Together, all these qualities gave him the air of a kind of avuncular jokester-your proper, funny British uncle. His balding head, prominent jowls, and protruding belly gave him a decidedly round appearance. Whenever appearing in front of the camera, he was invariably clad in a suit and tie in his speech, he was articulate, witty, and droll (and, of course, very English). And, unlike many other directors, he was instantly recognizable to moviegoers thanks to his unique appearance, penchant for cameos, and knack for self-promotion. Certainly by the 1950s, if not earlier, Hitchcock was one of the most famous directors-if not the most famous-in the world. He himself was a man whose public image may have belied the reality of his darker inner passions. It is not altogether surprising that Hitchcock was fascinated by the psychopath as an extreme example of the duality of inner nature versus outward appearance. I mean, come on, could he be more obvious? This clearly isn’t fooling anyone. To be fair, your average psychopath does a better job than this guy. At the risk of engaging in further wolf bashing-but in keeping with the lupine theme established thus far-the psychopath is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing. He (or, less frequently, she) is the monster among us, hidden in plain sight. The psychopath represents perhaps the starkest example of the disparity between appearance and reality. Presumably, part of what intrigued Hitchcock about psychopaths is something that intrigues many people about them: their almost confounding propensity for the most monstrous behavior imaginable combined with the appearance of utter normalcy, even banality. Among filmmakers fascinated by violent psychopathology-of which there are more than a few-perhaps none were more fascinated than Hitchcock. In other words, we like our wolves best when they do more than just bare their teeth. However, invariably the psychopaths that most capture our interest are those whose pathology manifests in overt acts of violence. Cinema no doubt has its share of characters like this-ones whose sheer rapaciousness makes them more wolf than man (in reality, rapaciousness is very much a human trait and not a lupine one, but no matter).
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