As far as I can tell, Bruno has never seen the point of being human in this sense. rushthatspeaks remarked afterward that he likes to think of himself as bad and I think they may be right. He doesn't overplay the part, but he does seem to enjoy it.
Interesting too that he's gay and that's just by the by, rather than a main factor.
It works for me. Yes, it's another queer character who's a villain, but the script is actually very careful not to draw any kind of causal relationship between the two—it's not the weird conflation of Psycho (1960). Bruno might be some of the ways he is emotionally because of his family, but that's a separate issue from his orientation. Sort of the way James Mason's character in North by Northwest (1958) is bisexual and it has no bearing on the plot, except insofar as boyfriend Martin Landau is undeceived by Eva Marie Saint's double-agent act while Mason has believed her, being in love. You could play the same triangle with two women and one man, but sometimes that's not how it goes. I don't know that Hitchcock was great with queer characters, but at least they generally have agency and interiority and they're people.
In a nice touch of backstage irony, the casting of Farley Granger and Robert Walker meant that the straight character was being played by a gay actor and vice versa. They are both great.
(Farley Granger gets completely shortchanged in his post, but he has the interestingly shaded role of a protagonist who suddenly finds himself afflicted with a doppelgänger he didn't ask for while still wondering whether he brought it on himself. Bruno presents himself like the answer to Guy's prayers, effecting the removal of Guy's spiteful wife in order to clear the way for his love-match with Anne Morton and his political career under her father's wing; he is the seductive shadow self, fulfilling the secret, violent desires on which Guy cannot act without endangering himself. There are stories that work this way. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) is one of them. The thing is that Miriam's death isn't actually what Guy wanted. He shouted down the phone to Anne that he could strangle his wife, but he's shocked and horrified when he finds out that Bruno actually went ahead and did just that. He feels terrible about it. He just wanted a divorce. Miriam dying does not actually simplify his life in any way—now he's in the middle of a murder investigation, which if it goes badly will kibosh his romance and his career a lot more finally than a vindictive wife. But Granger plays him as someone who still feels responsible for Miriam's death; after all, he had that crazy conversation with Bruno, he said all those things about her, maybe he meant them more than he thought, isn't he somehow to blame? I find this more interesting than a scenario where the protagonist never doubts his good intentions. Second-guessing himself is not a useful reaction on Guy's part, but it's an entirely believable one, and it makes him a more textured character than someone who has never even asked themselves if they could be thankful for someone else's catastrophe.)
no subject
As far as I can tell, Bruno has never seen the point of being human in this sense.
Interesting too that he's gay and that's just by the by, rather than a main factor.
It works for me. Yes, it's another queer character who's a villain, but the script is actually very careful not to draw any kind of causal relationship between the two—it's not the weird conflation of Psycho (1960). Bruno might be some of the ways he is emotionally because of his family, but that's a separate issue from his orientation. Sort of the way James Mason's character in North by Northwest (1958) is bisexual and it has no bearing on the plot, except insofar as boyfriend Martin Landau is undeceived by Eva Marie Saint's double-agent act while Mason has believed her, being in love. You could play the same triangle with two women and one man, but sometimes that's not how it goes. I don't know that Hitchcock was great with queer characters, but at least they generally have agency and interiority and they're people.
In a nice touch of backstage irony, the casting of Farley Granger and Robert Walker meant that the straight character was being played by a gay actor and vice versa. They are both great.
(Farley Granger gets completely shortchanged in his post, but he has the interestingly shaded role of a protagonist who suddenly finds himself afflicted with a doppelgänger he didn't ask for while still wondering whether he brought it on himself. Bruno presents himself like the answer to Guy's prayers, effecting the removal of Guy's spiteful wife in order to clear the way for his love-match with Anne Morton and his political career under her father's wing; he is the seductive shadow self, fulfilling the secret, violent desires on which Guy cannot act without endangering himself. There are stories that work this way. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) is one of them. The thing is that Miriam's death isn't actually what Guy wanted. He shouted down the phone to Anne that he could strangle his wife, but he's shocked and horrified when he finds out that Bruno actually went ahead and did just that. He feels terrible about it. He just wanted a divorce. Miriam dying does not actually simplify his life in any way—now he's in the middle of a murder investigation, which if it goes badly will kibosh his romance and his career a lot more finally than a vindictive wife. But Granger plays him as someone who still feels responsible for Miriam's death; after all, he had that crazy conversation with Bruno, he said all those things about her, maybe he meant them more than he thought, isn't he somehow to blame? I find this more interesting than a scenario where the protagonist never doubts his good intentions. Second-guessing himself is not a useful reaction on Guy's part, but it's an entirely believable one, and it makes him a more textured character than someone who has never even asked themselves if they could be thankful for someone else's catastrophe.)
Anyway, onto the queue they both go!
Enjoy!