Even Hitchcock films that are considered lighter entertainment\u2014like NORTH BY NORTHWEST\u2014can be analyzed for their insightful examination of human behavior. After all, what is the journey of Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant), if not the journey of a man towards self-realization? In his essay on NORTH BY NORTHWEST, Steven Patterson writes, \u201cIn the opening moments of the film, to his secretary, we see Thornhill dictate an insincere note to what is obviously a girlfriend.\u00a0 He also \u2018steals\u2019 a cab on the false premise that his secretary, Maggie, is sick.\u00a0 His line to Maggie, in the cab after she protests about his taking it with a lie, sums up his character nicely: \u2018In the world of advertising there is no such thing as a lie, Maggie. There is only the expedient exaggeration.’ All of this marks Thornhill as a relatively shallow and self-interested man\u2014a far cry from the sort of man who fakes his own death and races across Mount Rushmore to save the woman he loves.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve long been drawn to Carl Jung\u2019s ideas about psychic development. Jung writes, \u201cOne could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.<\/strong>\u201d Hitchcock\u2019s films are peopled with those who pretend to be one thing and yet, thru the crucible of experience, are shown to be something else. I\u2019m particularly struck by the multiple ways in which Hitchcock visually explains this to us.<\/p>\n Thornhill is shown at the beginning of the film in an elegant business suit, in a position of authority, surrounded by people, as he exits a building on Madison Avenue. Compare this with the shots of him standing in the open on the mid-western plains, without the trappings of success and autonomy (he has no mode of transport once he gets off the bus.) Who exactly is he at this point? Does it matter in the slightest that he\u2019s a successful Madison Avenue executive? That fact is meaningless–it won\u2019t save him. It is only his primitive desire to survive, and his own internal resources–his willingness to be courageous in the face of attack–that is his salvation.<\/p>\n He is furthermore literally stripped, throughout the film, of his clothes as the events unfold. To my mind, this is a visual way of indicating how he\u2019s stripped down to an essence that is without definition, and then a new awareness is able to arise within him.\u00a0 This awareness transforms his personality. NORTH BY NORTHWEST is essentially the hero\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n The climactic chase on Mount Rushmore becomes a heroic statement of a new, more authentic identity–contextualized by the faces of American men with big ideas.<\/p>\n THE BIRDS is another film that strikes me as worthy of contemplation on a psychological level. Its metaphors are very powerful. As far as I\u2019m aware, Hitchcock never explained the movie, but it was made at the height of the cold war and I think that this fact informs its themes (I remember that when the movie came out my dad was talking about building a bomb shelter in our backyard). Among other ideas, the bird attacks can be seen as a metaphor for nuclear war, for that for which we are unprepared, and for that which is beyond our ability to comprehend.<\/p>\n To be sure, the movie is remembered for the dramatic bird attacks, but it also is full of images, without the birds, that suggest the character of the American psyche at a particular point in time\u2014one of paranoia and suspicion (that, quite frankly, persists to this day). It suggests a society that is frightened, and one that lets its fear run it.<\/p>\n The diner scene is one of my favorite scenes in the film, because it dissects the typical American suspicion of the other.\u00a0 Each of the characters in the diner represent various archetypes, and the scene is reminiscent of those diner interviews that one sees on cable news channels, where people seem convinced that Iraq is behind 9\/11<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n One of the reasons the film still resonates is that it is as topical today as it was then. Just substitute terrorism for bird attacks, and then take a look at the shots throughout the film of people reacting.<\/p>\n On a more specific level, there is also the theme of an arrested adolescence. Mitch Brenner (played by Rod Taylor) is a man who still lives with his mother, unable to commit to a relationship. Again, the challenge of the experience forces him to come out from under the shadow of his father and to separate himself from the mother so that he might be able to be a man in his own right.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/normanbuckley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/N-by-N-1.jpg\")
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