Hitchcock’s Notorious in the Company of Antonio Damasio
Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious” is an amazing film with an extreme depth of field. The film goes very fast, like an express train, or a feverish dream. It emphasizes expressive and poetic theory as opposed to formulaic and plodding. “Notorious” becomes essentially abstract, like an outline of things much deeper, more secretive, and unspoken. This film is one of great emotion. One goes from the highs and lows, and then from ecstasy to tragedy and back again. Antonio R. Damasio wrote the article entitled “Descartes’ Error and the Future of Human Life.” Contained within this article Damasio offers a superb realization of the power of emotion. Through this emotion he elucidates a poetic intelligence in film that lights up the screen and creates one of the greatest movies of all time.Notorious’ setting is a result of the confused politics and morality, both personal and collective of the immediate post- World War II period in America. At the start of the film, Alicia, the leading lady, has just been confronted with the facts of her father’s war crimes of treason in collaboration with the Nazis. This father is carted off to jail, and a government agent, Devlin, starts tailing Alicia, the daughter. Alicia is infamous for comm . . .
” (60) Damasio believes that it is not true that reason stands to gain from operating without emotion. The first apartment scene, as they plan for dinner, is the peak of their romance in the film. Alicia, Devlin and Alex are always caught in the awkward moments between complete personal revelation and cautious, prudent or scared withdrawal. Then, it virtually disappears and dissolves as we draw toward the lovers. This film utilizes expressive dialogues such as two characters isolated, whether in an apartment, or during a party, or at a racecourse. In doing so, it does not take sides, in fact it identifies intensely with each character in turn, and sometimes all of them at once. Emotion originates from biological regulation of living organisms bent on surviving. Alicia and Devlin talk and kiss, implying more than they are actually saying. This is a world that demands adopting certain postures, manners, prepositions and disguises. Alicia will need to sleep her way into the inner-sanctum of a collection of scheming Nazis, via the bed of someone whom she knows from the past, Alex. There exists intense romantic and sexual tension between them as they await their orders but, finally, something has to give, and it does. When this dark romance is inserted into the larger politics-espionage-Nazi-unramum story that Notorious concocts, the fate of the entire free world is also at risk. In Notorious there is the constant drama of speech, of being heard and understood: conspiratorial speech in whispers, words as demands and invocations, as well as masks and evasions. The movie concludes with Alex being denied entrance into Devlin’s car on his way to the hospital with Alicia. A tense dance ensues: every time the two get near each other, one of them moves away.
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Acceptance Essays
