O Homem Errado (1956) / The Wrong Man (1956)

 

O ano é 1956. Alfred Hitchcock ainda levaria alguns anos para fazer seus filmes mais celebrados, aqueles pelos quais ele é lembrado até hoje. Mas ele já era o Mestre do Suspense. Tanto que seu nome vem acima do título em “O Homem Errado”. Tanto que sua voz pode ser ouvida antes de o filme começar, dizendo que este é um filme diferente para ele porque é baseado em uma história real. “Baseado em uma história real”: palavras que causam um arrepio na espinha de qualquer cinéfilo. 

The year is 1956. Alfred Hitchcock would take a few more years to make his most celebrated movies, the ones he’s reminded for until today. But he was already the Master of Suspense. So much that his name comes above the title in “The Wrong Man”. So much that his voice can be heard before the movie starts, claiming that this was a different movie for him because it’s based on a true story. “Based on a true story”: words that give every cinephile chills. 

Quatorze de janeiro de 1953. A vida de Christopher Emanuel Balestrero vai mudar para sempre. Nosso Chris (Henry Fonda) é um músico que trabalha à noite, e chega cedinho em casa onde estão seus dois filhos, Robert e Gregory, e sua esposa Rose (Vera Miles), que atualmente está sofrendo com uma dor de dentes. Quando Chris tenta arranjar um empréstimo para pagar o dentista, ele é confundido com um ladrão e horas depois é levado para a delegacia.

January 14th, 1953. Christopher Emanuel Balestrero’s life will change forever. Our Chris (Henry Fonda) is a musician who works at night, and at the wee hours arrives home to his two sons, Robert and Gregory, and his wife Rose (Vera Miles), who currently is suffering from a toothache. When Chris tries to get a loan to pay the dentist, he’s mistaken for a robber and hours later is taken to the police station.

Chris esteve nos mesmos lugares que o ladrão. A caligrafia de Chris se parece com a do ladrão. Testemunhas identificam Chris como o ladrão. Sob a trilha sonora sinistra de Bernard Herrmann, Chris é preso. Conforme ele vai absorvendo o que acabou de acontecer com ele, a câmera de Hitchcock gira ao redor de sua cabeça, e nós nos sentimos zonzos, como o personagem.

Chris has been to the same places as the robber. Chris’ handwriting looks similar to the robber’s. Witnesses identify him as the robber. Under Bernard Herrmann’s eerie soundtrack, Chris is incarcerated. As Chris is absorbing what just happened to him, Hitchcock’s camera does a loop around his head, and we feel dizzy, just like the character.

Ser preso por um crime que não cometemos é um medo válido para nós, humanos que amamos a liberdade. E se amamos a liberdade precisamos temer também desgraças como a censura, o autoritarismo e os ditadores. Mas em vez de focar em Chris na cadeia, o filme muda de rumo e segue Chris e Rose tentando conseguir álibis.    

Being arrested for a crime we didn’t commit is a valid fear for most of us, freedom-loving human beings. And if we love freedom we should also be afraid of disgraces such as censorship, authoritarianism and dictators. But instead of focusing on Chris in jail, the film takes a turn and follows Chris and Rose trying to find alibis.

Hitchcock lidou com o tema do homem errado em muitos de seus filmes, como “O Pensionista” (1927) e “Os 39 Degraus” (1935), mas não tão abertamente quanto faz aqui, num filme que é, afinal, chamado O Homem Errado. Mas o que o fez escolher a história de Chris entre tantas de homens erroneamente encarcerados? A resposta está no prólogo: neste caso, alguns elementos são mais inacreditáveis do que qualquer ficção.  

Hitchcock had dealt with the trope of the wrong man in several of his films, such as “The Lodger” (1927) and “The 39 Steps” (1935), but not as openly as he did here, in a film that is, after all, called The Wrong Man. But why he chose Chris’ story among so many of wrongly imprisoned men? The answer is in the prologue: in this case, many elements are stranger than fiction.

Eu chamo nosso protagonista de Chris, mas os policiais e Rose o chamam de Manny, apelido de Emanuel. Eu nunca entendi a ideia de ter um nome do meio que raramente - quase nunca! - combina com o primeiro nome. Nomes do meio tiveram origem na Roma Antiga e voltaram à moda no século XIX. Aqui no Brasil usamos dois sobrenomes e raramente um nome do meio.

