The name is absent

Appendix 3.2: Sample films - synopses and character lists
MARNIE US 64

short, cooperate in her rehabilitation. She will allow
herself to be reformed in a mould acceptable to patriarchal
order.

The preoccupation with the nature of power, knowledge,
transgression and love which runs through this film, skilfully
woven in the narrative resolution into a seamless whole can be
understood, in more general terms, as equivalent to the
opposition between matter and spirit so familiar in western
thought. This opposition is visually summarised in the film
in the recurrent images of light (spirit) and blood (matter):
the blinding light of the thunderstorm illuminates Mark's and
the audience's understanding as well as terrifying Marnie by
referring to her repressed memories of the traumatic event.
The flood of red which permeates the screen each time Marnie
retreats into a clinically traumatised state is explained in
the flashback scene at the end of the film: it is the
profusely flowing blood of the white suited sailor after the
child Marnie had beaten him over the head with the poker. It
is Mark's love which will enable Marnie to negotiate these
fundamental attributes of human consciousness - matter and
spirit - in the future, and thus to be healed. But we must
not forget that this cosmic 'truth', the dualism of matter and
spirit, is wielded in this film in the service of patriarchy:
in the end it is because Mark wants Marnie that therefore he
is acting in her interests - he 'knows better' than she does.
What she may want is of no interest since, as we have seen,
she cannot know her own mind.

Female characters in order of appearance, character groups

262

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