The Artistic Vision of Hitchcock's Frenzy

The film Frenzy, by Alfred Hitchcock, is teeming with messages and ideas from its director on a variety of topics. Among all of them, one particularly prevalent theme that is hinted at throughout the story is Hitchcock's view of society. A large part of the movie is about characters that do not see eye-to-eye with one another, and we see how this affects their relationships and how these problems are mirrored in the greater context of the surrounding society. These myriad misunderstandings serve to drive the plot, but also give us an idea of what message lies at the heart of Frenzy. Yet this message is only clear when considering Hitchcock's highly personal and unique style of movie-making.

As we follow Richard Blaney throughout the movie, again and again we see a lack of trust in the people he encounters. The barkeep accuses him of thievery, the secretary sees him as very violent, Heddy Porter has no faith in his innocence, and Babs suspects him of murder after reading it in the newspaper. Even we lack trust in the morality of his character in the beginning, when we see Richard putting on the same tie that strangled the girl in the river. Hitchcock creates an environment for Richard where he simply can find no one to trust him, or to trust in. He tries to reconcile with his ex-wife, but ends up getting bogged down by old grudges he refuses to forget. Ultimately, in Richard's eyes, Rusk is the only friend that genuinely cares about his well-being. Of course, we as the audience know the twisted secrets of this ironic friendship, and by this knowledge, Hitchcock seems to be implying that in life, you really cannot trust anybody, and to think otherwise will only lead to feeling betrayed. The drab, unsatisfied lives that many of the characters lead seem to emphasize this lack of trust in one another-people, in general, seem very alone in this movie, regardless of the large, constantly moving populace of London.

Yet drab, unsatisfied, and lonely are merely the tip of the iceberg when describing the characters. Everyone seems to have dark secrets, many in stark
contrast to their seemingly innocent outward appearance. Hitchcock is known for portraying his characters this way, and often reveals to us a society of people that is surprisingly depraved when all the artificialities are removed. Richard, for example, is a very strange protagonist. True, he is wrongly accused of murder and we feel sorry for him. But it seems that he was once an abusive husband and now has become a sort of despicable 'loner' following an ugly divorce. Another example of dark secrets is seen near the beginning of the film in the bar where two men talk while waiting for a drink. Their discourse goes back and forth from speaking distastefully of the necktie murderer, to laughing about the rapes as if they fancied the idea. The scene even ends with one man commenting on how he hopes the murderer doesn't get caught, because the stories are exciting and good for tourism. There are double standards galore in this subtly disturbing scene. After a few scenes, we witness two women walk by the Blaney Bureau and shuffle away after hearing a scream inside. Go forward again to Bab's murder. The camera enslaves us as it backs out of the Rusk's apartment complex and shows us the building from the street. There is no scream, but Hitchcock hints at an intriguing question. If there were a scream, would anyone on the busy street stop and go up to help? Or would they simply continue on because they wanted nothing to do with it, as the women had done while walking by Blaney Bureau?

This corrupt nature is not simply confined to the characters in the story. If we observe our sentiments throughout the film, we may be surprised to find Hitchcock tricking us into sympathizing with the murderer. The scene on the back of the potato truck showcases Hitchcock's ability to twist the audience's feelings on a character, thereby holding a mirror to our face and asking us analyze our own hypocrisy. Throughout the scene, the camera is primarily trained on Rusk, giving us many close-ups of his face to show his emotions. In doing this, we begin to relate with the character, as the intrusive camera makes him, in a way, vulnerable. We suddenly sympathize with his dire feelings of the situation, and in some odd way, we almost find ourselves caught up in the excitement and hoping he doesn't get caught. Yet, how can we be sympathizing with a man who brutally murders women? What does that say about us? Hitchcock gives us an answer from the very beginning, as a government official is pledging to remove the "waste products of our society, with which for so long we have poisoned our rivers and canals." Following this, a woman floats in to the shore, dead. Perhaps through the official's words, Hitchcock is saying something about the worth of humans. The idea of poisoning is even mentioned when Rusk is talking to the potato farmer at The Globe bar. The farmer says growing potatoes is a poison, because they cost so much to care for and transport, and you hardly yield any profit when all is said and done. Consider this with the fact that Babs was stuck into a bag of potatoes, and you have an immediate correlation on her apparent worth in the director's eyes. The people of Frenzy do not seem to have much value in how Hitchcock portrays them. The film is really devoid of any hero or 'all-around-good-guy.' Instead, we see a city of people filled with confusion, cowardice, lust, fear, and ignorance-it is a society devoid of goodwill towards one another.