I keep calling our main character Chris, but the cops and Rose call him Manny, short for Emanuel. I never understood the idea of having a middle name that not always - almost never! - matches the first one. Middle names were originated in Ancient Rome and caught up again in the 19th century. Here in Brazil we use two surnames but rarely a middle name.

Vera Miles voltaria a trabalhar com Hitchcock em “Psicose” (1960). Nascida Vera June Ralston em 1930, foi coroada Miss Kansas em 1948 e foi finalista do Miss América. Ela então mudou-se para Hollywood e adotou o sobrenome do marido como nome artístico. Seu primeiro trabalho creditado veio em 1952 e o último em 1995, quando ela se aposentou das telas. Em “O Homem Errado”, sua Rose fica mais e mais paranoica conforme ela vê que não há saída para Chris - ela até começa a achar que o marido é mesmo culpado!   

Vera Miles would work again with Hitchcock in “Psycho” (1960). Born Vera June Ralston in 1930, she was crowned Miss Kansas in 1948 and was a finalist in Miss America. She then moved to Hollywood and adopted her first husband’s last name as her stage name. Her first credited role came in 1952 and her last in 1995, when she retired from the screen. In “The Wrong Man” her Rose gets more and more paranoid as she sees there is no way out for Chris - she even starts thinking her husband is guilty after all!

Interpretando o advogado de Chris, Frank O’Connor, temos Anthony Quayle. O ator britânico teve longa carreira no teatro clássico e experiência como combatente durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Ele escreveu dois romances e uma autobiografia e virou Cavaleiro em 1985. Um comentário no Letterboxd mencionou que este é o terceiro filme de Hitchcock a ter cenas de tribunal, depois de dois que eu ainda não vi: “Mulher Pública” (1928) e “Agonia de Amor” (1947). As sequências no tribunal com Frank são breves, caso contrário ficariam enfadonhas.

Playing Chris’ lawyer Frank O’Connor we have Anthony Quayle. This British actor had a long run in classical theater and experience in combat during World War II. He wrote two novels and an autobiography and was knighted in 1985. A Letterboxd comment noticed this is the third Hitchcock film that is briefly a courtroom drama, after two I haven’t seen: “Easy Virtue” (1928) and “The Paradine Case” (1947). The sequences in the court with Frank are brief, or else they would be very boring.

Nas mãos de Hitchcock, o que poderia ser só mais um melodrama se torna algo a mais. Com Rose se culpando pelo que aconteceu com Chris, ela passa por um médico. Hitchcock já tinha lidado com os mistérios da mente no menosprezado “Quando Fala o Coração”, de 1945. Aqui, Rose é descrita como prisioneira de “um labirinto de terror”. Por um breve momento, Hitchcock faz de Rose tão protagonista quanto Chris. Porque se é difícil para o homem errado se reerguer, é ainda mais para uma mulher enganada.  

On Hitchcock’s hand, what could have been just another melodrama becomes something else. With Rose blaming herself for what happened to Chris, she sees a shrink. Hitchcock had already dealt with the mysteries of the mind in the underrated “Spellbound”, from 1945. Here, Rose is described as being trapped in a “maze of horror”. For a brief while, Hitchcock makes Rose as much a lead as Chris. Because if it’s hard for a wrong man to stand on his feet again, it’s even harder for a wronged woman.

This is my contribution to the 4th Master of Suspense blogathon, hosted by Maddy at Classic Film and TV Corner.

Book review: Alfred Hitchcock’s Moviemaking Master Class, by Tony Lee Moral

 

“He pioneered and revolutionized the way all kinds of stories were told on screen.” Who could be that we’re talking about? None other than the Master of Suspense - and, as described in the book, suspense is the stretching out of anticipation -: Alfred Hitchcock. Because every story - even the love stories - could use a bit of suspense, Hitchcock’s influences can be seen in all of cinema and even in other arts. I once searched and found out that there were more than 2,600 books written about Hitchcock, according to the Goodreads database. Another one comes to the batch: Tony Lee Moral’s “Alfred Hitchcock’s Moviemaking Master Class”. Is it a good addition or an unnecessary new book? Let us see.

