On Hitchcock

Lucy Ellmann may be an accomplished postmodern fiction writer, but her comments about how Alfred Hitchcock "tormented his leading ladies" (New York Times 12/19) repeats an erroneous slander.

Not that the famous director's behavior was always proper (he loved naughty jokes and foolish pranks). Nor can someone like me, familiar mainly with Patrick McGilligan's 850-page authoritative biography of Hitch and other sources, and having never known the subject, weigh in definitively on a complex topic.  

Hitchcock was a loner, an observer of life, a reserved person with an image of himself as ugly. He feared women, as many men do, and often treated them with jokes to relax them or with hovering attention to bring out the feelings needed for their characters. 

All that I've read about his relationship with Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman, both life-long friends, and knowing how Janet Leigh, Eva Marie Saint, and other actresses appreciated his direction,  it seems that Hitch's method was often to treat an inexperienced actress (Kim Novak, Tippi Hedren, Joan Fontaine) with a kind of obsessive attention, intended to create anxiety or hysteria in their characters.  Some took offense;  Marlene Dietrich called him a "strange little man."

Grace Kelly, responding to the idea of Hitchcock as a tyrant with actors, wrote that the director was skillful in getting exactly what he wanted out them, often with humor; she recalled the confidence she felt as an actor because of his presence.

I thought of all this as I watched "Notorious" (1946) again, noticing how Hitch's camera perfectly captures the warm sensuality of Ingrid Bergman, especially in her relationship with the cool, aloof Cary Grant as a CIA agent.  And I agree with the assessment of McGilligan that Hitchcock is not just a master of suspense but of ambivalent feelings. He knew exactly how to manipulate the viewer, using tension and humor.  And romance.   The Grant-Bergman relationship indicates how important the main characters' feelings are to the success of the film and how the trivial plot of Nazis in Argentina with a secret wine cellar means little in comparison with the emotional complexity of the lovers.

I've always admired the careful attention to detail that mark a Hitchcock movie.  Everything was planned in advance, and he was in total control of the script, the camera, the lighting and costuming, even the publicity in many cases. He was the total artist who knew that Cary Grant could suggest sexual ambivalence, and Farley Granger in "Strangers on a Train" had a soft masculinity and vulnerability that make him an easy prey for the wiles of the "gay" Bruno.

These are two of my favorites in the Hitchcock canon. I can watch them, along with "Rear Window," over and over, as well as "Psycho."  But I don't share the critical view that "Vertigo" is his greatest achievement: both the story and the acting of Kim Novak are implausible.   And for sheer pleasure, there's "To Catch a Thief," with Grace and Cary on the Riviera in all their elegance, a reminder that romantic comedy, not violence, is Hitchcock's great forte.

Loving the Person, not the Pattern

As I thought about each group of friends who helped us celebrate Christmas, I initially thought, I don't really like their company all that much.  In fact, I was glad to see them leave. I found myself criticizing their lack of listening skills, their self-preoccupation and lack of thoughtfulness.

Then, upon reflection, I realized that each is a good, caring person and that what I object to is the behavior pattern that gets in the way of seeing who the real person is, deep down.

Love, as Flannery O'Connor wrote, is the effort to understand.  And it takes real effort to understand who a person really is. It is mainly by listening patiently, and putting my own agenda on hold, that I can see glimmers of the real man or woman that I think I know.  In one sense, I will never know them fully.  Presumably, God does.

To love another is to forgive their nervous habits, their thoughtless comments, their failure to carry on a real conversation, even their lack of social graces.  It is very easy to hate the person who turns us off by his or her loudly voiced opinions or argumentative style. It is very hard to forgive.

I recall the wisdom of Nancy Pelosi's comment about Donald Trump when she was asked if she hated him.  Many people do.  It is a real challenge not to.

But she said she hated no one. It is against her Catholic faith. Instead she prays for him. This is a spiritually wise response because it reflects her awareness that beneath Trump's lies and insults and obnoxious behavior is a real person, perhaps insecure and immature.  Maybe prayer is the only way to reach that inner person so easily disguised by the public persona and immature behavior.

