Catholic overtones

Feelings of guilt and an attendant impulse to confess haunt Hitchcock's films, a feature which led the 1950s Cahiers du Cinéma critics to identify a Catholic discourse in his work. The Catholic overtones are present in the narrative structure: nearly always, after the confession, a character must then face an ordeal, as if penance must be done before redemption can be achieved in the secular form of a happy ending. In other words, confession is not just therapeutic, but also potentially redemptive, and the flawed or blocked confessions in Hitchcock's work are to a greater or lesser extent harmful to the continuing happiness of his characters. By tracing the ways in which the interlocked themes of guilt and confession occur throughout Hitchcock's films, I would like to interrogate the Cahiers position.

THE LODGER illustrates the narrative structure at an early stage, but is of major interest because the film, like the later SPELLBOUND and MARNIE, is dealing with unconscious guilt. Indeed, when the Lodger explains to Daisy why he is hunting the Avenger, he may not even be aware that this is a confession. But the murder of his sister which we see in the ensuing flashback may clearly be read as his unconscious wish. We know he has powerful feelings for her (➢ PORTRAITS) and she was killed whilst dancing with him at her coming-out ball: the point where she became available for other men. The Avenger in this scene (his first murder) thus seems like the Lodger's dark alter ego, and we could see the Lodger's pursuit of the man as, in part, an attempt to assuage his own unconscious guilt. After his ‘confession’, the Lodger is pursued by an angry crowd who think that he is the Avenger, a pursuit which ends with him hanging on some railings in a posture which evokes the crucifixion. Savagely attacked by the crowd, he then spends some time in hospital recovering. In both the evocation of the crucifixion and the ordeal itself, the Catholic theme is evident.