Through examples from Hitchcock’s oeuvre, the book teaches things such as pitching a story to a producer, choosing the theme of the film, writing the screenplay, exploring your background scenario and props to the maximum, storyboarding key scenes, working with actors (who are not cattle), exercising camera logic, the importance of editing and how to advertise your film.

The sub-sections of the chapters are short and straight to the point. Nothing is discussed in a deeper focus, and this isn’t a problem. Once the point has been made about the section’s title, it’s time to move on. This makes reading easy and in a nice flow. However, to Hitchcock’s experts, there is very little that they haven’t heard about. In the end of each chapter, something different appears: exercises and tips about movies to watch and books to read to further the ideas presented in the chapter.

Writing the screenplay is given a whole chapter. A job divided in the outline, the treatment and the screenplay, this is explored in deep focus, which is no surprise considering that writing the screenplay was Hitchcock’s favorite part of making a movie. He closely followed the writing of the screenplays for his movies, but, preferring to focus on telling a story visually, he left the dialogues for his screenwriters.

There is also a whole chapter devoted to how Hitchcock cut and assembled his films. The author explains how the director portrayed a character’s reaction through cutting - using the Kuleshov effect - and how he created fear and depicted violence also through cutting - by choosing to show several close-ups instead of the violent act: this is what happens in the shower murder scene in “Psycho” (1960). We then learn about how Hitch used jump cuts, match cuts and cross-cuts to establish ideas and develop the plots of his films.

We can find the definition and exemplification of terms such as the famous McGuffin and the “ice box syndrome”, that is, the holes left in the plot that become debates once the viewers leave the movie theater and hit home. One very interesting term I learned - and something Hitchcock used in many movies - is the double chase: when the hero is persecuted at the same time by the police and the villains. Another learning opportunity came with the discussion of the Vertigo Shot and how it was achieved, zooming in on camera and having the camera dollying back simultaneously.

We have the comparison between leading men Cary Grant and James Stewart. Grant was the debonair seductive man Hitchcock wanted to be, while Stewart was the boy-next-door type. The author said Stewart was the man Hitchcock actually was, but I just partially agree with this affirmation.

There is, of course, valuable advice and many great catchphrases, such as: “When characters are unbelievable, you never get real suspense, only surprise.”; “Surprise takes 10 seconds; anticipation can take an hour.”; “A successful movie juxtaposes tension and relaxation, and relieves horror with humor.”; “He was a purist and believed that film is a succession of images on the screen; this in turn creates ideas, which in turn creates emotion, which only seldom leads to dialogue.”

There are quotes from other directors about how Hitchcock influenced them, and plenty of examples of Hitchcockian non-Hitchcock movies. We can also find quotes from stars who worked with Hitch, such as Eva Marie Saint and Kim Novak, as well as quotes from people who were part of the crew in some Hitchcock movies.

There are also plenty of inspiring quotes from Hitchcock himself, such as: “A film cannot be compared to a play or a novel. It is closer to a short story, which, as a rule, sustains one idea that culminates when the action has reached the highest point of the dramatic curve.”; “Mystery is an intellectual process, as in [solving] a ‘whodunit’…but suspense is essentially an emotional process. With suspense it’s necessary to involve emotion.”; “I think a director should understand the psychology of audiences,”; “People don’t often always express their inner thoughts to one another; a conversation might be quite trivial, but often the eyes reveal what a person thinks or feels.”; “For me, suspense doesn’t have any value unless it’s balanced by humor,”; “A woman of elegance, on the other hand, will never cease to surprise you.”; “ The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture”; “ Sex on the screen should be suspenseful, I feel. If sex is too blatant or obvious, there’s no suspense.”; “You can’t direct intelligent men, the things that should come to them naturally, such as hesitancies.”

Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s wife and constant collaborator who helped shape many screenplays, is only briefly cited as the one who saw that Janet Leigh blinked after her character Marion was murdered in “Psycho”. Another mistake in the book is saying that the French term for “pre-production” is “mise-en-scène” - it simply isn’t. Some sentences are poorly written and there are some typos that a more accurate revision would have erased, as well as factual errors - Anny Ondra wasn’t on the cast list for “The Lodger” (1927).

