Review of Marnie (1964) by Veronique K — 25 Oct 2010

Marnie is probably the most hard-edged lesbian in hitchcock movies: incredibly beautiful and elegant, but not interested in man at all, never curious about the secret of sex, which she resents fiercely. pathologically enamour of her mother, who she even tries to kiss and hug in great desperation. (molest mama?) this picture tells you about man's obsession with un-obtainable woman and his anxious vanity to melt her frigidity away as if that could give him great pleasure and sense of achievement for "catching something really wild" and un-tamable.

Even the ending looks positive, marnie finds the cause of her problem and why she's so afraid of "red" (blood)...the only one marnie loves and shows affection for is her mother whom marnie thinks doesn't love her. in the end, marnie is consoled that her mother does love her but coy to demonstrate her passion for the child. thus marnie is a picture of a perverse romance between a parent and her child, instead of man and woman. and marnie says she would rather be with mark instead of jail, so could it be that he becomes the father figure she's never had in her life? and the sean connery character becomes the pateral figure who attempts to coach a die-hard lesbian into woman so he could finally "consummate" with her like a naughty daddy tickled by the idea of "incest"....could that be happy ending? or tragedy with a faux-relief because marnie now is finally willing to conform to this gentlemanly rapist and consents to be his hostage?

Hitchcock askes the scriptor to add up the scene of attempted rape, and he has to fire the scriptor (who refuses that request) to have his ways of "raping marnie." there're also rumours (actually tippi hedren later admits some of them) that hitchcock's also highly "interested" in hedren but angery at her because of her persistent refusals . anyway, he wants to manipulate her life but she wishes to be independent. I assume that tension between hitchcock and hedren is projected into marnie.

The original cast was intended for grace kelly, who turned it down for being princess of morocco. but this picture fits better with tippi hedren. I do wonder how come it get so many bad critics? what's so bad about it? I think marnie's kinda refreshing with the most hard-boiled hitchcockian blonde ever! she's practically the biggest iceberg there and almost impossible to melt! hitchcock usually has a way to embody the hostility between man and woman (some degree of misogynism, you may say), such as vertigo. his man always wants to tame the proud woman and manipulate her into the ways he wishes her to be, as if he gets his kicks that way. that sympton is surely rendered through marnie with greatest obsessional violence.