Voyeurism in Hitchcock’s Notorious

Hitchcockian cinema delves into ideas of witnessing, watching, and voyeurism, exploring what observation entails not only as a character but also as an audience member. In hindsight, we understand this preoccupation that Alfred Hitchcock had in obsessive looking as he often spied on his leading ladies, the recognisable Hitchcock Blondes, and even attempted to control their personal lives. He seemed to be making films in order to materialise his darkest fantasies; Truffaut once stated that Hitchcock 'filmed his love scenes like murders and his murders like love scenes'. He seemed intent on creating characters starring the Cary Grants and Sean Connerys that he admired and desired to be himself. His iconic cameos also convey his yearning to be seen and through his filmmaking, he often brought the viewers along too so we could join him in this fascination of watching.

Notorious (Hitchcock, 1948) - Cary Grant as Devlin (left) and Ingrid Bergman as Alicia (right)

Notorious (1946) might not be as obvious a choice as Rear Window (1954) in understanding how Hitchcock truly examines the voyeuristic nature of the film medium. However, Notorious’ themes of espionage, investigation, and even romance lead to the significance that watching and being watched has in establishing the overall narrative and in society itself. In one of the first scenes in the film, Alicia (Ingrid Berman) is holding a party and Devlin (Cary Grant) attends; Hitchcock really creates the sense of the observer and the observed.

The stationary shot transitions from day to night implying a passing of time, creating a resemblance towards that of a peeping Tom. Regardless of the fading transition of the two shots quickening the temporal shift, it feels as though the audience has been present the whole time. The personal has seemingly been impeded upon, as the camera has taken away the privacy of Alicia’s domestic environment. This also is reiterated in the nuzzling, kiss scene between Bergman and Grant where the camera obstructs their intimacy, creating a kind of ménage à trois. Hitchcock makes the camera into a character of itself, watching and following the action similarly as the human eye does.

When the camera finally ventures inside the house, Hitchcock places a darkened silhouette in the middle of the frame adding to the mise-en-scène of the party. The mysterious outline of this character is at the forefront of our screens and is watching the action unfold whilst remaining silent – much like the audience. Grant’s silhouette makes it seem as if we were in a cinema with a person sat in the row in front of us and so we join Grant in his observation. Through this, Hitchcock incites the separation of the viewer and the viewed, establishing at this early stage in the film that Devlin is merely an onlooker, remaining untouched by our judgements, and Alicia is often the one being watched and criticised. The spectator regardless of gender falls into wielding a controlling gaze over a passive female object. Prior to this scene, we’ve seen cameras flashing in Alicia’s face and journalists demanding answers, implying she has already been a watched woman. Even in the hectic frame that is filled with characters and unrelated conversations, our focus is still drawn to Bergman. She lies slightly off centre, yet the pattern of her dress and Grant’s observation of her, force a viewer into doing the same.

Notorious (Hitchcock, 1948) - Party Scene

The sequence remains quite stationary, with Hitchcock introducing panning shots to follow Alicia’s movements through the scene: as she stands up or walks. Bergman holds a magnetism for the camera as it follows her wherever she goes, as do Grant’s eyes. Despite Devlin’s importance as a character, Grant has to often step back into the frame after the camera has moved to follow Alicia. The camera’s stalking of her throughout the film by focus, panning shots, or tracking shots implies she is always being examined whether by Devlin, Alex, Prescott, or the viewers themselves. Devlin, on the other hand, has more power than Alicia ever does and makes a conscious attempt to be or not to be observed. In this particular scene, he chooses to simply be a voyeur, hiding his face for much of the sequence. However, after Alicia and Devlin escape from the wine cellar, he kisses Alicia planning on being watched by Alex. His reason is to conceal their espionage from a few moments earlier but his kissing Alicia is an exhibitionist display that asserts his power as a man and a lover. He can choose if and when he is seen, but this isn’t the same for Alicia.

We also see Alicia in a more intimate scene when she is speaking solely to Devlin; Hitchcock uses over the shoulder shots, showing a viewer clearly who is doing the observing and who is being observed. On this occasion, we see the power shift between Devlin and Alicia, as Hitchcock provides a shot of Alicia watching Devlin. Hence, there’s an ability for her and the audience to examine and understand Grant’s character, rather than only the other way around. These shots allow the audience to see Alicia in a personal rather than a public space; where she seems more able to be voyeuristic rather than merely exhibitionistic but is still oblivious of the camera’s intrusion. The close-up also provides an enlarged shot of the eyes and a viewer is now able to see every blink and glance, emphasising the power of vision and observation. Through this we realise as viewers we are watching people watch other people, and Hitchcock points out this cyclical and if not slightly vicarious nature of society.

Through Hitchcock’s cinematic career and his filming of Notorious, he manages to unbuckle the concepts of seeing and being seen. He explores a voyeuristic nature in an invisible yet imposing eye in the form of a camera and also finds a way to skew our perspectives as we observe Alicia in a similar way as Devlin does. The power shift is conveyed through who is the watcher and the watched, which is constantly changing especially in the different societal spheres of public, personal, and secret. Hitchcock highlights the significance of surveillance in the context of the film but also shines a light on the other side of the screen, questioning spectatorship in quotidian life and humankind itself.