By

Basje Boer

Published on/by

YouTube / Voor De Film

Accompanying text

In Psycho we see Norman Bates spying on Marion Crane while she undresses. How he feels is obvious. But what is it like for her to be watched?

Writer Basje Boer uses the films of Alfred Hitchcock as a starting point to talk about how we glorify female passivity, and what the consequences of doing so are. She doesn’t only focus on Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window, but also draws parallels with, amongst others, Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl, Twin Peaks, Walt Disney’s fairy tales and the Shakespeare character Ophelia.

This video essay premiered at the Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam on October 29, 2023.

Writen and Narrated by Basje Boer

Edit and Lay-out by Menno Kooistra

Text Editing by Roxy Merrell

Moving images: Psycho (1960) Woman in Red (1984) Flodder (1986) Honneponnetje (1988) Gentlemen Prefer Bondes (1953) Some Like It Hot (1959) The Seven Year Itch (1955) Bus Stop (1956) The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) The River of no Return (1954) Vertigo (1958) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Sleeping Beauty (1959) Ophelia (2018) Lana Del Rey – Blue Jeans (2012) Nick Cave & Kylie Minoque – Where The Wild Roses Grow (1995) Britney Spears – Everytime (2004) Melancholia (2011) Gray’s Anatomy S01 (2015) Twin Peaks S01 (1990) True Detective S01 (2014) Veronica Mars S01 (2004) The Killing S01 (2011) Gone Girl (2014) Rear Window (1954)

Paintings: Ophelia – John Everett Millais (1851-1852) ‘Susanna and the Elders’ by: Willem van Mieris (1731) Annibale Carracci (ca. 1595) Artemisia Gentileschi (1610) Pietro Muttoni (ca. 1690) Rembrandt van Rijn (1647) Gregorio Preti (ca. 1633)