The dancing couples image serves as a bridge between shots of Uncle Charles and Charlie, a pattern which is repeated in the remaining two instances in which it occurs in the film. The image, accompanied by the orchestral rendition of the “Merry Widow” waltz, persists after Uncle Charles has disappeared from view until it in turn dissolves into a shot of young Charlie back in the living room and humming the same tune. After Charlie says she ‘knows’ Uncle Charles better than anyone else does and that she knows he harbors a ‘wonderful secret’ which she pledges to find out, the scene in the kitchen ends when the waltzing couples appear in a dissolve over a fading shot of Uncle Charles exiting the kitchen, looking perplexed by Charlie’s promise to discover his secret. This sequence, which Rothman and many others have noted observes the formalities of a bizarre betrothal between the two Charlies, also introduces the dancing couples/”Merry Widow” waltz image-sound into the body of the film. Rather I wish to suggest another level at which the enigma operates as enigma, one which, like the image of the dancers itself, is encountered before the many other ways the image signifies and remains after they have been taken into account.Īfter the credits, the next appearance of the dancing couples is during a scene in which Uncle Charles gives a special gift to his niece. Nor do I wish to argue for the superiority of an alternative reading to any of the other numerous interpretations of the dancing couples I have come across in my research (some of which I will refer to). I do not wish to dispute Rothman’s claim about how to read the image of the dancing couples, or rather the conjunction of this image with the sound of the “Merry Widow” waltz with which it is always heard in its four appearances in the film. The dramatic trajectory of the film centres on the close relationship between the killer, Uncle Charles (Joseph Cotton), and his niece and namesake, Charlie (Teresa Wright). ![]() (3) In the terms of Rothman’s auteurist engagement with the film, this enigma is intricately bound up with Hitchcock’s ongoing thematic and aesthetic concerns, concerns which Rothman articulates elaborately in his careful meditation on the film’s unfolding story about a psychotic serial killer hiding from the law inside the sanctuary of a ‘normal’ family (that of his sister) in a ‘normal’ American small town. (2) I wish to pursue the course of this interrogation by considering the enigma posed by the relation between the two characters that is made visible and audible in the dancing couples image/sound set, though in ways that are not the same for the spectator and the characters within the film.Īs Bill Rothman rightly says in his extensive and subtly inflected reading of the film, the image of the ballroom dancing couples appears over the opening credits of Shadow of a Doubt as if to announce an enigma that the film will pose and explore. (1) He also indicates in that interview his concern to portray a telepathic relation between the two Charlies in a comment that Truffaut fails to interrogate further. Rather, the film primes the viewer to understand their occurrence as a further manifestation of the telepathy between Charles and his favourite niece, Charlie (named after him).Īgainst the better judgement of most critical accounts of the film, which prefer to interpret its use of the “Merry Widow” tune differently, I wish in this paper to consider the film’s insistence on the telepathic passage between heads – between the heads of two characters that Hitchcock has said (in his interview with François Truffaut) were conceived of with the figure of the double in mind. But while the tune and the waltzing couples appear on one occasion in a lap dissolve over a shot of Charles, the film’s narration does not unequivocally mark this image-sound set as coming from ‘inside’ Charles’ head (there is nothing like a close-up shot of Charles looking off-screen as if imagining or recalling the tune or image). Through its name, the tune alludes to the secret identity of Uncle Charles (Joseph Cotten) as the “Merry Widow” serial killer of rich widows, on the run from a nationwide police hunt. Occurring firstly during the opening credits and then at crucial moments during the unfolding story, and neither simply diegetic nor non-diegetic, this melody and the brief, hallucinatory scene of waltzing couples that sometimes accompanies it present a conundrum to the spectator/auditor about how to attribute their occurrence in the film. ![]() This paper contemplates the curious employment of the “Merry Widow” waltz in the soundtrack of Hitchcock’s early American classic, Shadow of a Doubt. ![]() This paper was presented at the Alfred Hitchcock conference For the Love of Fear convened by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, held from 31 March to 2 April 2000.
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