The Painted Jester: Notes on the Visual Arts in Hitchcock's Films

Abstract

The overt and subtle references to art and artistry in Alfred Hitchcock's films embody further evidence, if any more needs to be added to the already superabundant body, of the versatile genius of cinema's Master of Suspense. Artworks with plot import that appear in Blackmail (1929), Spellbound (1946), The Paradine Case (1947), I Confess (1952), The Trouble with Harry (1955), Topaz (1969), and other famous and often unheralded Hitchcock movies reveal a sensitivity to the visual arts that richly complement the director's signature concerns for mistaken identity, ambiguous morality, romantic drama, and objects-as-subjects. References to Michelangelo's The Pieta in Topaz, Dalí's surrealism in Spellbound, abstract expressionism in The Trouble with Harry, and the female gaze of Manet's Olympia in Blackmail make analysis of the impact of art and artistry in Hitchcock's films welcome fodder for novices and aficionados alike.

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