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 committing a misdemeanor like a harlot. She throws herself, over and over, against the rocky reefs of Devlin. She is a modern, post-war woman. Alicia is a hostess, and flirts with the fantasy of domesticity, and of being a wife: "Marriage must be wonderful," she says, "With this sort of thing going on every day." She wants to believe all that, but maybe she's not so sure. She needs the proof of love, commitment and trust from Devlin, if she's really going to have to give up being promiscuous. But at the same time, she's driven towards the flame of love. Alex is a very interesting character who was developed as deceitful an...