Analyzing Feminine Beauty in Hitchcock's Cinema

“It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it” written by artist-historian, Laura Mulvey, she discusses the issues that arise when studying beauty. Examining and focusing on feminine beauty to the point of destroying it, has been a constant theme in cinema for decades. Director, Alfred Hitchcock’s has created 65 films in his 50-year long career, Hitchcock is now a common household name, being one of the most widely influential directors of the 20th century. Nicknamed “The Master of Suspense,” he made a name for himself by his incredible ability to visualize his subconscious fears and desires and turn them into a masterpiece. Throughout Hitchcock’s successful career, his films have a common theme of objectifying women through the

Freudian theory of Melancholia can be seen as an underlying theme. In 1917, Sigmund Freud wrote a paper that compared the phenomenon of mourning the loss of a loved one to the phenomenon of melancholia; the paper was titled “Mourning and Melancholia.” Freud characterizes melancholia as a “failed” mourning because of its tendency to replace the object of cathexis or the love of the lost object. The melancholia phenomenon is proving apparent once Madeline dies, Scottie begins the image of her in every woman; he is seeking a replacement for his lost love. According to Sigmund Freud, the conscious level of the human mind can be thought of as the tip of an iceberg, the rest mostly hidden in the unconscious. Freud believed that the unconscious mind consisted of personality aspects that the conscious mind was unaware of. A major aspect of psychoanalysis is one’s defense mechanisms. It is thought that defense mechanisms are used by the ego to protect a person from anxiety and unpleasant stimuli. Repression, the first defense mechanism that Freud discovered, is demonstrated in the film once Scottie begins unconsciously seeking a replacement for Madeline, by wandering the streets looking for Madeline. Instead of dealing with the loss, he represses Madeline’s death. Withdrawal, the tendency to escape or avoid something, is another psychoanalytic defense mechanism. This was demonstrated in the film by Scottie in response to Madeleine's supposed death. He has a 6-month emotional break, in which he is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He disengages by withdrawing from the world for a period of