The following is part of a series in which I apply rudimentary concepts from Lacanian psychoanalysis to current events and film. My two principal texts are Lacan, an introductory text by Lionel Bailly, and Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture by philosopher Slavoj Zizek. I present these posts in order to deepen my imperfect understanding of the concepts as well as to venture some insights of my own.
For
a long time, I never took Alfred Hitchcock’s films as anything more than good
thrillers, so it rankled when Vertigo knocked Citizen Kane from its long reign
as the greatest film of all time (article). In recent years, however, I have come to appreciate
the depth of psychological insight in Hitchcock’s films. Having just watched The
Man Who Knew Too Much for the first time, I can say it is no different.
In
Looking Awry, Slavoj Zizek makes much of the man who knows too much as a theme running
through Hitchcock’s oeuvre. What stood out to me, however, was the film’s portrayal
of how the Subject--the core of an individual’s psyche--interacts with what
Lacanians call the Big Other.
The
Big Other is a function of the psyche that is first represented by the mother
but later comes to be associated with broader forces: culture, society, law,
time and language. It is the vast web of influences--usually rules of one sort
or another--beyond the individual’s control. It is the network of preexisting systems
into which one is born and with which one must grapple throughout life.
The
Man Who Knew Too Much is concerned with matters of the Big Other from start to
finish. Early in the film, the focus is on culture as the McKennas travel in Morocco
and must respect local customs and taboos. Later, it is the law when they
become entangled with spies, police inspectors and government officials.
Society also figures heavily since Mr. and Mrs. McKenna cannot say a word of
what they know to anyone. Frantic with worry for their son, they must observe
etiquette and put on a good face when meeting acquaintances.
Interestingly,
the distraught parents begin to make progress when they transgress these
restrictions. Mr. McKenna is a stereotypically brash and blunt
American, so he can rush out of quiet social gatherings and get in the faces of
total strangers, but his wife is a study in poise in private and
public and finds it harder to be impolite.
Thus,
it is only fitting that Mrs. McKenna commit the biggest breach
of etiquette in the film. When the assassination is to occur, during a concert, the tension builds as from a distance she watches the
assassin slowly train his weapon on the prime minister. Meanwhile, her husband races
through the halls trying to thwart the attack but failing because of police
officers (the law) surrounding the intended target. When
Mrs. McKenna can take it no longer, she lets out a blood-curdling scream, interrupting
the performance, disturbing the audience, and startling both killer and victim
so the bullet misses its mark.
“The Other is omnipresent: all our lives we will play with, struggle against, and learn to use its manifestations.”
The injunction against speaking during a performance is what makes Mrs. McKenna’s scream so effective. It cannot help but upset the immediate social order.
After
the failed assassination, the McKennas still have to get their son back, but
they finally stop struggling against the Other and decide to use its protocol
to their advantage. Having saved the prime minister’s life, Mrs. McKenna calls
in a favor. She requests a visit to the embassy where the prime minister is
staying because she knows the villains are in hiding there with her son. The
foreign dignitary naturally accepts--it would be ungrateful to refuse, showing
that he too is subject to the Big Other--and the McKennas finally retrieve their son while at the embassy.
This
change of methods--from resistance to acceptance of external order--marks a
sudden reconciliation with the Big Other and a return to society’s good graces.
The film ends with the couple rejoining some friends whom they abruptly left
earlier as they raced off to free their son.
At
one point in Looking Awry, Zizek states, tongue in cheek, that Shakespeare must
have read Lacan because of the depth of his psychological insight. Shakespeare
lived a few centuries too early to read Lacan, but Hitchcock and Lacan were
contemporaries and Hitchcock’s interest in psychoanalysis is well documented. No
doubt a psychoanalytic approach to interpreting The Man Who Knew Too Much could
turn up much more than this post can contain.
Previous
posts in this series:
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