Word: hitchcock
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...most nerveless member of the company, of course, is Bing himself. He often pulls a Hitchcock and turns up onstage as a breastplated soldier in Eugen Onegin or leading the soldier's band in Faust. But he is really a frustrated conductor. In the theater, in the subway, walking along the street, his hands are continually dancing as he sings and hums some aria playing through his mind (he also knows the words and music to more than 1,000 lieder, continually amazes the singers by quoting snatches of librettos from obscure operas). At night, sitting in his office...
...premise is finally revealed: without telling Andrews, physicist Newman plans to stage a mock defection to East Berlin to pry a formula from the brain of a Communist physicist, a formula necessary for the completion of Newman's own missile project. It becomes apparent that Hitchcock will use the nightmare world of East Berlin to test the lovers. Like many of his recent films, Torn Curtain is essentially a romantic character study, a realization that adds to the excellence of the first half of the film...
...importance of the first half, however, cannot be overestimated, as it shows Hitchcock at a point of maximum control of his medium. Breaking new ground in color photography, he has filmed Torn Curtain without direct lighting. Instead, he has used reflected light, bounced off a white screen on the set. This reduces the color contrasts, putting much of the film into lush soft-focus, and almost eliminating unnecessary shadows...
...continues in Torn Curtain to experiment with visual romanticism: Julie Andrews is chastized by Newman on an airplane and as she lowers her head sadly, the camera while dissolving to the next scene begins to blur, as if tears were clouding the lens. Suddenly Hitchcock cuts sharply to the airplane door loudly opening, revealing the East Berlin airport. It is an unnerving return to reality, a visual refusal to give his heroine any means of escape...
...catalogue of the scenes and moments in the first half that reveal Hitchcock's genius would fill a notebook. The fact remains that if Alfred Hitchcock filmed the telephone book, anyone seriously interested in film would have to see it. If the total impression of Torn Curtain is disappointing, it is still one of the most fascinating American films in recent years. Anyway, it's Hitchcock's fiftieth film. Which makes it an event of some importance no matter how you look...