So Speaker Pelosi, who showed the world that she has carefully reflected on the challenge of dealing with Trump, showed discernment.  She  reminded me of an important lesson about loving and forgiving, of not judging too harshly or quickly. Above all, of not hating.  There is far too much hate in the world, and it takes great effort to overcome it.

Season of Light

As my Jewish friends, with whom I will spend Christmas day, prepare for Hanukkah, I am thinking about the importance of light in a dark time.  Not just this time of year but the cultural and political climate of hate and rancor.

Christmas should be a bright time, filled with hope, a time to look ahead and also to remember, and to be grateful.

Gratitude and joy are interrelated, writes Vinita Hampton Wright: "you rarely experience one without the other."  Well, to me, joy is a rare commodity. I would settle for contentment, or at least optimism.  And certainly love.

This brings me to an arresting reflection by Richard Rohr, who wrote that "Loving people are always conscious people." He means attentive to others and to the world, with a sense of caring, of loving others.  Awareness, attention, and being conscious are equivalent terms spiritually; and, interestingly, they involve love.

Whenever, he goes on, we do anything evil or cruel to ourselves or others, we are "at that moment unconscious, unconscious of our identity."  He means our identity as children of God, ones who are loved and who know they are loved, even if they are alone.  If we were fully conscious, Rohr says, we would never be violent toward anyone.

So being conscious or fully aware is to love oneself and others since such love is rooted in a self-awareness of our connection to others, to the world, and to God.

This is the time of year when we stop for a minute and consider that "peace on earth and good will to men" means that we see that love, the energy that moves the universe, also dwells in each of us. We have much to be hopeful about.

Cats and Popes are Trending

With a new movie opening called "The Two Popes," and a new version of the musical "Cats" being reviewed this week,  Simon Goodfellow is very happy.

Who is Simon Goodfellow, you ask? He's the main character in my book THE CAT WHO CONVERTED THE POPE, a wise, well-spoken cat who speaks perfect English and reads; he even advises the fictional American pope in the story, then offers advice on being calm, taking time to meditate, and staying in the present moment.

So if anyone out there is looking for a gift, Simon would agree with me that cat books make great gifts. The book is available on Amazon.     He joins me in wishing my readers a Merry Christmas and good new year.

https://www.amazon.com/Cat-Who-Converted-Pope/dp/0974553115

A Painful Beauty

I found myself this week wrapping a few Christmas gifts while listening to news of the impeachment of Donald Trump. I was struck by the incongruity involved and also aware of the absurdity of those defending the indefensible corruption of the president.  Several Republicans referred to his actions as "inappropriate," an absurdly euphemistic term that obscures what should be called wrong, immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional.

The larger issue is how to balance the horrors of reality, and history, with the joy promised by the coming season of light and hope. Or, on a daily basis, how to find meaning in what to many writers seems a bleak existence.

As a former student wrote to me, the serious literature we read (and much of our escapist fiction and film) remind us of human greed, selfishness, and violence. It so easy for readers to be as pessimistic about life as so many writers are. How do we find what music and art often give us (but literature often does not): a sense of being lifted up, a sense that life is worth living?  It seems to me we must place the mind's bleak view of life as empty and meaningless in a much larger package.

As a Christian, I must be optimistic; I must remind myself that God is present in me, in those I encounter, and in the natural world. I must make an effort, even amid my pain and fatigue, to find something to be grateful for, even a simple thing like a blue sky on a beautiful, crisp winter day.  I must make an effort of the will to counter what I know to be the lot of many of my friends: pain, despair, suffering, and loneliness.   And in the wider world, violence and corruption.

I must turn inward to prayer.  I ask for the wisdom to accept my fate, without blaming myself or God or anyone else for my age and physical weakness. I picture others in their suffering and connect myself with them.  And I remind myself that the light of love and compassion invariably comes after we journey through the valley of darkness and pain. Life is a balance between light and dark, and it is a very delicate balance.

I think of the words of Pascal:  "Man is equally capable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed."

Happiness is the product of going beyond the mind into the soul and the heart.

