Obama and Hitchcock; NY editorial compares the two

A word of apology. I was out of the office yesterday and used an app to post this piece.  It really did a number on it.  My apologies.  The app and I are parting company.  If anyone can recommend a good iOS app to post on blogger . . .

Mr. Obama and Mr. Hitchcock
Posted: 09/13/2011 11:29:34 PM EDT


Tuesday September 13, 2011



Alden Graves

When you care about someone or you want them to succeed or even if you are just a big fan, you tend to make excuses for them. It's a facet of human nature, I suppose. Maybe foible would be a better word. It isn't always an act of kindness and, in the case of our current president, it isn't always constructive if it constantly leads to a repetition of the same self-defeating behavior.

Alfred Hitchcock has acquired a legion of fanatic supporters who are willing to offer a cogent explanation for every dubious decision the Master ever made in his long career as a film director. I won't call them apologists because I'm enough a Hitchcock admirer to think that the man who directed "Shadow of a Doubt" and "Psycho" is hardly in need of excuses.

And Hitch himself wasn't inclined toward apologies. He generally cited only two instances in all of his 54 feature films that he regarded as regrettable errors: the child carrying the bomb on the city bus in "Sabotage" and the misleading flashback at the beginning of "Stage Fright." (He wasn't really deceiving his audience with the flashback sequence. It was told from the viewpoint of a liar, and there I go defending something that even Hitchcock regarded as a mistake.)

The blatantly obvious painted backdrop of the docked ship at the end of the street where Mrs. Edgar lives in "Marnie" was intentional, according to some serious analysts of Mr. Hitchcock's work. It was





meant to suggest the woman's claustrophobic existence. The airport sequence in "Torn Curtain," in which Paul Newman and Julie Andrews are supposedly deplaning in East Germany looks like a hastily rearranged exterior on a back lot at Universal because the director wanted to suggest the starkness of life in communist countries.

Aside from the economic factors involved (he produced many of his movies), Hitchcock hated location filming where factors that could not be as easily controlled as they could in a studio setting might interfere with his meticulous planning. There really was no motive -- other than saving money or maintaining control -- at play in "Marnie," "Torn Curtain," or any of the other films in which sensible compromises are apparent in the final product.

Before I attempt to make my tenuous connection between Alfred Hitchcock's movies and Barack Obama's politics, I would like to state a fact that can't be reiterated enough when the American public starts looking to assign blame on someone for the dire straits that the country is in:

Recorded history didn't start the day that Mr. Obama took office. He didn't create the mess that we are trying to extricate ourselves from. They were created in large part by the political philosophies of the group that is now howling the loudest about Obama's ineffectiveness. The same people who want any government aid that is expended on victims of the recent hurricane to be subtracted from some other part of the federal budget, didn't bat an eye when George W. Bush was dumping nearly a trillion taxpayer dollars down a black hole in the Middle East. Why? Because war is good business and lower middle class people generally are not.

The same people who are indignant about the fact that morally bankrupt big banks are finally being indicted for their crimes against millions of Americans were the ones in the forefront of Ronald Reagan's mania to unleash the same financial jackals. Reagan greased up the engine of deregulation and sent it hurtling down the tracks. Bill Clinton failed to heed warning signals that were flashing a bright red, and Bush Jr. sent it careening into the heart of middle class America, spitting fire and destruction every step of the way.

Republican apologists would like you to believe that it is far more complicated than that. My analogy is far too simplistic. You and I could never hope to understand the complex components that determine the financial health of the country. That's a good line for worming out of responsibility when the whole thing goes to hell, too.

Barack Obama has been playing against a very well-heeled, stacked deck since he first assumed office. He still doesn't betray too many signs that he understands that fact, and many of us, who pinned our hopes for America on him in 2008, are mighty tired of coming up with excuses for him. He's an intelligent man, not a heartless flunky for corporate America. I keep telling myself that. I keep telling myself that the pained backdrop at the end of Mrs. Edgar's street is something more than that. But it still looks an awful lot like a painted backdrop.

After a lot of juvenile jockeying for a time slot when Republicans could accommodate him, Obama made an impressive speech the other night. We'll have to wait and see how much of it he defends when the Republicans unleash their attack dogs, because restoring employment to millions of jobless Americans interferes with the Koch brothers' vision of a two-caste system. And -- I'm sorry, I forgot -- most of the unemployed are lazy good-for-nothings anyway who are living the high life on the public's dime.

Being liked seems to be a priority of this president even though it has relegated him to the status of mere observer while the GOP and their Tea Party subsidiary carve the heart out of a once compassionate nation.

Rick Perry got a big round of applause from the nice people in the audience at a Republican debate when it was noted that Texas has executed 234 people during his tenure as governor. From a guy who peddles religion the way Tammany Hall used to hand out five-dollar bills, it was an odd point to take pride in, but Mr. I Don't Care What Anyone Thinks positively beamed with sanctimonious pride. I'll add my own nod to religion: God help us all.

Alden Graves is a reviewer and columnist for the Banner.