The Screen: Into the Shadows - Marnie

11 Jan 2023

Overview

This season we delve into the dark and explore psychoanalyst Carl Jung's concept of "the shadow". These films span the last century and probe those ignored or repressed parts of our collective unconscious. What happens when they surface?
Marnie, walking the world as a loner, poses as a hard working widow to gain employment at insurance companies that she subsequently robs. Until, that is, she starts at The Rutland Company and her plans get rumbled by her boss, Mark Rutland. Rich and bored, he forces her to marry him. Made curious by his capture he tries to figure out what her pathology is and we watch Marnie’s shadow controlling her fate. In looking at the film today, you can see it’s not just Marnie but Mark who has the pronounced darkness controlling them. As Marnie says, “You Freud, me Jane,” summing up their weird dynamics drenched in Freudian ick.

Hitchcock’s films are known to have pyschoanalytic ideas running through them, however Marnie is positively dripping with them, making it an especially intriguing experience. An uncomfortable, sometimes infuriating and compelling watch, it speaks loudly of the things we are unaware of in ourselves that need to be known.

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