Appendix 3.2: Sample films - synopses and character lists
MARNIE US 64
multiple and varied guises. Sexual power, economic power;
power based in social class; knowledge as power: all these are
explored and the balance of power shifts between the two
protagonists as the narrative unfolds. Related concepts such
as the nature of love, of transgression, and of knowledge
itself are inevitably subject to our scrutiny as a consequence
of the film’s focus on this struggle. We are skillfully led,
via a series of epistemologically sound moves, to the position
where, at the narrative's close, it is Mark's meanings that
are validated, Marnie's that are shown to be unsound.
Marnie's resistance, however, has allowed considerable scope
to questions concerning the validity of Mark's meanings - in
particular to the question of whose interests, in general
social terms, are served by his meanings. Thus the
relationship between epistemology and truth is revealed, the
relativity of truth acknowledged despite the seamless
resolution of the mystery.
The film opens with a close up shot of a bulging handbag
carried firmly under the arm of a woman who walks away from
camera, into frame, till we see that she is standing on a
station platform. Then it cuts, abruptly, to a medium close up
of a middle aged man speaking to camera:
Robbed! Cleaned out!
the discovered crime thus opens the film but there is no
mystery about the identity of its perpetrator. We follow
Marnie as she sheds her thief's persona, visits her horse, her
mother, then sets off to do another 'job'. This time she
takes a post in the firm of Rutlands, hired against the better
judgement of the manager, Ward, on the direct instructions of
the owner, Mark. Various details about Marnie are gradually
revealed to Mark, and to the audience, not necessarily at the
same time. She is fond of horses, knowledgeable about them
and an accomplished rider; she is irrationally frightened by
thunderstorms and by the colour red. Mark becomes more and
more interested in Marnie, takes her to the races, and to meet
his family which consists of his father and the young sister
of his wife, who had died, tragically young, before the
opening of the film. He falls in love with Marnie; at this
point she performs her robbery and escapes, but he finds her
at the stables where she keeps her horse. This is the first
part of the film. Subsequently Mark marries Marnie,
discovering on their honeymoon that she cannot bear to be
'handled', and sets out to discover why. Marnie has thus
transgressed not only the legal codes through her robberies,
but also the codes of gender politics through her rejection of
her husband, Mark. She is a mystery to be solved, by Mark,
through the application of his exceptional reserves of
intelligence, perseverance and patience. His clues are
Marnie's irrational fears and her recurrent nightmares.
Eventually, with the aid of a private detective and through
the interventions of his sister in law, Lil, who is jealous of
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