The Hitchcock Blondes
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most respected but also maligned directors, known for his idolatry of blonde women which is said to border on fetishism.
Although Hitchcock is criticised for the controversial treatment of his actresses, he highlighted the contradictions in romantic fiction whilst creating strong female characters, heroines that women audiences empathise with. These paintings are based on some of the most iconic of the ‘Hitchcock Blondes’ women who he famously, ‘shaped into an elegant, beautifully-costumed ideal’
Although Hitchcock is criticised for the controversial treatment of his actresses, he highlighted the contradictions in romantic fiction whilst creating strong female characters, heroines that women audiences empathise with. These paintings are based on some of the most iconic of the ‘Hitchcock Blondes’ women who he famously, ‘shaped into an elegant, beautifully-costumed ideal’
Grace Kelly as Lisa Carol Fremont in Rear Window (‘Last Orders’)
Janet Leigh as Marion Crane in Psycho (‘Do You Have Any Vacancies?’)
Tipi Hedren as Melanie Daniels in The Birds (‘There May Be Trouble Ahead’)
Kim Novak as Judy Barton and Madeleine Elster in Vertigo (‘A Suicidal Blonde Who Doesn’t Exist’, ‘Will You Love Me?’ and ‘A Romantic Obsession’)
It is tempting to explain the blonde obsession through Hitchcock's personal issues alone. But the director also wanted this trope to be the illuminating spirit of his pictures, representing quiet sexuality, duplicitousness, superficial perfection and shocking disobedience. Embodying all these contradictory forces, the Hitchcock blonde endures as a revolutionary, mysterious force. (Jeff Saporito for Screenprism)
The film doesn’t just reflect Hitchcock’s own attempts to control his leading ladies, but suggests how contemporary notions of romance have themselves been shaped by Hollywood movies. It is not an example of misogyny, but an overblown, beautiful and tragic deconstruction of it. (Anne Billson, film critic, about Vertigo)
Janet Leigh as Marion Crane in Psycho (‘Do You Have Any Vacancies?’)
Tipi Hedren as Melanie Daniels in The Birds (‘There May Be Trouble Ahead’)
Kim Novak as Judy Barton and Madeleine Elster in Vertigo (‘A Suicidal Blonde Who Doesn’t Exist’, ‘Will You Love Me?’ and ‘A Romantic Obsession’)
It is tempting to explain the blonde obsession through Hitchcock's personal issues alone. But the director also wanted this trope to be the illuminating spirit of his pictures, representing quiet sexuality, duplicitousness, superficial perfection and shocking disobedience. Embodying all these contradictory forces, the Hitchcock blonde endures as a revolutionary, mysterious force. (Jeff Saporito for Screenprism)
The film doesn’t just reflect Hitchcock’s own attempts to control his leading ladies, but suggests how contemporary notions of romance have themselves been shaped by Hollywood movies. It is not an example of misogyny, but an overblown, beautiful and tragic deconstruction of it. (Anne Billson, film critic, about Vertigo)
