Hitchcock's film originally published in "Watching Movies Midnight Field" is mostly that the movie-watching pleasure brought by the technique itself is greater than the thinking brought about by the film's theme. Although [Doctor Edward] or [Scary] can dig out the themes for discussion by psychological analysis methods, [birds] can fully appreciate the spreading emotions of the apocalypse, [39 steps] this kind of gloomy Spy films are also affected by the atmosphere of war to some extent, but the themes themselves, such as psychoanalysis, doomsday emotions, and war distorting human nature, will eventually become Hitchcock's methods for setting up suspense or justifying the plot. With these themes, the film that puts skill first is still within the logical scope of real life. The [Ghost Case] is a very special "pure movie", that is, a movie that appears "empty" in terms of the theme. The eye-catching of this movie is entirely due to the fun of the film screenwriter and director's technique itself. Hitchcock himself described "pure film" in this way-"organizing film like a musical note into a melody". In this movie, Hitchcock compiles the plot according to the nature of the film and his artistic instinct as a director, creating a world completely out of reality. If the audience wants to discuss it from any "theme" of reality, they will Finding that this road is blocked, I am very depressed.
A corpse: At the beginning of the film, all elements look very Hitchcock. All the stories in the film are triggered by a young boy finding a corpse at the beginning. The main characters in the film also began to be involved in the murder of this corpse. case. Subsequently, we began to guess who the murderer was in the suspenseful knots. Captain Wiles thought that he was hunting, and he shot the man walking in the woods by mistake. He was anxious and wanted to bury the body; but when the little boy found his mother, Jennifer Rogers, Jennifer recognized it. This is my husband Harry, and later admitted that he was angry with the baby bottle and smashed Harry's head, which led to Harry's death; the painter Sam Marlowe who was sketching in the wild drew the face of the corpse foolishly, Wiles The captain explained the situation to him, and he helped the captain bury the body, but in the process of burying, he found that his three bullets had hit other places and should not have hit the body, so he dug up the body again. come out. However, in order to save a lot of trouble, the artist buried the body again.
The dry old virgin Miss Gravely first saw Captain Wiles confessing that she had killed Harry by mistake, so she kept silent. Later, her conscience was disturbed and she revealed her heart, saying that Harry had pushed herself down in the bushes and attempted to rape her. , So he hacked Harry's head with high heels. Miss Gravely was willing to take the responsibility, so she ran and dug up the body again. However, the painter sympathized with Jennifer’s misfortune, and developed a good relationship with Jennifer. In order for the two to bond, they went to bury the corpse; the two later discovered that if the corpse was buried in this way, they could not legally get married. , So he dug up the corpse again... After several ridiculous tossings, the corpse was buried four times!
However, as the film progresses, everyone and everything seems to have nothing to do with the corpse. Everyone has the motive and possibility to kill Harry, but everyone has no conclusive evidence. Moreover, these four people are obviously small towns. There are a few innocent, lovely and kind-hearted residents, they have no intention of killing anyone. Acting police officer Calvin, who was sensitive to the corpse case, was a fool, and his investigation was completely ineffective. As a result, the film began to pay attention to many unrelated topics other than the troubles of the corpse, such as Sam and Jennifer having a love relationship; for example, Captain Wiles and the dry Miss Gravely developed a good relationship between the two, and they developed love. , They had dinner together, Wiles also joked with Sam: "The woman and the preserves that are intact will be opened one day"; Sam often ran to the town grocery store to ask the owner, Ms. Vicky, to help him sell more Painting, a millionaire came, but he didn't know how to sell paintings... So the corpse that was solemnly buried and dug out gradually became meaningless.
Zoom in on "Mugffin": The corpse slowly fades out of the story, but in the end there must be an explanation. The stupid Sheriff Calvin pressed harder, and finally found him through Sam's sketch, but after everyone dismissed Calvin, Dr. Grimbleau's diagnosis surprised everyone: Harry died in the forest grass due to a heart spasm. superior. The corpse became a corpse, and in the end it had nothing to do with the main character. The audience had to laugh out loud—the existence of the corpse was meaningless, and the corpse was nothing. This makes people feel very at a loss. Such a whole movie can be called a "nonsensical" corpse joke. Many film critics use black humor to explain it, but the black humor is more or less a satire of life and reality, and even if the humor is overflowing, it is completely Not this black tone.
The ridiculous and absurdity of the film actually comes from Hitchcock's exaggerated use of his own original film technique "Mugffin". This corpse named "Harry" is the most humorous and creative "Mugffin" in all Hitchcock movies. And the movie [Ghost Case] itself is also a great show of the working principle of "Mugffin" like a haha mirror. The general "Mugffin" in Hitchcock movies is used as a hidden driving element in the plot assembly of the suspense movie, like the energy that drives the car. For example, the non-existent spy that the protagonist tried to unearth in [Northwest by Northwest], such as the wealth of the old woman who was chased by the protagonist in [Family Conspiracy], but was never the key point; the dead house that never appeared in [Butterfly Dream] The former hostess. In normal Hitchcock suspense films, "Mugffin" never stands out. After completing the task, it merges with the plot in the audience's mind and becomes one of the small accessories that create suspense, just like Hitchcock A kind of function word in suspense grammar, in order to make the sentence smooth. Hitchcock himself has always paid little attention to McGeffen, as long as there is a McGeffen that can make sense of the plot, what he focuses on is the setting and revealing of the suspense of the movie that dazzles the audience outside of McGeffen.
