The Emotional HITCHBERG

An Introduction to Dreams on Film

2007-04-20T03:55:52Z

"Our relationship to the physical screen in the theater as we watch any film owes much to our experience as nurtured infants and to our earliest dreams. Films in general seem both real and dreamlike because they appear to us in a way that activates the regressive experience of watching dreams on our psychic dream screens. - Robert Eberwein, Film and the Dream Screen"

There is a long tradition of filmmakers incorporating psychological elements when constructing their films, such as describing and analyzing dream-sequences of their main characters, which “are the key to understanding the meaning of a film” (Halpern 1). Freud describes these types of dream-sequences as “a whole set of dreams, carrying on for weeks or months [which] often rests on common ground, and is to be interpreted in its interrelations” (Freud 340-341). These dream-sequences, like in Bergman's film, Wild Strawberries, enhance the quality we, as viewers, have to the screen. Similarly, in Hitchcock's film, Marnie, the interactiveness we have to film increases as we are pushed into the main character's inner emotional struggle. However each filmmaker tends to use their techniques, the result of an emotional ride will prove to be obvious. Leslie Halpern, a critic attempting to merge science and art together, furthers Robert Eberwein's theory of having films create an emotional impact unto the audience. She says that dream-sequences in films “can use state-of-the-art technology to produce awe-inspiring visions that give insight into the character, promote the story, and provide emotional impact" (Halpern, 5). Furthermore, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, is an undeniable influence on both filmmakers where both films incorporate his theories. The corresponding links will provide a thorough overview of both films and will show the connections to the psychology of dreams.

Who are HITCH and BERG?

2007-04-20T02:30:54Z

Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman: two filmmakers who were most popular in the 1950's and 1960's.
Click on the links of the filmmakers above, and films below, to learn more about them!

The two films in question: Hitchcock's Marnie Bergman's Wild Strawberries Both filmmakers experiment with the science of psychology to complement their famous film techniques. Hitchcock incorporates psychoanalysis into his films explicitly, having another character act as the main character, Marnie's, therapist, while Bergman uses it implicitly, having the main character, Isak Borg, analyze and reflect solely by himself. Both main characters have recurring nightmares as adults stemming from particular stressful or traumatic events as children and they are in need of some type of psychoanalysis. This is the reason both filmmakers could be spoken about simultaneously. First, their techniques are radically different, but give similar results. Hitchcock uses color, mainly red, to trigger to audiences that Marnie is having a recollection of a trauma as a child that she has not yet recovered from yet. Bergman, instead, has the nightmares play out on film, which are filled with various camera angles to alert us of the significance of symbols (for example) and to remind us that they are, in fact, dreams and not real. Their content is also different, but come from a similar source - a childhood trauma. Marnie and Isak both had traumas in their childhood - ones that they have not recovered from as of yet. They have recurring nightmares - Marnie because of a murder and Isak because of a betrayal - which tend to plague them and disrupt their waking life as adults. Both filmmakers also have been influenced by a similar source - Sigmund Freud - in which they choose to incorporate psychological elements as a way of merging the art of film and science.

What is MARNIE about?

2007-04-18T22:33:40Z

Marnie has become a thief, stemming from a traumatic experience from her childhood. Viewers are not told the trauma until the very end of the film which is…SEE THE FILM! I’m just joking… Marnie, the main character of Hitchcock’s film, is plagued with nightmares stemming from a source unknown to us at the beginning of the film. As viewers, all we know is that whenever Marnie sees the color red, she is pushed into a stressful remembering of a traumatic event only subconsciously known to her.

In her childhood, Marnie killed a sailor that was hurting her mother. We find out that Marnie’s mother took the blame for it as self defense with Marnie ending up blocking the whole event out of her mind. Through the whole film, Marnie is plagued with nightmares that affect her waking life. She meets a man, Mark, who tries to play Freud by psychoanalyzing her into remembering and dealing with the childhood trauma with free association drills. At the end of the film, Marnie regresses back into her childhood trauma and begins to remember it which ultimately cures her condition.

