Appendix 3.2: Sample films - synopses and character lists
MARNIE US 64 "
is really blonde; that she has a horse in Virginia which she
regularly visits and a mother in Baltimore to whom she sends
money, and with whom she has a relationship that she herself
experiences as problematic. We also know, unlike Marnie, that
Rutlands is an important client of Strutt's; that Mark Rutland
happened to call on Strutt just as the police were taking
details of the robbery, and that 'Marion Holland' had been
pointed out to him on an earlier visit. In this first part
the thriller structure is being developed and the main enigmas
proposed concern when and how Marnie will be caught. Her
capture - for such it is acknowledged to be by both Marnie and
Mark - is barely noticeable at first since as 'Mary Taylor'
she inadvertently walks into the 'trap' of working for Mark,
an amateur zoologist with an interest in the behaviour of
predators, at Rutlands. However when she robs Rutlands Mark
pursues and captures her. Both her criminality and her
true identity are now in the open - at least between the two
of them.
The second part of the film begins here: though the audience
at this point knows more than either Mark or Marnie, Mark
quickly increases the sum of his knowledge, and the major
enigma shifts. Now the question is why Marnie is a criminal,
why does she break the legal code and, as the film progresses,
why also does she transgress the codes of gender politics.
Mark: Well have you always felt like this?
Marnie: Always, yes.
Mark: Why? What happened to you?
Marnie: Happened? Nothing happened to me I just never
wanted anybody to touch me.
Mark: Have you ever tried to talk about it? To a
doctor? Somebody who could help you?
Marnie: No. Why should I? I didn't want to get married.
It's degrading, its animal.
Why does she apparently experience no sexual desire? This is
one of the moments when the film goes almost too far for its
own good, as it were, where the utterances allowed to the
protagonist constructed to appear lacking, injured, sick, as
Marnie is, are excessive to the requirements of this
construction.
Oh Men! You say 'no thanks' to one of them and bingo,
You're a candidate for the funny farm. It would be
hilarious if it weren't pathetic.
The film quickly pulls back from this potential abyss in its
logic with the heavily emphasised and highly ambiguous scene
of Marnie's possible rape by Mark, closely followed by her
attempted suicide. This sequence of events had already been
predicted by Marnie in an earlier outburst 'I can't stand it,
I'll die. If you touch me again I'll die.' As this second
part of the film proceeds the audience is more and more in the
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