As Richard Rohr has said, peace of mind is a contradiction in terms.  We can never find peace by analyzing, judging, and criticizing ourselves and others; we have to move beyond thinking into the realm of feeling and believing in something greater than our own selves.

It is a great challenge to be in awe of nature, to experience wonder and joy while the world around you seems to be pursuing self-serving ends. It is a challenge to be grateful when you feel sick or alone.  It is hard to be patient with the painful beauty that life is--to see amid the pain the light of beauty.

I would like to think that everyone who says Happy Holidays at this time of year truly wishes each other inner peace and a contentment that comes from accepting both the pain and the beauty of life.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving in the U.S. tomorrow, a day of eating, connecting with family and friends, and, presumably, being grateful. I suspect that, at least among the people I know, gratitude is mostly a vague, generalized awareness, mainly that the busy holiday season is upon us.  This holiday for many people means an annual ritual of travel, cooking, watching football, overeating and shopping--and nothing more. 

I wish everyone could be silent for a while on this day, savor the moment, and truly feel thankful, especially for the things we take for granted.  Isn't happiness found in being mindful of the present?

Being grateful is essential to my life because, amid personal struggles, political turmoil, and world-wide violence and corruption, I need to stop and think positive thoughts.  I need to remind myself of simple things--the intense blue of the sky between two pine trees as I look out my window, or the light as it comes into the house in the afternoon...I am grateful for the beautiful lakes that dot my area of Florida and the touches of autumn in colored leaves on cool days.

I am grateful for the friends and family who write or call us at this time of year.  I am grateful for those times in the day when I don't feel the pain of arthritis and become irritable or sad about my health.  Of course, I am grateful for a rich store of memories--of students going back 50-plus years, of trips, of family gatherings by many who are no longer around.  Above all, I am grateful for my wife, Lynn, and her brilliance, her hard work, her constant support and boundless love.

I am grateful to have had a retirement from university teaching that has allowed me to write and speak and keep learning new things, thanks to the internet and related technology.  And I am grateful for so much more....

Gratitude is for me the essence of prayer, and I like to think that in each moment when I recollect something to be thankful for, at any time of the year, I am talking to God, connecting myself to my inner life as well as to the community of people I know and remember. It's hard to imagine real gratitude without a belief in God.

And it's hard to imagine happiness without gratitude.

Solitude vs. Loneliness

Social commentators are right to be concerned about people sitting in isolation in front of computers, a prey to nasty stuff. Such isolation can lead some young people to encounter extremist views and conspiracy theories and other right-wing propaganda.

But being alone is not necessarily a source of loneliness.  "A man alone is always in bad company," Paul Valery is quoted as saying, but I disagree with this as an absolute principle.  A person left alone, adrift with ties to family or faith or any other community, can be in bad company--unless he or she seeks the kind of solitude that nourishes the spirit.

Creative people need solitude, which is not at all akin to loneliness.  Most of us need a few hours alone, especially in this noisy, busy culture; we need to be alone with ourselves.  Solitude implies a time apart that is enjoyable.  My time writing requires solitude; my wife, a poet and fiction writer, goes so far as to disconnect the telephone for what she calls "cloistered time."  Both of us are happy being on our own for a few hours reading, writing, or just thinking.
 
Anyone who has read Thomas Merton (Thoughts in Solitude, e.g.) or May Sarton or many other more recent writers knows that one can be happy, or at least contented, with a good bit of solitude.  I thought of this in my research into feline behavior. Cats are solitary creatures, but they also crave company and seek our attention. So it is with people, especially creative ones.  We need to interact with another living being, yet we also need time apart for ourselves.

Solitude is a precious commodity of the self, something the poet Rilke has in mind when he wrote, "I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other."  So the kind of love he envisions, as a poet, requires respecting the other's private domain, allowing the partner the creative freedom to be alone.

And yet being alone in contemplative prayer or meditation, as Merton and other can attest, is also to be connected to the vast web of others who are praying or meditating.  In being part of a community of silence, we are never really alone even while being on our own.  And we are certainly not lonely or in bad company.