Enjoyment of Fear/Fear of Enjoyment:
Why Hitchcock Makes Me Want to Quit Going to Movies
By Joel Gunz
What holiday is celebrated with more creative gusto than
Halloween? Each year sees an effort to outdo the previous
year's celebration by creating freakier, tweakier, and just
plain creepier costumes and yard decorations. A person's
GQ (ghoul quotient) ranking is calculated by measuring the
square inches of skin covered in body paint and subtracting
the amount that is covered by thrift store fabric swatches.
The results can be truly scary.
After discovering that people want to feel afraid,
Alfred Hitchcock made millions off of this impulse. In an
article entitled "The Enjoyment of Fear," he wrote:
"Millions of people every day spend huge sums of money
and go to great hardship merely to enjoy fear….
The boy who walks a tightrope or tiptoes along the top of
a picket fence is looking for fear, as are the auto racer,
the mountain climber, and the big-game hunter."
The director identified two distinct kinds of fear: suspense
and terror. Suspense is the prolonged feeling of anxiety
that accompanies a sense of impending doom, whereas terror
is a sudden feeling of fear. To illustrate these two types
of fear, he pointed to the two kinds of explosives used
during World War II -- the suspense-provoking buzz bomb
and the terror-inducing V-2.
"The moments between the time the [buzz bomb's] motor
was first heard and the final explosion were moments of
suspense. The V-2, on the other hand, was noiseless
until its moment of explosion. Anyone who heard a V-2 explode,
and lived, experienced terror…. On the screen,
terror is induced by surprise; suspense, by forewarning."
Hitchcock wrapped up his analysis with the following:
"Suspense and terror cannot coexist. To the extent
that the audience is aware of the menace or danger to the
people it is watching -- that is, to the extent that suspense
is created -- so is its surprise (or terror) at the eventual
materialization of the indicated danger diminished."
2. Fear of Enjoyment
C. S. Lewis also pointed out two related experiences that
cannot coexist. Citing S. Alexander's theories set out in
"Space, Time and Deity," Lewis stated that one
cannot "enjoy" something and "contemplate"
it at the same time. He explains it this way:
"These are technical terms in Alexander's philosophy;
'Enjoyment' has nothing to do with pleasure, nor 'Contemplation'
with the contemplative life. When you see a table, you 'enjoy'
the act of seeing and 'contemplate' the table…. In
bereavement, you contemplate the beloved and the beloved's
death and, in Alexander's sense, 'enjoy' the loneliness
and grief." 1
Thus, Alexander's theory is roughly equivalent to Hitchcock's.
Terror is the experience or "enjoyment" of fear,
whereas suspense is the "contemplation" of it.
When I go to a wine tasting event and "enjoy,"
say, a Yamhill County Pinot Noir, my attention is directed
outward to the wine. On the other hand, when I "contemplate"
the wine, such as when someone asks me to describe what
I am tasting and I say, "Wow. The nose is redolent
of Bing cherries and dried figs," in that moment I
am not thinking about the wine per se, but of its effect
on me -- its aroma, flavor, etc. Hence, contemplation of
that wine is directed inward, back to me, away from the
Pinot Noir.
That's why, as Lewis says, "enjoyment" and "contemplation"
cannot occur at the same time. We can oscillate back and
forth between the two, but they cannot coexist. And, sadly,
wine tastings are all too often about "contemplation"
and not "enjoyment." And, whether one has read
Lewis or not, most people see that sort of anti-enjoyment
for what it is: egocentrism.
It's easy to confuse the "contemplation" of pleasure
with "enjoyment" - just as it is easy to confuse
suspense with terror. Think of that wine aficionado who
goes to a wine tasting, talks up a storm about a Pinot's
virtues (or, worse, lack thereof), and goes away thinking
he "enjoyed" some wine, when, at best, he "enjoyed"
his consumption of it. In a fundamental way, that individual
has passed up an opportunity to truly live. As Lewis would
say, he is looking at the by-product of an experience and
confusing it with the experience itself. While everyone
scoffs at wine snobs, the fact is we've all made the same
sort of mistake.
On the other hand, the opposite experience is likely to
occur at the movies. One engages in fantasy, surrendering
so completely to the images flickering on the screen that
the experience resembles one of uninterrupted "enjoyment."
The audience sits mute and passive before that barrage of
images and sound forms, submitting to the inexorable loop
of film clicking through the projector. It enters a state
of seeming "enjoyment," with that whirling strip
of celluloid2 never letting up even for a moment to allow
for "contemplation."