FILM TECHNIQUE 1: Now, Hitchcock, uses one major film technique – color – which shows Marnie’s state of mind. Whenever Marnie sees the color red in waking life, he chooses to halt external time, have a close-up on Marnie, and envelop the screen with the color red to remind us that Marnie is flashing back in her own way trying to overcome the painful situation which is burdening her. It triggers an emotional type of breakdown until she is pushed right back into reality.

With Hitchcock’s constant use of the color red, we are prompted to enter into Marnie’s shift in consciousness and back towards the reliving of her traumatic event as a child – something Freud would call regression.

What is WILD STRAWBERRIES about?

2007-04-18T21:39:34Z

"In Wild Strawberries, Bergman, like Freud, situates the dreamer at the center of the dream and uses the remaining portions of the film to identify the equivalents of the day’s residues, thereby allowing the exploration of the associations arising from the dream elements" -Vlada Petric, Film and Dreams

Isak Borg is 78 years old and is about to receive an honorary award for his 50 years as a hard-working doctor, but is experiencing recurring nightmares. We later find out that in his childhood, his brother stole his fiancé. We, and Isak, find out that this has plagued him ever since, even if subconsciously. Though, this allows him to stop and reflect on the life he has lived and even go back to the events of his childhood in the form of flashbacks, daydreams, and nightmares. Bergman's film is in black and white, therefore not relying on color as a film technique reminiscent of Hitchcock. Rather, he uses symbols, like the clock you see to your left, to represent dreams as meaningful insights into oneself. It becomes an obvious revelation that time is running out for Isak Borg and the clock is a type of foreshadowing - one for the main character mostly than to us - into the various subjective elements of Borg's inner struggle. Isak ends up going on a journey, a literal and psychological one, where he begins to learn about himself by asking questions posed or implied in his dreams. He finds out he has become a cold-hearted person. With all his self-reflection, he is able to amend his mentalities, end his nightmares, and live in peace.

FILM TECHNIQUE 2: We are shown Isak’s actual nightmares and are left to analyze them in relation to what Bergman gives us – symbols. During one of Isak’s nightmares, the famous coffin scene, we are introduced to famous Freudian symbols (“representations in dreams”) like the eye, clock, mirror, window, carriage, wild strawberries. The mirror stands for self-reflection of Isak and/or “a repressed self image”; the clock stands for time running out on Isak; the eye stands for inner psychological consciousness; the window stands for another way of looking into the soul and/or “past or future escape”; the carriage stands for movement, like Isak trying to figure out where he is going with his life; and last, but not least, the wild strawberries stand for the actual childhood trauma he experienced.

FILM TECHNIQUE 3: Bergman also uses various camera angles, like close-ups and distant shots, to show us that Isak Borg is dreaming. We are then able to distinguish between these “nightmares” and the flashbacks (reality) of life when Isak was a little boy.

So who is influencing HITCHBERG?

2007-04-18T04:18:04Z

You guessed it! It is the person we've been alluding to all this time...SIGMUND FREUD!!! We can understand that Sigmund Freud (the father of psychology) has been an undeniable influence on the world of film, especially for Hitchcock and Bergman. There is conclusive evidence which points to them keeping Freud in mind as they construct the content of their films.

Freud's influence on Hitchcock…

"By focusing on the exploration of the self, his ideas meshed easily with Freudian psychoanalytical thinking. Those studying his films found ways to express their own inner emotions. His use of huddled spaces, visual metaphors, and flashbacks created a language of memory"-Crissa-Jean Chappell, ("Images - Faithless")

Freud's influence on Bergman…

"Like Freud, Hitchcock diagnosed the discontents that chafe and rankle beneath the decorum of civilization"-Peter Conrad, ("Wikiquote")

From film techniques to film content, both filmmakers tend to use Sigmund Freud, even subconsciously, to portray their main themes of recurring nightmares as adults stemming from childhood trauma and still succeed in making the connection between art and science stronger than it ever was. His theories are apparent in both films, with the mention of psychoanalysis (Marnie's husband plays psychiatrist as he forces a "free association" drill unto Marnie) and certain Freudian symbols (like the clock with no hands, eyes, and distortations of faces). By having Freudian theories in films, the psychological aspects of characters are portrayed and we, as viewers, are left to analyze them in relation to ourselves.

