Alfred Hitchock is a director who
is quite notorious for his use and fascination of “doubles” throughout several
of his films. Whether it is in the
direct parallel of two characters with the shared name, or the notion that the
image of “serial killer” may be one far more identifiable than we suspect,
Hitchcock cleverly demonstrates the power that “doubles” hold in building
suspense throughout a horror film. Shadow of a Doubt demonstrates this not
only through the characters of Charlie and Young Charlie, but also in the
constant mystery of the movie as to whether or not Uncle Charlie is indeed the
monster we most fear. Hitchcock
perfectly hangs his audience in perfect suspense by slowly dissecting and
inspecting these two concepts in the film.
The
relationship and identity of the two “Charlies” in the film comes full circle
by the conclusion. At the beginning, the
relationship between the niece and uncle could not be anymore encouraged; both
“Charlies” are a sort of misfit, Young Charlie voicing her disdain for the
normal and contrived type of people (i.e. her family) she is surrounded by, and
Uncle Charlie’s character is given complex context when his past is
disclosed. The evident bond between the
two is further epitomized through Young Charlie’s curious line, “Do you believe
in mental telepathy?” The movie almost begs its audience to recognize the stark
connection between the two characters’ and their arches.
Throughout the
former half of the film, their similarities are laid out explicitly; their disinterest
in money, the cynical personalities, and the obvious one, the shared name, draw
a direct parallel for the audience demonstrating how the two characters are to
be “studied”. As the plot unravels and
Uncle Charlie’s true colors begin to show, it is interesting to see how Young
Charlie’s story in her shared connection to the plot unravels – still, in a
direct parallel to her uncle’s story. It
is a repeated warning throughout the film that if Uncle Charlie were to ever
leave the family’s lives again, it would “kill their mother”. Almost unfortunately, Young Charlie’s story
comes full circle to directly mirror her uncle’s as she is the one to
ultimately dismiss Uncle Charlie from their lives. Could it be that, like her Uncle who
committed so many murders, she too ended up being guilty of “killing” of her
mother by banishing her brother from their lives?
The normalcy of
the murderous uncle is something to be inspected, as well. Part of the suspense in A Shadow of a Doubt is built around the fact of identifying who the
murderer truly is, and if it could really manifest itself in someone as
commonplace as Uncle Charlie. From the
start of the film, Uncle Charlie is dressed strikingly similar to the two men
investigating him, eliminating a boundary between identifying hero and
villain. In addition, the character is
designed in part with charisma and the aforementioned striking similarities to
his innocent niece, Young Charlie. By
portraying Uncle Charlie as a normal, family man plays to the suspense of the
film and leaves the audience hanging in suspense as they work to figure out
Uncle Charlie’s true identity. Shrouding
him in a town where “everyone knows everyone” and placing him in the middle of
the poster family for traditional Americans, the movie perfectly nestles him in
the illusion that the audience must break through.
Alfred Hitchcock
famously displays his unique talent of villainizing “doubles” in Shadow of a Doubt. Through both remarkable character arches
played out by the two “Charlies”, in addition to the suspense of not knowing
who the true killer really is, Hitchcock manages to pull the audience every
which way he so wishes in order to keep them in perfect suspense.
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