Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Marnie / U.S.A. / 1964

“If you don’t like Marnie, you don’t like Hitchcock. If you don’t love Marnie, you don’t love cinema.” Robin Wood – yes… I love Marnie.

by Ian Johnston | Source: Universal DVD
16 Sep 2006 12:57 PM | Comments (6)

Comments / 6 total / Submit Comment

1. tom / 21 September 2006 / 8:33 AM / URL

   Jeez… talk about emotional blackmail. I’m pretty fond of cinema, but I found Marnie a bit of a chore, to be honest. And that rape scene is just nasty.

2. leo / 21 September 2006 / 9:32 AM / URL

   I love that rape scene!

3. tom / 21 September 2006 / 11:14 AM / URL

   Then, logically, i think that means you hate cinema. Quid pro quo.

4. leo / 22 September 2006 / 3:09 PM / URL

   Incidentally, while I don’t subscribe to any of these ultimatums (even Hoberman’s similar comments about Bresson*), I do think you might need to be put to hard labor if you think Marnie is a chore. The first hour of the movie, like the parallel portion of Psycho, is virtually perfect in every way (the robbery! the color! the hair!), and even if the second half leaves a nasty taste in one’s mouth, it’s never dull. Campy, perverse, and deliriously melodramatic? Yes. The equivalent of doing one’s laundry? No.

   Indeed, any movie in which ‘Tippi’ Hedren and Sean Connery stroll into a roadside diner and each order “a frank and a coffee” is worth one’s time, in my opinion.

   My prerequisite for liking cinema? Predator.

   *”Bluntly put, to not get Bresson is to not get the idea of motion pictures—it’s to have missed that train the Lumiére brothers filmed arriving at Lyon station 110 years ago.”

5. Chiranjit / 25 September 2006 / 8:35 AM / URL

   I have to agree with Leo and Ian on this one. Marnie is among my favorite Hitchcock films, though I’m not sure how much I would enjoy it if I didn’t perceive it as a “Hitchcock movie” that’s been stuffed with his fixations (I think the same goes for Frenzy). Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m in the Tippi Hedren camp of Hitchcock fans.

   As for critical ultimatums, whether by Wood, Hoberman, or anyone else, while I initially bristle at these types of comments, I doubt either critic really abides by their statement. It just seems to be a short-hand announcement to convey their faith in the director they are praising, and a method by which they claim that the filmmaker’s work displays the fundamental fabric of cinema.

   Then again, I think my prerequisite for liking cinema might be Short Circuit 2.

6. leo / 25 September 2006 / 9:24 AM / URL

   “I’m not sure how much I would enjoy it if I didn’t perceive it as a “Hitchcock movie” that’s been stuffed with his fixations (I think the same goes for Frenzy)”

   Marnie is undoubtedly a Hitchcock Movie, but I think one’s appreciation of it also depends a good deal on your interest in (or tolerance of) melodrama. Still, the Rutland’s robbery scene would be patently brilliant in any film or genre.

   But Frenzy? That movie is hilarious. Hitchcock or no, I’d watch it just for the finger-breaking scene and to watch Jon Finch’s jaw flex.