RED RED RED!

2007-04-18T04:04:11Z

The color red – “the most prominent filmic dream color” usually symbolizes “excitement, activity, stimulation, desire, and violence associated with the heart, blood, and blood pressure.” In Marnie, “flashes of red in the dreams […] symbolize the blood of a repressed murder” -Leslie Halpern, Dreams on Film

Alfred Hitchcock, most famous for his ScArY mystery films, uses the color RED RED RED to show us the main character, Marnie's, fluctuating psychological state. Alfred Hitchcock brings us immediately into Marnie’s psychological struggle early on in the film when she sees a bouquet of red gladiolas when visiting her mother. The appearance of the red gladiolas fears and upsets Marnie to the point where she is unable to look at them. The reference to the color red will continue to be present throughout the film whenever Marnie sees it in any form, plunging her into a vague recollection of the trauma she experienced as a child. We can see that the color red is an intentional technique used by Hitchcock to constantly reveal to us the fact that Marnie has repressed a significant childhood memory and will not be cured without some form of psychoanalysis. The color red seems to be an insight into Marnie’s own past – one that she does not remember. Hitchcock seems to use the color white as a template for red to show the evil which has corrupted her innocent youth. As she stares blankly at a red spot she gets on her white blouse at work, Hitchcock makes her paralyzed and as viewers, we see what Marnie sees – redness. Hitchcock makes it very easy for us to share in Marnie’s trouble when he tints the screen red to show the powerful discomfort Marnie feels by remembering the source of her trauma and enhances the image of Marnie’s face, as a close-up, in the background. We see that Marnie is filled with pain and her eyes begin to turn red – another method Hitchcock uses to give us clues into Marnie’s internal trauma. Marnie is overwhelmed by these internal elements and by the new addition of external ones. As Marnie screams, “The colors. Stop the colors,” lightning and thunder push a tree branch through the window ending Marnie’s psychological breakdown when she’s at work with Mark (Marnie). We see a direct allusion of colors being vital as a triggering of trauma which Freud explained as “objective sensory stimulus”. External objects could trigger memories in dreams: every time Marnie sees the color red, it subconsciously reminds her of the color of blood that was present in her actual trauma. After this, we are pulled in with a close-up of Mark, her new love, kissing Marnie and comforting her – something Marnie has been afraid to experience. We are currently seeing the beginning of a cure. Hitchcock, it seems, uses the close-up as a way to force the audience into reality. As we are mesmerized by the image of Marnie’s face, we enter into Marnie’s psychological state as she does. Mark, who is aware of the recurrence of her nightmares overhears Marnie’s rant and catches her in a paralyzed state as she has her final nightmare. He begins to interrogate her with Freud’s “free association” drill. This is a direct influence of Freud upon Hitchcock with the practice of his analytical technique of psychoanalysis. Mark tests her by saying ‘red’ and she repeatedly says ‘white’, struggling to refill the loss of childhood innocence. Hitchcock reminds us once again, and for the last time, of the importance of colors as a way to remember. He then says, ‘death’ and she becomes frazzled to the point where she responds with “Help me” (Marnie). In flashback form, we find out that Marnie murdered one of her mother’s suitors because she believed he was trying to hurt her. When we see the body, we see red blood all over the place. Hitchcock doesn’t let us forget the redness we’ve been alluding to throughout the movie. We learn that Marnie’s mother has taken the blame for the murder as a plea of self-defense and Marnie, in turn, repressed this memory to the point of forgetting it, having it return in her nightmares.

Is that you...Borg?

