Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Obscure Hitchcock series is a block-buster

Voyeurism; necrophilia; blondes getting knifed to death in the shower by transvestite schizophrenics.

Good topics for Jerry Springer; better topics for Alfred Hitchcock. And all can be seen Winter Quarter at Northwestern University’s own Block Cinema.

The “The Film of Alfred Hitchcock” series began last week and will present works from the famed “master of suspense” on Friday nights throughout Winter Quarter. Highlights include some of the director’s best known works like “Psycho,” “Vertigo” and “Rear Window,”and a few lesser-known selections.

Now in its second year, Block Cinema has relied on a predominantly off-campus crowd but is looking to build a regular audience of students, said Will Schmenner, the cinema’s director. A Hitchcock series could do just that, he said.

“North by Northwest,” Hitchcock’s classic 1959 mistaken-identity thriller, drew a full house when it was screened during Fall Quarter, Schmenner said.

“I found that a lot of students came, (and) a lot of students hadn’t seen it,” he said. “A lot of students really liked it, and that’s what I want to happen all the time.”

The strong turnout prompted Schmenner to devote a quarter-long series to Hitchcock.

When the series opened Friday with a screening of “Foreign Correspondent,” about 50 moviegoers braved the single-digit temperatures to view one of the director’s less famous films. The piece centers on a journalist’s discovery of a spy ring in Europe during World War II.

“I like Hitchcock,” said Dave Pindel, of Chicago, who saw the screening listed on the Metromix Web site. “It’s something good to do on a cold night. (Hitchcock) is funny and creepy at the same time.”

On campus, students said they learned about the cinema’s schedule from flyers distributed around Norris.

“I’m a Hitchcock fan, and I’d never even heard of this movie,” said Cara Fosdick, a Weinberg junior, who made her first trip to Block for the screening.

A mix of well-known titles with more obscure films is central to Block’s mission, Schmenner said.

“I try to strike a delicate balance between getting people’s eyes and showing things they wouldn’t have the chance to see anywhere else,” he said.

Films exhibited are predominantly 35mm prints secured from archives around the country. Using the 35mm prints allows moviegoers to see projections of films, like those of Hitchcock, which are typically only seen today on video.

Schmenner said would argue that it is not only the superior quality of the image that 35mm provides but also the experience of watching a film in an audience that merits making the trip.

The theatrical experience is essential to Hitchcock’s films, which often concern themselves with the process of viewing, of being a part of an audience. His films often address the movie-making process itself, the act of voyeuristically watching others, said Radio-TV-film Professor Leslie Abramson, who is writing a book on those issues of Hitchcock.

“You could talk about ‘Rear Window’ as having very much to do with the operations of being a spectator, of viewing a film and engages issues of voyeurism,” she said. “Some critics have equated the operations of the Jimmy Stewart character with the operations of watching television, where you’re seeing different narratives taking place on different screens.”

Schmenner echoed those sentiments about the film.

“In many ways it’s about the process of viewing,” he said. “What can you know by looking out a window? What can you know by just seeing? You can’t hear, you can’t smell, you can only see and you can’t see everything.”

Of course, Hitchcock is also known for delving into the darker sides of the human psyche. “Vertigo,” for instance, follows a retired police detective as he falls deeper and deeper into an obsessive relationship with a dead woman. The protagonist of “Rear Window” is a wheelchair-bound photographer who passes the time by spying on his neighbors, and apparently observes a murder.

“All these films are from a specific period in American cultural history where Freud and pop psychology are huge,” Schmenner said.

Those same issues are prevalent in Block’s two other Winter Quarter series. Thursdays feature the “Dark Dreams: Film Noir and Abstract Expressionism” series. Titles in Saturday’s “The 1950s: Past and Present” series range from “Back to the Future” to “The Seven Year Itch” and “West Side Story.”

At first glance more modern films seem to depart from Block’s repertoire. But lest “Back to the Future” be overlooked as frivolous entertainment, Schmenner points out the Freudian themes in the movie. After all, he said, Marty McFly encounters his parents as hormonal teenagers.

“He’s sent back in time, and his mother wants to have sex with him!” he said. nyou

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Obscure Hitchcock series is a block-buster