That's why when a movie calls up feelings that are too
intense (usually, it's some form of fear), viewers may force
themselves into the "contemplative" mode, which
allows them to remember that "it's only a movie."
That transition, however, doesn't occur easily - it's literally
like trying to wake from a bad dream.3 This is what makes
Hitchcock's cameos so interesting: They "pinch"
the audience for a moment, allowing us that breath of "contemplation,"
reminding us that "it's only a movie."
The problem here is that movies are not real experiences
any more than a desert mirage is a real oasis. When two
characters kiss in a movie, what we actually experience
is not a real kiss but flickering light patterns that look
like kissing. (The famous love scene between Ingrid Bergman
and Cary Grant in "Notorious" [1946], as moving
as it may be, cannot escape the harsh reality that those
two actors are dead.) It's just a movie, an ersatz experience
of "enjoyment." But the audience responds as if
it IS real, and is thus as deluded as if in a dream.
Compounding matters, film, unstoppable in the projection
booth, circumvents the "contemplation" phase,
which acts as a bulwark against such delusions.4
When people talk about being fully "present,"
or in "The Moment," they are often trying to express
that state wherein contemplative pleasure is displaced by
a state of connectedness to another thing (i.e.,"enjoyment").
It defies interpretation because it is opposed to "contemplation."
It just IS. They are moments in which one gets to rub shoulders
for a short time with Reality. Abraham Maslow called them
"peak- experiences." C. S. Lewis simply called
it "Joy." Eastern philosophers and others call
it "at-onceness".5
But here's the rub: Maslow warned against seeking peak-experiences
through artificial means, such as drug abuse or casual sex,
for it can lead to pathological behavior.6 "Instead
of being 'surprised by joy,' he says, "'turning on'
is … hustled into being, and can get to be regarded
as a commodity."7 This leads to a selfish pursuit of
these experiences -- the opposite of outward-directed at-oneness.
Film, by virtue of its artificiality, could be added to
that list of commodified experiences. Think of the "chick
flick," the "feel good" movie, and other
screen genres that are as tailored for specific kinds of
psychological results as a designer drug. Audiences buy
into the movie as if it were real. But they are deluded.
Hitchcock was sharply aware of the delusional nature of
film. One of the final scenes in "Sabotage" (1936)
takes place in the auditorium of a movie theater. The audience
is laughing at the onscreen violence of the Walt Disney
cartoon "Who Killed Cock Robin?" Even Mrs. Verloc
(Sylvia Sydney) disengages from "contemplating"
her bereavement over the loss of her brother Stevie (Desmond
Tester) to join in the laughter, but the mass delusion is
only faux "enjoyment.".
Stevie had been killed by a bomb concealed in a film can
supposedly bearing a movie ironically entitled "Bartholomew
the Strangler." Audiences had built up sympathy for
the little boy, and when the suspense - or, contemplation
of fear -- regarding whether or not he would dispose of
his lethal cargo before the detonator went off ended in
his death, audiences were scandalized. Critics pilloried
the director. And the movie was less than successful at
the box office.
What went wrong?
In his article, Hitchcock spoke of an "implied guarantee
given the audience that it shall not 'pay the price' for
its fear."
"The pleasant fear sensation experienced by a roller-coaster
rider as the car approached a sharp curve would cease to
exist if he seriously thought for one minute that the car
might really fail to negotiate the curve."
Of course, movie audiences are completely safe, and they
know that any violence on screen is just a fiction. So they
transfer that sense of implied safety to those characters
with whom they identify. Hitchcock continues:
"As the audience's sympathy for a character is built
up, that audience assumes that a sort of invisible cloak
to protect the wearer from harm is being fitted. Once the
sympathies are fully established and the cloak is finished,
it is not … fair play to violate the cloak and bring
its wearer to a disastrous end…. Under this set of
circumstance, [Stevie] was protected by his cloak from premature
explosion of the bomb. I blew him up anyway."
So Hitchcock broke a dramaturgical rule. Still, the resulting
outrage of the audience and critics appears incongruent
with the fact that it was "just a movie." In other
words, why all the hoopla? Because that "invisible
cloak" rule hinges on the audience imputing a kind
of conditional reality to the characters onscreen. To audiences,
Stevie wasn't just a flickering black-and-white shadow.
