THE SOCIETY OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
In Partnership with
EVERYMAN
IN THERAPY
Alfred Hitchcock’s technically brilliant film “Marnie” (1964) is a fascinating study of the theme of sexuality taken to disturbingly dark depths. Hitchcock’s conspicuous directorial control hides a
horrifying backstory to its creation with his sexual harassment of its star, Tippi Hedren. The drama itself is a story of sexual violence, which is inflicted physically and mentally by the lead
male character, a wealthy businessman named Mark Rutland (played by Sean Connery) on Hedren’s title character . The film’s story and its backstory converge, rendering the cruelty that went into its production palpable in the viewing.
The story itself, of Mark’s irrepressible lust for Mamie, is also a story of her psychological troubles and Mark’s increasingly obses sive willingness to tum his life upside down to help her
overcome them. Marnie is an ice queen blonde and a serial kleptomaniac who insinuates herself into businesses as a bookkeeper, gains access to their safes and makes off with stacks of cash.
Mark catches her and manipulates her into marrying him to possess her.
But there’s another side to Marnie’s affliction – her extreme aversion to sex and to a man’s touch. She is also a master of disguises, a Trickster-like shape-shifter opaque to herself and the world, changing her appearance every time she cracks a safe. She is also a compulsive liar, terrified of lightning, and dissociates almost instantly at the sight of the colour red. Mark probes into her mystifying psyche less to cure her than to indulge in his own neuroses. He is amoral, sexist, misogynistic, and increasingly frustrated on discovering her sexual block. Eventually this leads to violation of her and implicitly rape.
The psychological undercurrents of repressed memory of sexual assault and violence from when Marnie was a child is best ex pressed by her ailing mother, Bernice, a puritanical guilt-ridden
former sex worker. A narcissistic, cold woman who withholds affection from her daughter and despises her, whilst Marnie longs for her approval and love.
Marnie is a masterpiece of psychological mystery that encompasses all the Director’s obsessions involving trauma and abuse, with a visual storytelling replete with heat and eerie chill, colour
and couture.
The issues raised are as relevant to today’s society as they were when the film was made. These will be discussed following the film in a dialogue between Rupert Tower (Jungian analyst) and
Louise Dymoke (Jungian analyst), and chaired by Adam Reynolds (Head of Brand Partnerships, Everyman). Do join us!
Tickets £18.40
Book: www.everymancinema.com
