Torn Curtain

Alfred Hitchcock describes most movies as "pictures of people talking." But he considers his own films "pure cinema," meaning storytelling through montage, the art of putting shots together to convey an idea to his audience. Hitchcock emphasizes this visual concept of film-making whenever he discusses his own films, and in seeing his fiftieth, Torn Curtain, it would be wise to take the hint.

For at least the first hour, Torn Curtain is one of the most visually complex and subtle films ever made. The Master establishes suspense, atmosphere, and minute characterizational detail with editing and color camerawork. In manipulating the reactions of the audience he knows so well, Hitchcock quietly (and romantically) uses point-of-view shots to switch character emphasis, soft and distorted focus to heighten tension, soundtrack modulation to isolate the important, and back-projection (when a scene is played in front of a projected background) to subtly increase intimacy.

These are only a few of the devices in Hitchcock's immense technical vocabulary. To see how he uses them--and his 42 years experience--you have to keep your eyes open. Since Hitchcock is probably the consummate artist in the field of narrative film, any student of Torn Curtain is well-rewarded for his effort.

But probably not satisfied.

For the first time since 1950 (with Stage Fright), Hitchcock has filmed a B-picture script. Screenwriter Brian Moore fails to create a well-motivated plot, or even convincing cloak-and-dagger device. Like most of Hitchcock's "adventure" films, as he describes them, Torn Curtain's script is built around set-pieces: climactic scenes like the Mt. Rushmore sequence in North by Northwest or the music-hall finale in The 39 Steps. But with one magnificent exception, a grisly murder scene that borders on the hilarious, Torn Curtain's set-pieces don't work.

A bus chase that Hitchcock milks for suspense fails because the audience's attention is allowed to wander from the heroes, Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, to the previously unseen leader of an underground group. Also, the suspense menace (another pursuing bus) is not made convincingly menacing. The climactic theatre sequence where Newman and Andrews avoid the East Berlin police by creating a fire disturbance shows Hitchcock efficiently going through his paces--he has filmed variations of the same scene in four earlier pictures--but without his usual inventiveness. The final ocean-liner scene, where the fleeing physicists are found hiding in the costume baskets of a Czech ballet troupe, seems overly obvious considering it comes from Hitchcock.

Still, does lack of suspense matter? Hitchcock is more than a suspense-machine and a technician; his films reflect the work of a mature artist and contain great thematic depth and consistency. Using his familiar hero, the ordinary man plunged unexpectedly into a nightmarish world of melodrama, Hitchcock will allow the nightmare to bring about changes in his heroes: thematically, North by Northwest is about the redemption of a useless individual, The Man Who Knew Too Much about the emergence of a husband's desire to dominate his wife.

Torn Curtain takes Hitchcock into new territory. With the first scene between Newman and Andrews, Hitchcock establishes their love affair as stabler and healthier than those in his previous films. The love scene is composed entirely of close-ups of them together. But almost immediately, by using out-of-focus camerawork and contrasting their points-of-view in his editing, Hitchcock begins to separate them visually, to put strain on the stability of their relationship.

The 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.

But Torn Curtain ultimately fails because the conflicts between Newman and Andrews are neatly resolved at the halfway mark. Once Newman has his formula, Torn Curtain becomes blatant chase melodrama. There is no more characterization and the emphasis switches from Newman and Andrews to the supporting characters involved in the escape from East Berlin: the leader of the Resistance bus, a Polish ex-countess with problems, a villainous ballerina.

The 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.

He 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.

A 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 at it.