A Spectral Exploration “the artist wishes to express himself and chooses only those forms which are sympathetic to his soul” (Kandinsky 56). Collin Davis proposes in "Hauntology, Spectres and Phantoms" two key ideas about how the spiritual manifests itself in narratives. The first is that texts can include phantoms that “lie about the past.” The second is that texts contain spectral elements that “gesture towards a still unformulated future” (Davis 379). Because “‘all forms of narrative are spectral to some extent’” (Wolfrey qtd. Davis 378) and stories can be “the narrator’s [an author’s] unconscious desire to know the story of his own origins” (375), this method of narrative analysis can be applied to Stage Fright alongside a trajectory of Hitchcock’s life to provide a perspective on Hitchcock that has been under explored by viewers and critics alike. As has already been discussed in this essay, the central controversy surrounding Stage Fright is the opening flashback’s divergence form Classic Hollywood Cinema norms. In …show more content…
Will he continue to be just another director in the production system or will he embrace his individuality and become an auteur? This theme was discussed indirectly but extensively in Hitchcock’s 1962 interview with Truffaut. When asked how/why he chose to present the story of Stage Fright Hitchcock answered, “There were a couple of book reviews who said this would make a good Hitchcock film. And I like an idiot believed it.” Here he hinted at the desire to produce his own style of film. Something that that placed him at odds with the reel pressures of Hollywood cinematic production system, where he had learned the philosophy “when you feel things are not working right [...] we must run a cover or play safe.” A statement that he soon followed with the comment that he should never have endeavored to film Stage