Solving the Mystery: The Pursuit of Truth Through Darkness

Because Hitchcock is an auteur, he treats each scene and character with craft and ensures that everything projected onto the screen is purposeful to the plot and experience shared by viewers. This discussion will focus on the sequence when Scotty Ferguson begins his serious pursuit of Madeleine Elster starting from outside the flower shop and concluding with the museum scene. This sequence paints the growing magnitude of the mystery and Scotty’s complicated psyche involved in uncovering the truth of Madeleine. Throughout this sequence, a number of filmmaking decisions and techniques make an ordinary mystery gradually become grander. As well, Hitchcock’s reliance on subjectivity compels the viewer to get caught up in Scotty’s relentless pursuit of the truth.

The visual contrast in each scene between lightness and darkness works to enhance the notion that while the pursuit of truth is necessary to self-fulfillment, the mind endures a dark and frightening journey for truth and is conflicted and hesitant in pursuing it. Hitchcock represents this in each scene by having Scotty walk through darkness into lightness. During the moments of darkness, Scotty is a figure lurking in the shadows. The shadows represent the viewers and Scotty literally being “kept in the dark” about where Madeleine is going and what she is doing. It also portrays Scotty as voyeuristic and thus leads viewers to question whether his and their motives and pursuit of truth are valid or even ethical.

Hitchcock’s use of music in transitioning between dark and light is consistent with this notion. The music is foreboding and creepy in scenes of darkness and becomes somewhat hopeful yet still prudent in scenes of light. And through each one of Scotty’s trails through darkness into light he learns something new. As he creeps through the shadows behind the door to the flower shop he discovers Madeleine has a sentimental longing for someone or something. When he walks through the dark church towards the graveyard he discovers that Madeleine has an emotional connection to Carlotta Valdes. And as he makes his way through the shadowy hallway of the museum to the showcase room he learns of a visual connection between Madeleine and Carlotta. The visual representation of Scotty’s hesitance in learning of the truth is best shown in this scene when he walks out of the showcase room back towards the shadows. Scotty nearly trips over his feet as he begins walking while still focusing on the painting of Carlotta. To the viewers this says that in Scotty’s mind the truth of the mystery is too much for him to handle and seemingly overwhelming. It is so overwhelming that Scotty must return to the darkness expressed through the hallway shadows of the museum and relieve himself mentally that what he’s seeing is actually true. He even confirms this fear of truth by asking the museum attendant the name of the girl in the painting.

Hitchcock’s juxtaposition of settings also works to make the mystery of Madeleine a mind-boggling and frightening experience for both Scotty and the viewers alike. The mystery transitions from one that is very alive and believable to one that is beyond dead and perhaps in the history books. As Scotty follows Madeleine, we move from a flower shop to a church, and then from a graveyard to a museum. And through this journey Scotty perceives Madeleine differently solely because of her surroundings and the mise en scene used to communicate this. At the flower shop, Madeleine is perceived as an ordinary American consumer and the archetype of a woman simply in love of flowers. At the flower shop Madeleine is surrounded by life in the form of flowers bursting with color and vibrancy. Then as Madeleine walks through a church the mood is transitioned from physical life and becomes spiritual and heavenly. This leads to the graveyard scene which expresses a deathly, decaying atmosphere. And the museum scene concludes this sequence by providing a larger-than-life (or larger-than-death) development in Scotty’s pursuit of truth. Hitchcock utilizes the mise en scene to his advantage here by transcending the mood from one that was ordinary, spiritual and then dead in the former scenes to one that is now hauntingly ancient and historical. The scene starts off with Scotty staring at two centuries-old historical paintings of a king and a group of kids writing on a piece of parchment.

Hitchcock then visually sandwiches Scotty between these paintings as if he is metaphorically stuck in a mystery of historical significance with ancient roots. The music even uses brass to highlight the significance of the mystery’s historical turn. Then when Scotty identifies the similarities between the painting and Madeleine, the mystery officially transcends all physical, tangible expectations for Scotty and viewers alike and is indeed quite shocking.

In Scotty’s pursuit of truth, Hitchcock succeeds in making detectives out of viewers themselves as the camera subjectivity is used so frequently that viewers become as involved with the mystery as Scotty. The nature of this sequence is dependent on what Scotty sees and what Scotty learns. Hitchcock explores this subjectivity and makes viewers just as confused and intrigued by the mystery as Scotty through the use of eye-line matches. Almost every shot in this sequence is either of Scotty staring or what Scotty is staring at.

One instance is when Scotty is driving around following Madeleine’s car. First we see a medium close-up on Scotty staring through the windshield and then always after this shot we get a subjective view through the windshield. The best example of subjective eye-line match is in the museum when Scotty draws the connection between Madeleine’s flowers and the identical flowers in the painting. Right after showing Scotty staring at the flowers, the camera zooms on the flowers and then tilts to reveal the flowers in the painting. Afterwards we see that Scotty too is now looking at the painting. This economical style of filmmaking emphasizes our current connection with the protagonist. We are seeing what he is seeing exactly the way he is seeing it.

This idea of connecting with the protagonist directly influences our idea of truth in the film. When Scotty walks through the shadows of doubt we are there with him. Each clue Scotty learns of the viewer learns at exactly the same time. This sequence has no dramatic irony in that sense. And like Scotty constantly trying to find truth through darkness, Hitchcock conveys a sense of truth through his cinematography and shot selection.

Hitchcock almost always shoots Scotty in medium close-ups or close-ups so that the audience has an easier time identifying with Scotty and is comfortable joining him on his quest for truth. Madeleine is almost always shot in either extreme long-shots or long shots until the scene progresses and we learn something new. Madeleine starts out a foreign character that we cannot trust in each scene. As we become more comfortable with her in terms of discovering clues and learning the truth, Hitchcock shoots her in medium shots and medium close-ups. Therefore the closer the character is in the shot, the more trust the viewer has with the character and the easier it is to connect with that character. Later in the film when Madeleine becomes a major character and is shot in close-ups and medium close-ups, it is easy to understand both our own and Scotty’s disillusionment with the truth. We simply cannot trust this woman because the way she is shot in this particular sequence.

Relative to the rest of the film, the significance of this sequence indicates that Hitchcock’s detached shot selection for Madeleine is a signal to viewers that she is not what she seems to be. With this sequence Hitchcock trains viewers on how to see the film and which characters to identify with. And consequently this sequence is highly influential on how we experience the mystery and prepares us for an extraordinary revelation.

Carmen Wexler is a Senior Writer for The Film Crusade.