Under Capricorn

 

‘Under Capricorn’ is an interesting film from Alfred Hitchcock. The fascination with this film originates from its technical innovation and the issue of audience expectation often associated with genre films. A film from 1949, it is an early Technicolor film, just like Hitchcock's previous film 'Rope'. The film is also a period drama, a rare choice from the Master of Suspense. ‘Under Capricorn’ also shows some similarities in terms of content and style to ‘Notorious’, another Hitchcock film from the 1940s. Both films were brilliantly performed by Ingrid Bergman.

The most interesting aspect about ‘Under Capricorn’ regards the audience reception of the film when it first came out in the end of 1940s. ‘Under Capricorn’ appeared to adopt a European sensibility and it was more popular in the art film circles of Europe rather than mainstream Hollywood. The audience back in the 1940s expected the period drama to be a typical Hitchcockian thriller. Yet while the film was suspenseful and also had a mystery plot element, the story was more melodramatic than thrilling. The film seemed to resemble the melodramas by Kenji Mizoguchi in the same era rather than a typical thriller in the golden age of Film Noir.  

The Sydney of the 19^th century, where the story took place, was a new frontier where many foreigners flocked to. Prospectors travelled there to look for a new start in their lives. What they could not have left behind, as implied by Hitchcock's stylistic motifs, were the crime of passion and the darkest secrets of the past. Indeed, the film was quite similar to the Hitchcock’s  ‘Notorious’, another melodrama disguised as a Film Noir. Other than the similar ‘poisoning Ingrid Bergman’ motif, both film concerned complex love triangles. The dramatic tensions were further complicated by the ethical gray areas, which served as an essential theme for the Noirish landscapes portrayed in both films.

Characters searched for their selves and made sense of their existences through Hitchcock's long takes, as an ongoing experiment that originated from his previous film ‘Rope’. When long takes were employed in the late films of Kenji Mizoguchi, they were formalized and represented the processes of ritualistic gestures in the past. In contrast, Hitchcock's long takes demanded the viewers to look for clues and emotional cues as they travelled alongside with the characters in the film. As we were led through the ballrooms, dining halls, and bedrooms inside the gothic manor, the power relations due to the differing social status of the various characters shifted, and everyone gained their upper hands at certain points when the power dynamics were changed. In fact, ‘Under Capricorn’ can be considered as an erotic film - it is just the clinical and subtle style of Hitchcock that renders it less like the sexually-charged ‘erotic films’ we understand today.

All the characters had their own secrets in ‘Under Capricorn’. Their actions were often amoral and they were motivated by material considerations and self-interest. For Ingrid Bergman, she has given an edgy performance in the film, as an eccentric and alcoholic lady. I bet Ms. Bergman has probably tried to make her photogenic appearance more unflattering, like wearing baggy clothes and having nervous gestures and intonations to fit her character in the film.  Her character had to sort out her turmoil for her passions and feelings for the two male protagonists, not knowing she was slowly poisoned by alcohol with another jealous character. Through the film, further criminal acts were carried out and unfair insinuations were made, cluttering the moral compass of the cinematic world. Being a moralist, Hitchcock offered hope by giving Bergman’s character a sense of justice, even if she was physically compromised at the climax of the film. She was willing to stand up and speak about the truth, and sorted out the moral clutter. In the age of the dark and fatalistic Noir, ‘Under Capricorn’ gave the viewers an ending where the innocent ones received justice as the truth came to light at the end.

 

This Hitchcock film is a great representative of classic Hollywood cinema. And, if you have seen enough black-and-white images and films of the legendary Ingrid Bergman, you may want to see how she looks in Technicolor, too! 

by Ed Law 

Film Analysis

Sophrosyne : Art of Moderation

 

‘Looking forward’ often sounds like a positive outlook, yet there is a caveat to it. When one examines an idea, he should not jump to the conclusion that the idea is not useful as it is ‘dated’ or ‘old-school’. Such a contextual reading of things can lead one to overlook some of the most endearing wisdom of the human legacy, and often this attitude merely represents one’s obliviousness to the origin of our thoughts. The contributions from thinkers of Ancient Greece have been tremendous. They have ignited the fire of Western thoughts through the work in literature, philosophy, and science. The thinkers have also proposed to us some of the first models of an ethical life. One of the most important ethical outlooks from this era is Sophrosyne, widely considered as the golden rule of Ancient Greek wisdom.

 

Sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη) is the noun of Sophronein (σωφρονεῖν), the verb that corresponds to the same idea. Often translated as ‘soundness of mind’ (noun) or ‘thinking well’, the concept has been interpreted by many thinkers through the Archaic Greece and Classical Greece, and continued to later eras. Sophrosyne has been transformed, and encompassed wider attributes throughout history. Despite diverse opinions added to the concept, the central theme of the word has not been altered. As an opposite to hubris, sophrosyne demands a clear and rational mind, which judges and makes decisions wisely, with regards to one’s limit. It is a form of moderation for an individual to exist in the world.

 

It is quite interesting to note that, while the concept of sophrosyne has first appeared in the epic poems of Homer, later thinkers have often ‘cherry-picked’ on various parts of the concept and made their assessment by focusing on their particular interests of the concept. Thus for the Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, sophrosyne was related to physis and logos; for Socrates and his successors, the focus was on the rational examination and analysis of the concept with regards to ethics; and for the Stoics, the concept was used to establish one’s place in the universe. The later thinkers stressed about the concept of sophrosyne as akin to ‘knowing your place’ in the universe, and one’s ethical deliberations should be based on a sound mind and rational considerations. Also the concept of measure was associated with sophrosyne, as that provided a metric for one to weigh different options and choose the most well-informed actions. For Socrates, he has attempted to find an objective standard of knowledge and ethics, through his questioning and examination of general and particular beliefs. The Sophist Protagoras has gone even further to abandon any objective metric, and proclaimed ‘Man is the measure of all things.’

 

Of all the interpretations of sophrosyne, I find Heraclitus’s elaboration most inspiring. The Pre-Socratic thinker was one of the most charismatic thinkers of Archaic Greece, and his thoughts were so original that they can still be considered fascinating and contentious by today’s standard, just like when one reads Nietzsche and Zhuang Zi. Asserting that the universe was governed by the cosmic order known as ‘Logos’, Heraclitus stressed the importance of sophrosyne in the famous fragment B112, a memorable advice that deserves to be quoted below.

“Sound thinking (σωφρονεῖν) is the greatest virtue and wisdom: to speak the truth and to act on the basis of an understanding of the nature of things”

-Fragment B112

 

Thus for Heraclitus, the attribute of sophronein meant getting closer to the nature of things. Only which one embraced physis, which originated and was governed by Logos, could the individual acquire true wisdom and lived well.  This statement reflected the philosopher’s opinion that the human world, which was part of the universe, was modelled after the cosmic (divine) world. For Heraclitus, true wisdom meant the realization of the fact meant that the human world, being part of nature, was in no way distinct or separate from the cosmos. The appreciation of this limit has implications of one’s ethical outlook, as one will deliberate with considerations regarding one’s nature and limitations and avoid the influence of hubris and other folly. Thinking well is the virtue of sophrosyne. 

by Ed Law 

Conatus Classics