UNDER CAPRICORN B-
Great Britain (117
mi) 1949
d: Alfred Hitchcock
I was literally
intoxicated at the thought of the cameras and flashbulbs that would be directed
at [Ingrid] Bergman and myself at the London airport. All of these externals
seemed to be terribly important. I can only say now that I was being stupid and
juvenile.
— Alfred Hitchcock in his interview with François
Truffaut
Something of a mixed bag for Hitchcock, UNDER CAPRICORN is a
confounding picture, most of it shot in London and the English countryside, the
last real costume drama Hitchcock ever filmed, without the signature thrill or suspense
element, as no murders occur at all, but it’s a film that contains a familiar
exploration of the power dynamics in relationships, in this case a marriage, and
a movie which is at center a women’s melodrama, like BLACKMAIL (1929), REBECCA (1940),
Suspicion
(1941), NOTORIOUS (1946), and Marnie
(1964). Hitchcock planned to shoot this
film before ROPE (1948), but delayed for a year due to the commitments of its
movie star, Ingrid Bergman, who was at the time the most popular movie actress
in America. This film would never have
been made without her, yet her infamous decision to leave Hollywood to have an
affair with Roberto Rossellini in Italy certainly undermined the film’s chances
of success at the box office, where it tanked, and the bank that financed it
reclaimed the picture, where it remained unseen in a state of limbo for years. Despite some very interesting aspects to the
movie, where Hitchcock continues his experimental use of long takes that he
began in ROPE, there’s also a glum and downbeat aspect to the story that may
alienate many viewers, yet there’s also some tense underlying psychological
gamesmanship going on that remains quite intriguing, in particular Hitchcock’s
exploration of class differences, a key theme that runs throughout the
film. Taking place in the British colony
of Australia in the 1830’s, a cruel period of history when the use of prison
labor was rampant, as was the continued mistreatment of this lower working
class, continually threatened to be sent back to prison, where the British
aristocracy was at the time more concerned with the appearance of law and order,
where the skewed narrowness of their vision is perceived as brutal and coercively
criminal in its failure to recognize or administer any outward sense of justice. Despite the privileged class distinction
of education and wealth, and in some cases family nobility, this does not
translate to wisdom or respect. Instead,
from the opening shot, what’s apparent is how aloof and indifferent the British
government remains from ordinary Australian citizens, completely ignorant of their
history or local customs. The film takes
place in this fog of ignorance which pervades over the land with a ghostly
presence.
The presumed hero of the film is Michael Wilding as Charles
Adare, the privileged and effete cousin of the British Governor (Cecil Parker),
who sets out to make a fortune in Australia with little more than a noble
birthright. By accident, he runs into
one of the wealthy landowners at the bank, Joseph Cotton as Sam Flusky, where
many of the most prosperous citizens are emancipated former convicts, immediately
accepting an invitation to his mansion for dinner, defying the Governor in doing
so, as he was warned against this former convict’s savagery. The appearance of the home is given such an
aura of artificiality that it’s almost dreamlike, where the viewer quickly
understands that whatever this movie is about likely takes place inside, where
there are several lit windows, and as Adare arrives, he pokes his head inside each
one where a different melodrama is unfolding, where the lady of the house is
too ill to attend and servants in the kitchen are actually being whipped by a
housemaid. In something of an amusing
theme, every arriving male guest begs forgiveness for the sudden urgent
business of their wives who unfortunately couldn’t attend, something Adare
seems to take delight in hearing, as he’s getting a bit of the local custom
straightaway. The dinner is interrupted
by the sudden appearance of the lady of the house, Ingrid Bergman as Lady
Henrietta, who does a kind of sleepwalk routine where her disturbed mind obviously
lies elsewhere, but inexplicably she and Adare were childhood friends in
Ireland, something that seems to give her momentary pleasure before she
disappears back upstairs to the bedroom.
Due to her extended mental lapse, the house is actually being run by the
housemaid, Milly (Margaret Leighton), perhaps overly zealous in her position,
as she has the ear of Sam, filling it with Iago-like gossip, where we
eventually discover she’s secretly poisoning the lady of the house with alcohol
and bad advice, all designed to dilute her power and drive her to madness,
leaving Milly in charge. Adare sizes up
this dysfunctional balance of power and attempts to rehabilitate Henrietta to
her rightful place running the house, but she’s continually undermined by Milly’s
devious methods.
While the Cahiers du
Cinéma crowd were especially fond of this film, largely due to the technical
expertise exhibited in advancing the narrative, so is Peter Bogdanovich, who
actually claims it is one of the director’s best films, but they are in a minority
view, as others find the film lacking in dramatic power, much ado about
nothing, without any likeable characters, where Sam is overly defeated, morosely
feeling he’s lost his wife forever, where Wilding in particular, supposedly
Irish without an Irish accent, is singled out for his pompous arrogance in his
contempt for the established British authority, a sign of his own unique privilege,
but also his entitlement when it comes to Henrietta, believing he can have her
all to himself if he can nurse her back to the living. While it plays out like an old-fashioned chamber
drama, the film has two things going for it.
One is Ingrid Bergman, where the atmosphere is rich with the overriding sense
of dread that hangs over the head of Henrietta, where the ghastly mood
resembles Bergman’s earlier performance in GASLIGHT (1944), where she’s
helpless to circumstances beyond her control, a role she plays extremely well,
especially as she’s being plied with alcohol and systematically poisoned, as
she was in NOTORIOUS. The other is the
audacious style used by Hitchcock, especially in a dialogue heavy drama where
there’s so little actual suspense, yet Jack Cardiff’s complex cinematography is
quite simply stunning, often moving back and forth between floors with ease, where
Hitchcock was forced to remove part of the set in the middle of the shot
(something Ingrid Bergman found quite distressing), where the opening dinner
sequence is over seven minutes long in a single take, circling the actors, sweeping
across the room, landing at the feet of Bergman’s entrance coming down the
stairs, lingering for a moment before she’s identified, immaculately dressed,
looking ravishing before her mental distress is obvious, as she’s lost in
thought, very much resembling Katherine Hepburn’s morphine addicted role in LONG
DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962). There’s
an even longer nine minute shot of Bergman in an infamous confession sequence,
where she reveals the secret backstory of the film, a highly emotional, gut-wrenching
scene of unwavering love for her husband that Adare, of course, completely misunderstands,
but it’s a devastating moment of extreme emotional clarity in an often muddled
picture of conflicting interests. Earlier
in the film there’s an equally compelling shot of Sam confessing his personal failings
to Adare, sadly describing what he believes is a hopelessly lost marriage, where
Henrietta fills in the missing pieces. The
finale is too easily contrived and oddly enough is one of Hitchcock’s sunnier and
more optimistic endings.
Note – Hitchcock can be seen about five minutes into the
movie in the town square during a military parade wearing a blue coat and a
brown hat. Ten minutes later he is one of three men standing on the steps of
Government House. This film, along with Suspicion,
are the only two films where Hitchcock makes two cameo appearances in a single
film.
