Hitchcock and Fascism

The following represents an attempt to draw together numerous ideas, perceptions, and suggestions from my previous work on Hitchcock. Readers of my two books will consequently encounter much here that is familiär, but what I have attempted is the reorganization of the material into new patterns that place it in a somewhat different light, producing an overall view, the "figure in the carpet" (to borrow a phrase from Henry James), that some may find controversial and which hopefully will never become merely redundant.1 The attempt has led me, ultimately, to a new discovery of Lifeboat a film I now find that I, like so many others, have consistently underestimated-as one of the key works of the Hitchcock oeuvre.

What is Fascism?

In its strict sense, the term "Fascist" refers to certain repressive political movements developed within advanced capitalism, characterized by the glorification of power and domination and claiming the right to rule by force, without "democratic" consultation. I have been told by certain people that this is the only sense in which the word should be used, or its impact becomes weakened, but they are already much too late: the word has entered the language, and is now commonly used to describe, not only the policies of right-wing politicians like Thatcher and Reagan, but the behavior-patterns of some individuals. When using it in its "pure" sense, as I define it above, I shall distinguish it with a capital F, in the popular sense with a small one; there is of course a very close connection between the two. The differences and the similarities are equally important.

Fascism (strict sense) can be readily defined, pigeonholed and set apart: the Reagan and Thatcher administrations were not "Fascist." On the other hand fascist tendencies pervade the whole of Western culture (and, as far as I know, every other existing culture, in some form); consequently, the possibility of an escalation into Fascism is continuously present. For most of us, Fascism is something out there, the political philosophy of a few somewhat ridiculous (if hateful and dangerous) extremists within our own countries or "foreigners" outside them. We can repudiate it and keep it at a distance without acknowledging that fascist tendencies (the raw material out of which Fascism, given...