In addition to societal distrust and corruption, there also appears to be bad blood between both men and women in the film, a mutual disrespect for one another. Mrs. Blaney's secretary says you must keep your eye on men, and that they'll leave no stone unturned to satisfy their disgusting habits. A bellhop says that thinking of the lusts of men makes him sick. Mr. Oxford claims women will abandon their honor before abandoning their clothes. Rusk says many women that encounter trouble are just getting what they deserve. Again and again, characters lash out at the opposite sex. And Hitchcock does not just portray this abhorrence through dialogue alone. One scene shows Rusk in front of two paintings of women that seem to watch him with disdain (one is blue in the face, as though having a lack of oxygen). Even the opening scene of the movie pushes this idea when it shows a drawbridge opening up, symbolic of the many divisions of the film, most strongly seen between the men and women. Many of the problems seen in the film would be solved if these divisions were not present. But, as Hitchcock seems to imply, do we have the capacity to solve these problems? Or perhaps we are simply doomed by an inherently evil nature, and can do nothing to prevent it.

All this corruption and division that plagues the characters in the film makes it very hard to define who is the 'bad guy'. Rusk alone is not responsible for the murders. Hitchcock brings everyone into the equation, making everybody responsible. As the first victim we see washes up from the river, a man from the crowd sees that the tie she was strangled with is his club tie. Indirectly, he is now associated with the murder. The two men at the bar talk lightheartedly about the necktie murderer and do not really want him to be caught. Brenda Blaney refuses to help Rusk in his search for women, and her refusal to help could be pointed to as a catalyst for his sexual mania that brings about another horrendous murder. It would appear that Hitchcock is saying that Rusk is partially a product of the distorted society that he lives in. Perhaps there is a little bit of "Rusk" in everybody, intrinsic evil that we cannot rid ourselves of. This idea could be connected to the most abundant symbol in the film-the necktie. This simple object defines both the murdered and murderer. Throughout the movie, an observant eye sees many ties on many different types of people. The suggestion here comes in twofold. The people wearing the ties might be symbolically dead. This may relate to their jobs (government officials, police, office workers), or even their marriage and sexual satisfaction (the man who's marriage is counseled when we first go into Blaney Bureau). The second purpose of the ties is to show how everyone is guilty for the murders, that Rusk is not solely responsible for his actions.

The idea of everyone being guilty for something is an important idea that is central to Christianity. The original sin in the Garden of Eden is responsible for all the sins in the world, and we are all held equally responsible for that original sin. Hitchcock will, many times, draw upon his Catholic upbringing to interweave religious allusions into his movies, and Frenzy shows this very strongly. The place where Rusk works is virtually a garden of paradise, with every food and flower one could imagine. The first time we enter this 'garden' to see Rusk, he is eating an apple. The apple is conventionally the fruit that is used to describe the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate, bringing sin into the world and placing the guilt of this original sin on the heads of all who would come after them. The 'original sin' is caused when Rusk murders Brenda. This happens right after Rusk takes a bite out of an apple Brenda was already eating-very much in line with the biblical story, where Eve eats of the forbidden fruit first, and then Adam.

The entire story of Frenzy is, all in all, tied together as only Hitchcock can do. And his messages about society are interlaced in the visuals and dialogue in ways that can be seen similarly in many of his other films. The fact that Hitchcock is an auteur is without question, and this movie simply adds to his repertoire of films that give him this status. The story forces us to look at the society, at the individuals, and, perhaps most importantly, at ourselves, and discover things that we might be blind to otherwise. Near the end of the film, Mr. Oxford says to his wife, "Looks like we put the wrong man away this time." Her curt answer has a cutting edge to it, "What do you mean 'we'? You put him away." Hitchcock shows us a society where people refuse to take personal responsibility for their shortcomings, and from this ineptitude the society finds itself on a downward spiral. Certainly, the end of this film does not give us hope for the future, despite the fact that the murderer is caught. Rusk is only a small piece of a bigger picture, a parallel to the "macro to micro" traveling shot of London at the movie's beginning.