While browsing through several reviews of "Dead Again," all of which noted that Kenneth Branagh's directing technique owed more than a little debt to the late Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, I came upon an observation by Jack Mathews of Newsday that was particularly interesting:
"Branagh said it was the preposterous nature of (the) script that drew him to the project . . . but Hitchcock didn't make anything remotely as preposterous as this one.""Preposterous" was also the word I used in my review - and "Dead Again" is certainly that. But it's Mathews' conclusion that caught my eye, the idea that Hitchcock never made anything as remotely as preposterous as "Dead Again."
If Mathews is saying that in his view "Dead Again" is much more preposterous than even Alfred Hitchcock's films, that's one thing. But the statement seems to imply that Hitchcock would never approach preposterous material. And that's simply not true.
When you think about it seriously, Hitchcock made a lot of preposterous movies. It's just that he was such an innovative filmmaker, such a mesmerizing stylist, such a great cinematic storyteller that hardly anyone minded.
Let's just take some of Hitchcock's most famous outings as examples:
"Vertigo": After James Stewart watches the woman he loves (Kim Novak) apparently fall to her death, he goes into mourning, until one day he happens upon another woman (Novak again) who resembles her. He picks her up and makes her over so that she is a physical duplicate of the first woman. Ultimately, however, we discover that the second woman has a tie to the death of the first. Part of the film's twist ending hangs on such unlikely assumptions as the idea that Stewart, as obsessed as he was with the woman who died, never picked up a newspaper or saw a photograph of the victim.
"Saboteur": Robert Cummings is pursued by Nazi sympathizers across America (itself a pretty wild plot device, even in 1942) and, in the film's climactic chase battles a bad guy atop the Statue of Liberty. Why would a rat allow himself to be chased into that particular corner?
"Notorious": In post-war Rio, American agent Cary Grant coerces the woman he loves (Ingrid Bergman) into working for the government. Things really heat up when she marries the former Nazi (Claude Rains) they are after.
"North By Northwest": Cary Grant embodies Hitch's favorite character, the innocent man on the run, which hangs on a coincidental occurrence - he just happens to stand up in a restaurant at the moment someone else's name is being called out. The villains think he's an agent, the police think he's a killer - and government agents who know better simply watch and observe. Grant also winds up battling the bad guys atop Mount Rushmore.
"Psycho": Perhaps Hitchcock's most universally famous film, with Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and "mother" doing in those unfortunates who happen by the Bates Motel. One of its lapses, however, is the unlikely assumption that no one in the nearby town - those who knew the Bateses - has ever driven by and seen "mother" in the window, since she seems to be up there all the time.
And there are more, of course - "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "Rear Window," "Marnie," "Strangers on a Train" - that could, similarly, be easily picked apart.
But my intent here is not to tear down Hitchcock. All of the films listed above are favorites of mine and are in my own video library.
The point is that if filmmakers are talented enough, the audience will be swept away, suspend its sense of disbelief and overlook questions of logic.
Hitchcock was so successful at making us sympathize with his characters and putting us on the edge of our seats that we never thought to wonder about all those obvious little things that might have saved the hero reels ago and cut the movie short.
All of this is not to say that "Dead Again" is up there with Hitch's best work. And Branagh's ruminations about reincarnation, along with the main plot about a 43-year-old murder that may reoccur because fate has reunited a pair of reincarnated souls, certainly are preposterous.
But "Dead Again" is wildly entertaining and for the bulk of its length manages to keep the audience off-balance enough that questions of logic are set aside. At least until we're back out in the real world again.
So, while it's true Hitchcock never really dealt with spiritual or ghostly material (the closest he came was "Rebecca"), is Branagh's film really that much more preposterous than anything Hitchcock did?
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Kevin Bacon, interviewed by Marc Shapiro in the September issue of Video Review magazine:
"I like the idea that a movie like `The Big Picture,' which did nothing in its theatrical release, is now being rediscovered on video. I feel `Tremors' is also finding a bigger audience, as is `Diner.' On the down side, people are also finding out that I did the first `Friday the 13th.' "
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Ray Harryhausen, special-effects wizard of the '50s and '60s, whose films include "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" and "Jason and Argonauts," interviewed by Michael H. Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
"The movies probably wouldn't accommodate me today. My wife and I try occasionally to catch up with the new films, but what passes for entertainment anymore is beyond me. I had to walk out on `The Silence of the Lambs,' for example. We didn't make our films to shock or terrify, although there may have been some scary moments - our aim was merely to fascinate."