The Master of Suspense - who was also the master of branding - is as relevant as ever, no matter that he died over forty years ago. As the book says, there is always something new and exciting to find out when rewatching Hitchcock’s films. We, creatives, can also learn something new by rewatching his movies. Tony Lee Moral, an expert in Hitch, offered us valuable advice in this tight and thought-provoking book.

Lost in Translation: odd classic film titles in Portuguese - Hitchcock edition

 

August is a very Hitchcockian month. It marks Alfred Hitchcock’s birthday- on August 13th - and also the birthday of his wife and constant collaborator, Alma Reville - on August 14th. They were both born in 1899, which means that Alfred was only one day older than Alma!

I’ve written about Hitchcock’s life and work in several occasions over the years - I even wrote the opening article for a book about the Master of Suspense. He may not be my all-time favorite director - the soft spot in my heart belongs to my almost alter-ego Orson Welles - but, like many cinephiles and most classic film fans, I hold Hitchcock dearly. Now let’s take a look at how the titles of his movies were translated to Portuguese! As always, the titles not mentioned here were translated verbatim.

 

“Downhill” (1927) became “Decadence” (“Decadência”)

 

“Easy Virtue” (1927) is here “Public Woman” (“Mulher Pública”)

 

“The Manxman” (1929) received the title “Between the Law and the Heart” (“Entre a Lei e o Coração”)

 

“Blackmail” (1929) is known as “Blackmail and Confession” (“Chantagem e Confissão”)

 

“The Skin Game” (1931) became “Dirty Game” (“Jogo Sujo”)

 

“Number 17” (1932) is here “The Mystery of Number 17” (“O Mistério do N° 17”)

 

“Sabotage” (1936) received, on the original release, the title…. “The Husband was Guilty” (“O Marido era o Culpado”)

 

“The Lady Vanishes” (1938) is known as “The Hidden Woman” (“A Mulher Oculta”)

“Jamaica Inn” (1939) became “The Damned Inn” (“A Estalagem Maldita”)

 

“Rebecca” (1940), Hitchcock’s first Hollywood movie, received here a subtitle: “Rebecca, the Unforgettable Woman” (“Rebecca, a Mulher Inesquecível”)

 

“Mr and Mrs Smith” (1941) got a slang as a title that can be translated as “A Naughty Couple” (“Um Casal do Barulho”)

 

“Lifeboat” (1944) is known as “One Boat and Nine Destinies” (“Um Barco e Nove Destinos”)

 

“Spellbound” (1945) became “When the Heart Talks” (“Quando Fala o Coração”)

 

“Notorious” (1946) received the title “Interlude” (“Interlúdio”)

 

“The Paradine Case” (1947) is here “Love Agony” (Agonia de Amor”)

 

“Rope” (1948) is known as “Diabolical Feast” (“Festim Diabólico”)

 

“Stage Fright” (1950) got the title “Terror Backstage” (“Pavor nos Bastidores”)

 

“Strangers on a Train” (1951), my favorite Hitchcock movie, is here “Sinister Pact” (“Pacto Sinistro”)

 

“I Confess” (1953), became “The Torture of Silence” (“A Tortura do Silêncio”)

 

“Rear Window” (1954), is known here as “Indiscreet Window” (“Janela Indiscreta”)

“To Catch a Thief” (1955) received the title “White Collar Thief” (“Ladrão de Casaca”)

 

“The Trouble with Harry” (1955) is here “The Third Shot” (“O Terceiro Tiro”)

 

The masterpiece “Vertigo” (1958) received the title “A Body that Falls” (“Um Corpo que Cai”)

 

“North by Northwest” (1959) is known here as “International Intrigue” (“Intriga Internacional”)

 

“Psycho” is here “Psychosis” (“Psicose”)

 

“Marnie” (1964) also received a subtitle: “Marnie, Confessions of a Thief” (“Marnie, Confissões de uma Ladra”)

 

“Family Plot” (1976), Hitchcock’s final movie, is known as “Macabre Plot” (“Trama Macabra”)