2007-04-17T04:43:33Z

Click here to see Borg's dream-sequence!
SYNOPSIS OF ISAK'S FAMOUS COFFIN SCENE (merged with Bergman's film techniques) In Isak’s dream-sequence, his nightmare is filled with visual imagery representing an ongoing set of symbols which will be significant for analysis. As Isak is on his morning walk, he looks at certain objects, such as a clock overhead which has no hands. However, it seems as though it is still able to tick because we, as viewers, hear it as if we were there. We hear the ticking and Bergman makes it so pronounced that we feel our hearts are beating along with it. Halpern says the ticking means that “time is running out” (128). We will later find out that this is true as it foreshadows his death. The camera then switches from a man carrying a briefcase from far away, then to Isak, and then to the man once again, but this time he is closer. Bergman switches the camera angles forward and backwards, making the objects far and then as a close-up. This effect is one assumed to be intentionally absurd to show that we are not dealing with reality. We are dealing with another state of consciousness – dreaming – where time and space is looser than waking life. Isak approaches the man and turns him around. Bergman gives us a close-up on the man’s face, which is scrunched and forceful. It is not meant to be intense like in Hitchcock’s film when Marnie sees the color red, but we are supposed to be compelled to scrunch just like the man in Isak’s dream because of our own fear and confusion – both which Isak seems to feel. With Isak, the ticking and beating are the main sensory techniques used so audiences could again come close to diagnosing the patient by becoming immersed in their emotions. We are interrupted with the sound of church bells and a carriage crosses near Isak. Bergman’s camera angles make the audience think that time is malleable, with the carriage seeming to turn the corner moving away from us and then as it comes from the right, it then comes towards us planting itself right in front of Isak. The wheel of the carriage disengages, rolls towards Isak, and then falls apart. The carriage is also ready to fall apart, but a coffin comes rolling out, falling to the floor and opening. A man’s hand comes out of the coffin and we keep with Bergman’s camera angles, switching from the man’s hand and the image of Isak. When Isak comes closer to the coffin, the hand comes alive and touches Isak. Then the body, struggling to come out, slides out of the coffin and we see Isak. The camera angles enable us to distinguish between the dream world and waking world of both Isaks in response to the sudden fear of a trauma he experienced in childhood. The Isak in the coffin persists in coming closer and closer to Isak the dreamer, and both images of Isak’s face dissolve into each other – a clever technique implemented by Bergman to terrify us in thinking that both are the same person.

Think Psychoanalysis, Think Freud

2007-04-16T17:17:30Z

No, that's not Marnie...that's her creator!

"Hitchcock’s use of psychiatry in various films has similarly been criticized…Whatever falsification of actual psychoanalytic methods one might object to in such films, the symbolic point, the way in which Hitchcock has absorbed psychiatry into his aesthetic, remains clear. He uses external intellectual systems with the pure opportunism of the true artist" -Leo Braudy, The World in a Frame

In Marnie, after one of her nightmares, Marnie sees Mark standing over her. Mark does a free-association drill in which he says words like “red” and Marnie clams up. This triggers her entry into discovery while Mark plays “psychiatrist”. Mark tests her by saying ‘red’ and she repeatedly says ‘white’, struggling to refill the loss of childhood innocence. Hitchcock reminds us of the importance of colors as a way to remember. He then says, ‘death’ and she becomes frazzled to the point where she responds with “Help me”. When Mark brings Marnie to her mother for a confrontation about her past, her voice becomes child-like again as she regresses. Mark taps three times, as was in the actual incident for Marnie, to fully regain her memory and Hitchcock plunges into a flashback of the actual accident. We find out that Marnie murdered one of her mother’s suitors because she believed he was trying to hurt her. When we see the body, we see red blood all over the place. Hitchcock doesn’t let us forget the redness we’ve been alluding to throughout the movie. We learn that Marnie’s mother has taken the blame for the murder as a plea of self-defense and Marnie, in turn, repressed this memory to the point of forgetting it, having it return in her nightmares. At the end of the film, children are playing childhood games, a technique used to remind us of the innocence of youth…an innocence that is so fragile that when tampered with, as we saw in the case of Marnie, could lead to ongoing trauma throughout adulthood, reliving itself through the recurrence of nightmares. The children are heard singing, “Here comes the nurse, here comes the doctor, here comes the lady with the alligator purse,” showing us the connection between Mark and Marnie, which is one of analyst and one being analyzed (Marnie). The idea of Freud’s influence is finally validated at the end of Hitchcock’s film when we are directly placed in a relationship with one of patient and doctor. Psychoanalysis was used by Mark with free-association techniques and Marnie, who was brought back to the source of her trauma, has received the closure she’s been desperately searching for.

