Page 33 - Cinematic Thinking Philosophical Approaches to the New Cinema

Alfred Hitchcock 23

But the association between Marnie and trapped animals goes be-
yond the visual connections to alligator purses or claustrophobic fake sets.
Mamie's most Satisfying relationship is with her horse, Forio, whom she
shoots near the end of the film; the only being with whom she is free is
Forio, and her whole personality changes when she is riding. The first time
that we see her riding, it looks as if she rides her horse right up the street
in front of her mother's apartment; the perspective is hers (or the horse's)
as we ride through the trees and then up the street toward the fake ship,
riding into the trap of her childhood. This "trap" is the supposed cause of
her "illness," an illness foretold in the girls' jump-rope song:

Mother, Mother, I am ill.
Call for the doctor over the hill.
Call for the doctor. Call for the nurse.
Call for the lady with the alligator purse.
"Mumps," said the doctor. "Measles," said the nurse.
Nothing said the lady with the alligator purse.

Marnie repeatedly gives the response "nothing" throughout the film when
asked what is wrong. She insists that nothing is wrong; like the lady with
the alligator purse, she says "nothing."
When she arrives at her mother's apartment, she is hurt to see the
little neighbor girl "roosting" there and receiving her mother's attention.
She presents her mother with a fur collar (another dead animal), and we
first realize that the color red is the catalyst for her seeing red, the color of
blood. Shortly after, we see Marnie (in "drag" as a mild-mannered secre-
tary) at Rutland's office, where Mark insists that the office manager hire
her. In the first scene between Mark and Marnie, we learn that Mark is
a zoologist who studies predatory behavior, especially in female animals.
He tells Marnie that he studies instinctual behavior in animals, and she
asks if he studies human beings and "lady animals." Mark answers that
he studies the criminal class of the animal world in which "lady animals"
figure largely as predators. All the while, the audience knows (and Mark
suspects) that Marnie is herself a "lady criminal" preying on unsuspecting
employers.
When Mark discovers that Marnie is interested in horses, he in-
vites her to the horse races (where she has another attack of seeing red
prompted by the jockey's jersey on a horse named "Telepathy"). It is there
that Marnie tells Mark that she believes in "nothing. . horses maybe, but
.