I like most Alfred Hitchcock's movie, but this movie was pretty hard to sit through. I didn't really dislike the film, but it's wasn't his best. Still, this is a good psychological drama. Love the famous vagina-like purse. Hitchcock was a keen Freudian and he definitely meant the handbag to represent the womb. Watch it "give birth" to all that money that Marnie need! Margaret "Marnie" Edgar (Tippi Hedren) is troubled young woman whom steals from companies. The oppressive silence robbery scene is one of the best, most tense scenes in movie history, the quietness is what makes it so realistic. I've always thought that thievery is a very interesting theme in film. The film lose it's edge, by Mark Rutland (Sean Connery), a large publishing company owner catch her in the act of stealing. Rather than turning her in, he pretty much black mails her to become his wife. Mark acts like a sexual predator whom catch his greatest pray, a woman who has an unnatural fear and mistrust of men, thunderstorms, and the color red. The woman is sexually traumatized. I feel very sorry for her. She steals money because of an emotional void in her life. She is afraid of sex. That means that she has never been in love or shared real romantic intimacy or achieved earth shattering orgasm. She was never blissfully happy by feeling complete with a boyfriend or husband. She does not want to marry or have children, but Mark force her to love him which force her to go through hell. He takes advantage of her catatonic 'submissive' state and get what he wants to the point of rape. Yes, it was 'rape'. It's rape because she's frigid and unwilling. Why do you think she tried to kill herself? I don't think in his mind he thought he was committing rape, he was just getting his 'conjugal rights', she signed on the dotted line to granting him 'conjugal rights' when she married him or else in law, the marriage is null and void. This movie felt like a woman's personally life being exposed, rape, and her faults being put on the table. This movie is unpleasant and Hitchcock tries to hide it through any means. Hitchcock insisted that Mark should be played by the sexy, dashing Connery--then at the height of his Bond years--that audiences would accept this unquestioningly. Plus this was 1963-4, remember, an era when sex was accepted as a husband's right, regardless of the circumstances. Sean Connery is still brutal and suave in this film. James Bond will return in Dr. No Means No. Hitchcock battled with screenwriter Evan Hunter over its inclusion - eventually getting Jay Presson Allen to write it. Hunter believed it implausible for a character like Mark to commit these acts. The movie has the 'rape' has romanticized as well. I find Connery zoologist character playing dime store psychologist, mining a sense of how deeply disturbed Marnie was and then taking the liberty of exposing her is downright wrong. It didn't help to know that Hitchcok himself sexually assaulted Hedren halfway through production as well, to get her into the role. He was taking the role, too serious for art's sakes. Hitchcock was so awful with harassing poor Tippi Hedren, must have been terrible working with him and she never work with him again. Another fault of the film is the over used of cheesy effects, such as over use of lighting, the fake backdrops and the way he use the color red. I can honestly understand the color of red being tapped into the film, but it was badly introduction in a Ed Wood type matter. The movie has some good things about it. Yes, it had the Hitchcock cameos, which are his "signature" and a superior Herrmann score and not just the titles, but through the entire film. The symbolism between the horse and the mother's leg is interesting. If you knew anything about Hitchcock, you'd know that his movies most often featured disturbing content; it is what his career thrived on. He loved making the audience squirm, and he took on this project because he knew a movie like this was taboo. He has always used sex and violence as arousal. Watch Psycho again for the similar affect in the bath tub. His point is that, you can show the hell out of violence but never sex, so you have to combine the two so the audience member becomes aroused via imagination. It's not explicit, but it's very disturbing. Hitchcock's preoccupation with pathology, psychology & mother-issues helped encourage psychotherapy in America. Most people in the 60's didn't want to think about what they were doing to their own children by exposing them to violence, sex and traumas. Hitchcock made people look at their own actions & fear the consequences. He knew his own fears & made them ours.
Review of Marnie
