Reading Hitchcockian Narrative Imputation:To Catch A Thief (1955)

Reading Hitchcockian Narrative Imputation: To Catch A Thief (1955)

Hitchcock, the master of narrative imputation has time and again harked at one prime motivation to make his films- that is, to engage audience or rather manipulate audience response to a certain aspect of affect, as desired by himself. In this respect, and with respect to the visual aesthetics, use of heightened music to accentuate tension and dramatic lighting, Hitchcock's films come extremely close to what the Classical Hollywood Cinema was trying to achieve- an affected world of expressivity and indulgence. But in the way that Classical Hollywood was trying to create closed, completely logical and chronological narratives, Hitchcock was breaking conventions by making films, whose end did not reply or address directly to the beginning. A significant example of this would be Psycho, where the film ends with a completely different story and characters than what it began with. This art of hiding essential story information and misleading techniques are typical of what we might today call as 'Hitchcockian'.

To Catch A Thief(1955), as said by Hitchcock himself is a rather 'playful' and relaxed paced film of his which lacks the violent and almost unsettling element of surprise mixed with suspense of his more successful films. In To Catch A Thief, one mainly notices an air of suspense more than jitters of shocks which is again heavily punctuated by playful exchange of dialogues, romance, love-making or, just a casual passing of time.But here, one must be gravely mistaken if he were to infer that this is one of Hitchcock's films which is missing the Hitchcockian element. 

Hitchcock employs humour and momentary stagnancies or completely different plotlines primarily to divert the audience's concentration away from the actual event that takes place simultaneously. This magnificent craft is successfully performed by Hitchcock by sliding in a very important information within the elongated Frances and John Robie's villa visitation and love chronicle. 

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Although this man, Bertini is shown across four separate point of view shots which spans over a minute, the viewer completely misses this information, i,e, this information doesn't even register as something meaningful in narrative, in the audience's head because in the background, a very important conversation is taking place between Frances and Mr. Robie who is chiding her for her childishness( Image 2). The audience right now is more interested in the outcome of Robie and Frances' love story than they are in catching significant details. 

In fact, in image 3 above, it can be seen that the man's (Bertini's) hat's shadow covers his entire face thus making it more invisible even in broad daylight. One must have to watch it a second time in order to catch his face. This, right here, is successful manipulation of response. Bertini goes on to be revealed as the brain of all the burglaries in town and how the viewer misses it, in spite of being shown it elaborately. Hitchcock is having a fun experiment, to say the least.

In talking about Psycho(1960), Hitchcock has said,
"The more we go into the details of the girl's journey, the more the audience becomes absorbed in her flight."
Miss Frances is Hitchcock's bait in this film, to persuade and dissuade us from the main action of the film.  

See how in the following pictures, so much attention is given to Frances with hard lighting predominantly on her while Robie is almost mixing into darkness. The second shot is a track shot that ultimately focuses only on Frances and takes the shape of image 3 and image 4. The light show of fireworks that can be seen through the window in image 1 gets energised into images 6 and 7 as Frances and Robie draws nearer to each other in intimacy. The use of fireworks here is so significant and altogether 'spectacular' and instantly captivating that the audience thinks only of this romantic night and Robie's deflowering Frances while simultaneously, the copycat is about to make its final burglary in the room just next to this.

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With her exorbitant show of the bodily, the skin and overtly seductive counterfeit, she attracts all attention towards herself and her love-hate relationship with Mr. Robie so that it suddenly "appears" to be the main storyline. For instance there is no narrative logic as to why in image 1 below, Frances' face must be suddenly hidden in darkness except for to divert the viewer's eye directly underneath- to the shining necklace and to her bare shoulders.

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With her exorbitant show of the bodily, the skin and overtly seductive counterfeit, she attracts all attention towards herself and her love-hate relationship with Mr. Robie so that it suddenly "appears" to be the main storyline. Judging from Frances' extensive knowledge about Robie being The Cat, the viewer constantly tries to find faults in her or hints that might make her own character suspicious. Thus, the viewer searches for the culprit in the wrong place- an effect desired by the filmmaker. Frances therefore, with her mother, has no final narrative significance in the end except for being the biggest distraction of the plot. The entire sequence of France's love episodes do not really get any development of its own. Frances and Robie are in the same respective positions in the end as when they started it. 

It is intelligently filmed in a way that in image 2 below, only Robie's eye can be seen changing expression while his entire face is hidden by Frances' face.

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And yet, without Frances' elaborate show of sexual tensions and a lack of empathy towards others, this treacherous world would have failed in its instrumentation.

Imputation of narrative is done in other micro scenes as well, so that the viewer's list of suspicions keep increasing till he/she suspects every other character of the film and gets confused. In the opening sequence itself, the viewer is introduced to the main problem of the plot- jewel burglaries imitating The Cat's fashion. 

In the next sequence itself, Mr.Robie is filmed from an iconic low angle shot giving an impression of a heightened sense of tension and also making Mr. Robie look like a villain. (see image 1 below) the real Cat is seen preparing a rifle for the cops and then taking to flight away from them. This raises a brow in the general viewer- Are the burglaries done by the real Cat or a copycat? Generally, one suspects Robie to start with.

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 One also becomes suspicious of the insurance agent, Hugheson(image 1 below) as he gets introduced as a thief as well. Next in line is Frances' mother, Jessie herself, (image 2 below) who cares least about her jewelries getting stolen; in fact she wants to lose them as a matter of excitement and adventure.

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Towards the end, at the Gala, by a logical causality, the viewer is forced to believe that the masked man accompanying Frances and her mother is  Mr. Robie himself till this view is broken later. It comes as the first proper moment of shock in the film that the masked man was actually the insurance agent, Hugheson because one can vouch for the fact that the masked man's voice definitely sounded like that of Mr. Robie.

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Talking of cycles and repetitions of time and/or space, Bellour has a lot to say about cyclicity in Hitchcock's narrative styles.

There is a stark similarity of the opening shots of a cat walking sly-ly over the rooftops in the dark of the night(see image 1 below) and the final one of Mr. Robie, the infamous cat burglar on a similar roof(see images 2 and 3 below), prowling over the copycat and waiting in the dark. This repetition of space is significant because one of the major motivations of this film is to attain a situation where the real Cat burglar can be seen in action. In turn, by equating a retired Mr. Robie to the cat, their relation till date is asserted; that Mr. Robie is still capable of being a cat burglar even after retiring, is hinted at.

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Another repetition of space and time occurs in the two almost ridiculous scenes where Mr. Robie is saved by the two women in his life in this film. At both times, he is reached to safety away from police eyes by the two women, both of whom he chides and taunts for being childish. Interestingly, during both the times, Mr. Robie is unaware of the intelligence of the women. In the first case, he is unaware of Danielle's real identity of being his copycat(see image 1 below). In the second case, Robie is unaware of the fact that Frances already knows his own real identity(see image 2 below). These motifs of identity crisis are important in the plot's construction and further confusion, as has been employed in Hitchcock's other films as well. 

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References:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23738803?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=to&searchText=catch&searchText=a&searchText=thief&searchText=hitchcock&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dto%2Bcatch%2Ba%2Bthief%2Bhitchcock%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-4631%2Fcontrol&refreqid=search%3A413db67edb94a51944ab1528a60f2dc0&seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents


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