If it is filmed in a classic Greek movie, the corpse of "The Strange Corpse Case" will inevitably be hidden behind the screen and become a simple starting point for the story. The point is to show that as the acting sheriff, Calvin collects all clues to track many people related to the corpse, etc. , And the anti-tracking of these people. However, McGeffen of the [Strange Corpse Case] was suddenly enlarged and placed on the screen as an entity, which caused a sense of weirdness to grow. In order to exaggerate the corpse, Hitchcock did not care about the loopholes in the plot, according to common sense. Wiles would not let the corpse hang on the ground so lazily without burying it immediately, and after burying it, he would not care about the difference between the old and new soil; instead, he would bury the corpse again and again and dig it out again and again. A savvy detective mission to discover the body and conduct a rigorous investigation, if it is a serious suspense film, it is simply ridiculous. Hitchcock initially exaggerated this body that had nothing to do with murder, suspense, or horror in the end, but only to drive the plot and the action of the characters. In the end, the mystery was revealed, and the McGeffen, who maintained the entire movie, was instantly like The bubble explosion generally disappears. This is the technical and fundamental reason for the absurdity of [Ghost Case].
This film is like a "pure movie" game played by Hitchcock played by McGuffin, a lovely experiment. It is like a strange snack offered to the audience by a master besides many classic works. Unfortunately, when the film was made, no one understood Hitchcock, the film’s weird feeling, so the producers didn’t know how to promote it in the release.
Unthrilling suspense films: In addition to the exaggerated use of McGeffen, which leads to the film's weirdness, there are also Hitchcock's film characters and emotional arrangements that completely deviate from the murder movie and the logic of life. [Ghost Case] Probably the most leisurely murder movie in movie history. At the beginning, the child met a corpse. In the picture, the corpse's feet stretched out to the screen, occupying a huge space. In a Hitchcock movie, this will make all the audience feel that something terrible is about to happen. But as we proceed, we will find that the tone of the whole story is not terrible at all. The picture shows the autumn scenery of New England, the sun is shining on the earth, and the yellow and red leaves are set against the blue sky, which is picturesque. The music Herman made for the film, except that the child got nervous when he met the corpse at the beginning, and was almost peaceful from beginning to end.
Everyone in the film is not afraid of having this corpse, but appears very peaceful. No one wants to become nervous about his death. When they discussed how to dispose of the corpse and blamed themselves for killing Harry, they all used a gentle tone, and even made jokes from time to time. Although the residents of several small towns have been burying corpses, it is very cute that this supposedly terrifying behavior has a full sense of joy, and finally warmly formed the union of two new lovers. This combination of warmth and death, Hitchcock once discussed with Truffaut: "I am always interested in creating contrasts, anti-traditions, and breaking clichés. The murder melodrama is pulled out of the dark night, and then put in the sun. It's like I placed a murder case by a rushing stream, and then dripped a drop of blood into the clear water."
For the suspenseful humor: Although the [Ghost Case] is far from the classic Hitchcock style, the plot assembly of the film is still a rigorous Hitchcock craftsmanship. It's just a lot of suspense settings, no longer for the purpose of creating a horror effect, but only for the burden of humor, for the purpose of making a joke. For example, Sam always asks Mrs. Vicky at the small grocery store to help him sell a few more paintings. He drew many post-modern style lines on the canvas. No one cares about it. He thinks this is a work of genius, and tells Wail. Captain Si said, "My painting is a symbol of the birth of the world." Wiles quipped, "Ah, that was the first place I heard about the world-the kindergarten." One day, a millionaire really came to buy a painting. However, the painter has no concept of money at all. He chose the gifts he wanted for his friends, such as sending a basket of fresh strawberries every month, a new cash register, a set of hunting equipment and so on. Hitchcock set up a suspense to the end here. Sam also asked for the same reward. He whispered in the ear of the rich man, making the audience feel that the reward left by the painter was related to the exposure of the murder case. The key element of whether or not, the rich man heard the request and said meaningfully: "This, I think I can arrange it." As a result, this suspense became Hitchcock's funny joke for the audience: the painter is sure of himself To be nice to Miss Jennifer and eventually get married, so he asked the millionaire for a double bed!
In Jennifer's room, there is a locker that people always open by themselves, which makes people think that there is something mysterious or someone hidden behind the door. When Acting Sheriff Calvin came to Jennifer's house to question Sam about the corpse, Sam also leaned his body against the door. When Sam accidentally released the door, the door opened again, and it only fell out of a wooden shelf. This suspense was only to create a comical tension. In the film, the little boy and his mother have a conversation about time. The little boy can't distinguish between yesterday, today and tomorrow. He thinks that tomorrow is today and today is yesterday. We thought this was just a child’s insensitivity, but in the end, this little boy’s concept of time became a lovely and clever way to get you out of trouble. It turned out that several people sent the body back to the distance after the doctor examined the body. They decided to let the little boy find the body again the next morning, and then reported to the police officer so that the little boy would say that the body was found "yesterday", and There will be no error in the time of death of the corpse.
These warm or cute films make a movie about murder completely non-homicidal. If it weren’t for Hitchcock’s rich creativity, we probably wouldn’t have had the chance to taste such a "Greek style". bean". [Weird corpse case] It will not be a member of Hitchcock’s great series of works, but its hilarious sense of joy, dots of humor, and unexpected weirdness all make Hitchcock’s A soft light full of creativity.
View more about The Trouble with Harry reviews
