The Midwest Quarterly (2004) - Hitchcock and Kafka: Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Train

Details

• article: Hitchcock and Kafka: Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Train
• author(s): Peter J. Dellolio
• journal: The Midwest Quarterly (2004)
• issue: volume 45, issue 3, page 240
• journal ISSN: 0026-3451
• publisher: Pittsburg State University, Department of History
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Claude Chabrol, David Sterritt, Farley Granger, François Truffaut, Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's Films (1965) by Robin Wood, I Confess (1953), London, England, Marion Crane, Marion Lorne, New York City, New York, Norman Bates, North by Northwest (1959), Notorious (1946), Patricia Highsmith, Psycho (1960), Robert Walker, Robin Wood, Ruth Roman, Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Strangers on a Train (1951), The Lady Vanishes (1938), The Wrong Man (1956), Thomas Elsaesser, Vertigo (1958), William Rothman, Éric Rohmer

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Abstract

"Strangers on a Train" is a parable about a wish fulfillment fantasy overtaking reality by means of metaphysical freedom, opposing energies, and deadly consequences. Dellolio demonstrates that Alfred Hitchcock in "Strangers on a Train" carefully constructs the visual imagery, finding "formal figures that telescope or mirror" his protagonists' thoughts, feelings, and perceptions through a variety of spatial and formal equivalences. He contends that the narrative and stylistic organization of the film (based on the notion of inner-directed elements controlling the objective world) is deeply influenced by some of the precepts of Expressionism.