Marnie

BFI Film Classics

by Murray Pomerance

A thrilling tale of anxiety and moral extremity, Marnie (1964) cemented Alfred Hitchcock's reputation as a master of suspense and the visual form. Murray Pomerance here ranges through the many tortuous and thrilling passages of Marnie , weaving critical discussion together with production history to reveal Marnie as a woman in flight from her self, her past, her love, and the eyes of surveilling others. Challenging many received opinions – including claims of technical sloppiness and the proposal that Marnie's marriage night is a 'rape scene' – Pomerance sheds new light on a film that can often be difficult to understand and accept on its own terms.Original and stimulating, this BFI Film Classic identifies Marnie as one of Hitchcock's masterpieces, highlights the film's philosophical and psychological sensitivity, and reveals its sharp-eyed understanding of American society and its mores.

Genres: Film

96 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2014

About the author

Murray Pomerance is a Canadian film scholar, author, and professor who teaches in the Department of Sociology at Ryerson University and in the joint program in communication and culture at Ryerson University and York University. He has written extensively on film, cinematic experience, and performance. Most recently he authored The Eyes Have It: Cinema and the Reality Effect, Tomorrow, Alfred Hitchcock's America, Michelangelo Red Antonioni Blue: Eight Reflections on Cinema and Edith Valmaine and is a co-editor of Hollywood's Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema (Wayne State University Press, 2012). Pomerance is the editor and co-editor of more than a dozen books and the editor of several book series on film at Rutgers University Press and at the State University of New York Press.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing in this book is so precious that really it should only be exhibited to the public in the Tower of London alongside the Crown Jewels. It says here that he is a professor at a university in Melbourne. We should have a minute's silence for his poor students.

[Marnie Cannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Pomerance provides a substantial amount of information on production studies in this work, there’s not much else here for the reader. What would have made this a more interesting read is if there had been an analysis working alongside the discussion of the production of Marnie. Instead he hints at others interpretations but never brings anything new to the conversation.

[ira · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the nastiest pieces of academic rape apologia I’ve ever encountered, genuinely should have been career ending not just for pomerance but for whatever editor commissioned and published it

[David Sterritt]

I have known, worked with, and hung out with the prolific Canadian sociologist and film scholar Murray Pomerance for many a long year, and I can now report that his BFI monograph on Hitchcock’s “Marnie,” a movie more problematic for me than for Murray, is pretty darn interesting. Nicely done. ‘Nuff said.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being new to Hitchock’s 1962 [great] film Marnie, I found Murray Pomerance’s book an enjoyable and informative read.

[Antonio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much information, too many details, too close to facts that do not enlighten the movie. It does contain interesting content, but you have to find it among a lot of uninteresting considerations which are burdersome and tiring. It misses the whole picture in favour of details that overlook the greatness of the actual film. It might be of real interest as scholarly paper, but as a private reading it is out of focus and can be skipped completely. Disappointing.