Dream-work and Wild Strawberries

2007-04-15T17:22:12Z

Freud’s popular analysis of dreams – the dream-work (which includes four processes) – shows up in Bergman’s film. Objects and symbols are usually identified with the dream-work and in film, attempts to close the gap between science and art. With Freud’s dream-work, Bergman assists Isak in self-analysis instead of Hitchcock’s using of psychoanalysis for Marnie. He is able to look at symbols and receive input from others to successfully realize the source of his trauma and try to amend his past actions. Freud’s first process of dream-work is condensation, “in which different dream-elements are fused” (Freud xiv). The two Isaks in his first nightmare are like one, but in different ways because one is the real Isak and the other looks as if it is an absurd representation of Isak because of the scrunched face. The second part of Freud’s dream-work is displacement, where it “[transfers] emotional intensity from the centre of the dream-thought to its marginal components” (Freud xiv). Bergman physically transfers emotional intensity by switching from different objects we see as minor and making them the most important elements in the dream sequence, like in the case of the clock. Borg's famous dream sequence - Clock with no hands It looks minor until we see that it has no hands. To add, Bergman decides to make the ticking beat out at us so we are able to feel it. It represents a way to connect with the audience and the clock has now affected us as viewers. The carriage is another symbol which is a minor one, until Bergman has it hitting the lamppost continuously and forcefully to catch our attention. He then has a coffin fall out of it, which acts as the climax, but then Bergman is even more successful in showing us the importance of objects by having the corpse come alive looking exactly like Isak. He has these symbols as “representations in dreams” to “fit the representation sources of the dream,” which is Freud’s third process of the dream-work, and they all are consistently able to fit the nightmare as a whole (Freud xiv). The last process of Freud’s dream-work is secondary revision, “which censors the exuberance of the dream [reassuring] the dreamer by introducing thoughts like ‘It’s only a dream’ and fills in gaps in the dreams’ structure so as to make it more logical and coherent” (Freud xiv). This concludes Isak’s first nightmare where he wakes up and realizes it wasn’t reality. Isak has received closure by mending the relationships he has now in his final days – that of his son, Evald, and his daughter-in-law Marianne. He thanks Marianne for joining him on the journey, and tells his son he feels excellent: “If I have been worried or sad during the day, it often calms me to recall childhood memories. I did so on this evening too” (Wild Strawberries). His final dream – not a nightmare anymore – shows us young Sara running towards the camera telling Isak, “There are no strawberries left” (Wild Strawberries). The wild strawberries seem to be a symbol of Isak’s emotional trauma stemming from his childhood – there is no more of that now. Isak, before falling asleep...

"If I have been worried or sad during the day, it often calms me to recall childhood memories. I did so on this evening too" -Isak in Wild Strawberries

Isak, asleep...

"There are no strawberries left" -Young Sara to Isak in his final dream...not a nightmare anymore

