Published: 2020-12-31

Hitchcock, Blonde and the ‘Gaze’ (Characters Played by Grace Kelly)

Iwona Kolasińska-Pasterczyk
Załącznik Kulturoznawczy
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.21697/zk.2020.7.03

Abstract

The text is about Alfred Hitchcock’s informal trilogy with Grace Kelly: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. It binds together: crime motif, a male protagonist type posing an exciting challenge for a woman, and an impeccable blonde character (Margot, Lisa, Frances) reflecting the Hitchcock fantasy of the ‘covered with glaciers’. In each of these films, Hitchcock exposes the illusory nature of the spectacle with the model situation of the internal viewer (of stage, theater and film nature, based on the alternation of open/closed space). By introducing the character of an active, creative and empowered heroine, he reinterprets the model of ‘pure blonde’ in Hollywood cinema, the object of desire and the subject of the look – focused on her, reflecting her point of view, determined by
the vector of her gaze – indicates her autonomy and subjectivity, dependent
only from the image keeper, Hitchcock himself.

Keywords:

‘cool blonde’ type, the look, Hitchcock phantasms, subjectivity, point of view shot, spectator, methods of subjectification, forms of the performance, spectacle

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Citation rules

Kolasińska-Pasterczyk, I. (2020). Hitchcock, Blonde and the ‘Gaze’ (Characters Played by Grace Kelly). Załącznik Kulturoznawczy, (7), 63–92. https://doi.org/10.21697/zk.2020.7.03

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