Notorious

Well, I know I've been neglecting this blog this year. I tend to go through spurts of wanting to write a lot and not wanting to write anything, which is perhaps a major part of why I've never considered myself a writer of any description. The one thing that does actually compell me to write regularly is music, which I have been doing, but not always on paper, and nothing that I've felt is worth posting here. See, I write things in my head, and since they're done, I don't always get around to putting them down, because mentally I'm moving on to other things.

I recently saw Notorious, and I have to admit, I was a little underwhelemed by it. I enjoyed it, and it's a good film, but I wasn't completely won over. I've only seen it twice, so my memory for it isn't perfect, but basically, I felt the love story came up a bit short. (Heh, maybe it's just that almost any screen romance pales in comparison to the English Patient.)

My first thought at the ending was, where's the third act? The Nazi storyline is left unresolved. It was only then that I realized, the Nazi storyline is only a vehicle to put Devlin and Alicia together. In that case, it's fine if the story is unresolved, but -- should I have even noticed that it wasn'tresolved? If the true center of the film were as engaging as its meant to be, then everything else would be peripheral. We shouldn't want answers to the Nazi storyline. As it is, there's some confusion, although to an extent, Hitchcock does pull you into the romance by the end. Cary and Bergman have good chemistry and they make you believe what they're feelI believed that their characters were in love. By the end of the film, I did care more about what happened to them than what happened in Nazi catching. My problem, I think, is that the story doesn't make their relationship plausible to me. I believe what they're feeling, but I don't believe why they're feeling it. They meet, and Alicia sets her wiles to work on Devlin, as she does everyone. She grows cold to him, he begins to seem interested by her, they have lunch, and suddenly, they're in love. When did that happen? I can believe people falling in love overnight in films, if given a reason. I can believe that simply meeting a few times is enough to bring on raging infatuation, but something has to happen then to cement their feelings.

But that's the rub -- the whole point of their story is that they never fully acknowledge their feelings and allow them to cement until the very end. Devlin remains both fascinated and repulsed by Alicia's "loose" qualities, and I think Alicia is also fascinated and repulsed by Devlin's ambivalence. The push and pull in their relationship is certainly the most captivating part of their story. You can assume that Devlin is perhaps the first "good" and genuinely loving man in her life, and yet he also puts her down. You get the sense that she's used to having boyfriends who go as soon as they come, who don't really love her and are perhaps even a little abusive. A woman with a strong relationship history would have no reason to pursue a man such as Devlin, who spends most of the film treating her as inferior. Devlin has done nothing more extraordinary than show her some routine kindness, so why is Alicia so in love with him, when it seems they barely know each other? In the way she keeps coming back and asking him to say he loves her, she's obviously clinging to the hope that someone truly loves her. You almost don't know whether she's truly in love with Devlin or just with the idea that someone finally loves her. And that makes a compelling story.

So if the point of the film is that it takes them all this time to be able to cement their relationship, why do they actually talk about how much they love each other early in the film? Why, if the whole point is that they can't acknowledge the fact they're in love? Perhaps the point is that, Alicia is only obsessed because Devlin did actually speak of loving her. He said he loved her, and then acted completely indifferent. Certainly that would drive a woman crazy, wondering, does he or doesn't he? While that makes for a fine story, it also completely undermines the idea that Devlin is incapable of admitting his true feelings. I think it would have been much more compelling if he hadn't said anything about his feelings until the very end -- if only his actions had led Alicia to wonder.

So, I think it is largely well done, but with a seriously compromising flaw. Other than the tension of Devlin and Alicia's relationship, I really enjoyed the Devlin/Alicia/Sebastian triangle. It's an interesting dynamic, because in love, Sebastian is arguably more sympathetic than Devlin. Were he not a Nazi, his only flaw would be his extreme jealousy. He is sincere and genuinely cares for Alicia. Even when he discovers that she's only playing him -- when he not only has his feelings crushed but realizes that she's put his life in danger -- he is unable to allow her to come to direct harm, even if he is complicit in her captivity and illness. I think it's easier for him to watch her be slowly poisoned than to violently murder her in one fell swoop. Devlin protests to Alicia's assignment when he initially learns of its full nature, out of care for her safety, because the agency obviously doesn't think her death would come as a great loss to soceity. They're just trying to get their job done, at whatever cost. But later, he refuses to speak up, even when he knows the assignment is going too far. Just as Sebastian allows Alicia to slowly waste away out of fear that he will be discovered and killed, Devlin's cowardice causes him to push Alicia away and allow her to become mired in the assignment to the brink of death. Alicia apparently walks straight into danger only to see if he will try to stop her.

I have to say, I don't entirely understand why she seems to act as if she has nothing to live for. She seems to act like that from the moment she steps into frame, but we're never give a reason. I guess we're just supposed to take it as fact that she's simply No Good.

From a technical standpoint, of course the film is brilliantly done, with a lot of creative techniques that are certainly on the cutting edge for the 40's. In particular, he uses subjective shots to great effect. Alicia wakes up groggily and watches Devlin enter her room one morning, and another day she falls ill and staggers out of the room while the walls pitch and bend. I hoped that I would have more to say about the technical aspects after a second viewing, but sadly, I have nothing. I can only say, on the whole, I appreciated that this film seems to be a lot less heavy handed than Hitchcock can be. The moment where Alicia realizes her coffee is poisoned is a little over the top, but that's the only scene that comes to mind. Alicia makes it pretty obvious, by pointedly glaring at Mother Nazi, that she's caught on. I guess Mother Nazi either doesn't seem to realize or just doesn't care. I don't think Hitchcock cared which, either.

In the end, I'd say it's well worth watching if you're a fan of Hitchcock, film noir, or classic love stories, I just don't think it deserves a place in my all time top 100.