Concluding Thoughts, Works Cited, Suggested Reading, Image Credits, and About Me

2007-04-14T17:23:59Z

Films are not only revolutionary in merging mediums – they are also a way to preserve their own memory so future generations could view them. Films, such as Marnie, and Wild Strawberries, are remnants of a characterization of the bridge created between science and art. Reality and fiction seem also to become connected as we feel the main characters are real people we could compare to ourselves. The public, as an audience, will continue to empathize with fictional characters. This is the magic of film. While watching Marnie, one can feel a connection to childhood trauma, even as strong as a murder. Hitchcock uses Freud’s psychoanalysis in the film and one can apply the same methods to themselves. While watching Wild Strawberries, one can begin to reflect upon themselves (like looking in a mirror). Bergman uses Freud’s dream-work in the film and one can associate symbols with particular situations in their own dreams. It can be a window, and not an escape, into one’s soul. Freud would be proud of his affiliates and their progress in the world of film by using the science of psychology. Watch out for the HITCHBERG… It’s very subtle…so keep your EYES open… Read my entire essay entitled, Dream Reel: A Study of Freudian Influence on the Films of Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman! LINKS Marnie Film Information on IMDB Wild Strawberries Film Information on IMDB Alfred Hitchcock - The Master of Suspense IngmarBergman.com Sigmund Freud - Life and Work Classics in the History of Psychology - Freud 1900
SUGGESTED READING LIST 1. A book outlining the connection between Sigmund Freud and the arts Berman, Jeffrey. The Talking Cure. New York: New York University Press, 1985. 2. Sigmund Freud’s famous book outlining all his major theories on dreams, especially the dream-work. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 3. A book directly explaining the struggle between art and science with mention of film techniques. Halpern, Leslie. Dreams on Film. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2003.
WORKS CITED Alfred Hitchcock - Wikiquote. 27 June 2003. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25 February 2007. < http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock>. Berman, Jeffrey. The Talking Cure. New York: New York University Press, 1985. Braudy, Leo. The World in a Frame. New York: Anchor Books, 1977. Chappell, Crissa-Jean. Images – Faithless. 4 April 2001. Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture. 25 February 2007. . Eberwein, Robert T. Film and the Dream Screen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Gabbard, Glen O. “The Impact of Psychoanalysis on the American Cinema.” Annual of Psychoanalysis 29 (2001): 237-247. Halpern, Leslie. Dreams on Film. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2003. Johnson, Glen Dr. Hitchcock & Psychoanalysis. 8 January 2007. The Catholic University of America. 25 February 2007. . Marnie. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, and Diane Baker. Videocassette. Universal, 1999. Petric, Vlada, ed. Film and Dreams: An Approach to Bergman. New York: Redgrave Publishing Company, 1981. Spoto, Donald. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Anchor Books, 1992. Wild Strawberries. Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Perf. Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Gunnar Bjornstrand. Videocassette. The Voyager Company, 1957.
IMAGE CREDITS 1. Title image http://www.borgus.com/think/hitch.htm By: Jeff Bays 2. Freud cartoon image http://www.deviantart.com/ By: Aldo Gonzalez (~badneko) 3. Red and black film reel (last page on the right) http://www.deviantart.com/ By: Iera Chainsaw (~SilverChainsaw) 4. Alfred Hitchcock image http://biografie.leonardo.it/biografia.htm?BioID=614&biografia=Alfred+Hitchcock and http://www.arnadal.no/film/actors/hitchcock_alfred.htm 5. Ingmar Bergman image http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/JanFeb05/IngmarBergman.html 6. Marnie: Gladiolas and red ink stain images http://www.cinetudes.com/index.php?action=article&id_article=79046&id_rubrique=3239 7. Marnie and Mark image http://www.horror-movies.ca/horror_4571.html 8. Mark and Marnie's mother image http://www.dvdreview.com/fullreviews/marnie.shtml 9. Marnie red screen image http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/psychoanalysis.html 10. Marnie lying down image http://www.synoptique.ca/core/en/articles/tippi 11. Mark hugging Marnie image http://www.verdestrigos.org/sitenovo/site/cronica_ver.asp?id=287 12. Red eye http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/eyes/eyes1.html 13. Marnie, young and old images http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/psychoanalysis.html 14. Red and white film reel (last page on the left) http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=68276 15. All Wild Strawberries images and media (two coffin dreams) http://www.ingmarbergman.se/page.asp?guid=B31C7193-D784-4A94-88F2-98886CF35BFF and http://www.bergmanorama.com/films/wild_strawberries.htm
ABOUT ME My name is Maria. I am 22 years old. I am an Honors English major and am graduating Queens College in May 2007. I hope to go to law school in the fall of 2007.