He was, in their mind, a real flesh-and-blood little boy.
Hitchcock summoned his prodigious storytelling skills to
make it so. And then he annihilated that construct.
As film critic Anthony Lane puts it, "It is impossible
to tell, with Hitchcock, where fear ends and fantasy begins;
indeed, the two are twisted together for strength, like
the cords of a rope."8
Like a heavyweight boxer picking a fight in a barroom,
Hitchcock overreached with his abilities in "Sabotage,"
taking advantage of his audience's submissiveness to truly
terrorize them. He disregarded the fact that people go to
movies to escape reality. Instead, he threw reality right
back in their face.
Retreating into the darkness of the theater to engage in
the make-believe "enjoyment" of a film also entails
retreating from opportunities to "enjoy" genuine
experiences -- and the opportunities for "contemplation"
that go along with them. No wonder media-saturated societies
are also observed avoiding self-reflection at all costs.9
Hitchcock's dictum that the audience "shall not 'pay
the price' for its fear" may not be entirely accurate.
The audience does, in fact, pay a price. The price of enjoyment
of fear is paid with a fear of enjoyment.
Looking at it that way, no wonder I feel an increasing
desire to step away from the warmth of my DVD player and
feel the chill of the real world. Thanks, Hitch.
---------
Joel Gunz's column for The Anvil usually has something to
do with Alfred Hitchcock, film philosophy, and stuff like
that.
1.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life,C.
S. Lewis, 1955. Quotes are taken from The Essential C.
S. Lewis, page 44, 45 and thereabout.
2. Or whatever
they make film out of these days.
3. Fantasy
of that intensity doesn't occur as strongly in live theater,
for example, because the audience has a direct relationship
with the characters -- and the actors who portray them.
An actor can even "break character" and turn to
the audience in an "aside" without interrupting
the flow of the play. The audience, in fact, needs to work
to maintain the illusion that the events on stage are real.
When "Our Town" is performed on a bare stage,
and the stage manager keeps interrupting the show to provide
commentary, we easily step in and out of the fantasy, shifting
from enjoyment to contemplation. As such, live theater exists
by group consensus. The audience participates by joining
with the actors in creating the illusion of a fictional
world. Film, on the other hand, does all the work itself.
The audience merely has to show up and turn its cell phones
off to be swept away to a fictional world of the filmmakers'
creation.
4. Maybe that's
why childhood is considered to be a time of bliss. Lacking
an appreciation for the concept "it's just a movie,"
children don't have the capacity for "contemplation"
that adults have; as a result, they have a period of uninterrupted
"enjoyment."
5. I'm starting
to approach the margins of my knowledge here, but here's
my understanding of this terra that is, for me, not-so-cognita:
the terms "at-oneness" and "at-onceness"
are both in use, and convey (I think) slightly different
shades of meaning. "At-oneness" (so I've heard)
has to do with a feeling of being "at one" with
another entity. It's like the state an artist goes into
while drawing a picture of an apple. The rest of the world
deliquesces into a fog of non-existence as his world becomes
that apple. Conversely, "at-onceness" seems to
be more inclusive. It's the state of being "at one"
with Life, The Universe and Everything - all at once. The
space/time/causality nexus all gets rolled up into one timeless
moment. Sort of like Jack's apartment in Three's Company.
As a drummer, I sometimes have that experience when I'm
in a solid groove with a band. It occurs when I'm running
on all eight cylinders. The song seems to go on forever.
I forget all about myself, the beat, the trumpet player
who cut into my solo last night, whatever. The music flows
right through me, and I am scarcely aware of it. In a single
moment it is over, and all I can do is grin like a dope.
It's a hit-or-miss phenomenon that musicians often describe
as a gift.
6. Religions,
Values, and Peak-Experiences, Abraham Maslow, 1970,
preface, page x.
7. Maslow also
says: "Spontaneity (the impulses from our best self)
gets confused with impulsivity and acting out (the impulses
from our sick self), and there is then no way to tell the
difference." In contrast to most Hollywood films that
follow a canned plot exposition, Hitchcock's famous plot
twists serve to create the illusion of spontaneity. But,
again, it's just an illusion. The audience has (impulsively)
chosen to get those thrills and twists and turns, selecting
a Hitchcock movie over, say, an MGM musical for the night's
entertainment.
8. The New
Yorker, Alfred Hitchcock August 16, 1999.
9. See Four
Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Jerry Mander,
1977.
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