertigo is a film that has been carefully crafted to evoke the male gaze in a thoughtfully voyeuristic manner that can be considered far less crass than the over sexualization of the female form that many other films evoke with its use. Hitchcock’s attention is clearly drawn towards placing the audience within the psychology of the male who is gazing on the female form when designing the shots of the film. He achieves this by purposefully implicating the audience in Scottie’s gaze by merging both his and the audience’s perspective via camera movement. The first shot of the scene where Scottie first sets eyes on Madeleine shows him sat at the bar turning his head to look into the dinning area. The camera then pulls back and away from him in the direction he gazes towards until the camera is now among the dinners then dollies forward through the crowd on Madeline sat at one of the tables. This creates a sense of both Scottie and the audience’s perspectives coming together, as well as a sense of voyeurism as we move through the dinners who are unaware of the audience’s presence. With In Your Shadow, I would like to evoke the male gaze through plot and cinematography in a similar manner to Vertigo but direct it towards Mathew, inverting the gaze through which he captured the photo and the hardline perspective of the public that he has offended. REFERENCE LIST Vertigo (1958) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Film]. USA: Paramount Pictures.
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AuthorMy name is Clay Sandford and I am currently studying an FDA in Film and Media Production at University Centre Weston. I have a keen interest in directing, writing and cinematography. ArchivesCategories |