French intellectuals probably love Sabotage: Story and pace might not hold the interest of the general public for long, but this movie is a multi layered affair with a lot of stuff to analyze. I read Joseph Conrad's sadly prophetic novel about terrorism in our modern day world before I knew that a Hitchcock treatment existed, and I just admire how the master of suspense succeeded in adapting the story (written around the year 1900) to the conditions in "Hitchcockland". There is suspense, there are funny scenes, but Sabotage is, compared with The Man Who Knew Too Much or The 39 steps, a rather serious movie that investigates the dark sides of the condition of human nature in modern times. There are different particularities that I think are quite unique and worth a comment.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
Certain parts of Sabotage seem to pay tribute to the silent era expressionist and avant garde heritage of Germany and the Soviet Union. The movie starts in an impressive, unforgettable way: First we see a dictionary, then Battersea Power Station with one smoking chimney in the moonlight, then a gaudily lit city street at night. The lights in the street go out; change to a piece of big machinery half in water, lit only by a flashlight; several hands excitedly fussing with the machinery, digging up a muddy substance from the water, rubbing the substance between the fingers. Then the first words of the movie are spoken by an anonymous voice: "Sand!". Then another voice "Sabotage!". Then a third voice: "Who did it?" With a quick succession of different scenes partially accompanied with a nasty humming sound like from a generator - the viewer is brought right into the movie. The audience is now informed about the dark nature of the subject terrorism - and the wanted atmosphere is firmly established.
The use of spaces or spatial sequences is extraordinary. They have a symbolic significance that in my opinion is uncommon in later Hitchcock movies. The main character, Mr. Verloc, operates a small, shoddy movie theatre, the Bijou. He lives, together with his young wife and her brother, in a small appartment behind the movie screen. Whoever wants to visit the Verlocs walks up to the ridiculously pompuous, brightly lit front of the Bijou, passes through the front into the dark, stuffy small screening room, walks towards the screen, passes it and is at the Verloc's door. Mr. Verloc, a twisted character without discernible ethnic or ethical roots, executes acts of sabotage or terrorism for whoever pays him. The sequence of light and darkness that lead from the outside to the "brain" that concocts acts of madness is repeatedly shown in the movie. A detective tries to squeeze himself into the space behind the screen in an attempt to spy, but there he is unprotected and spotted by the people in the appartment. At the end of the movie, Mrs. Verloc, fleeing from the appartment when she understands that Mr. Verloc caused her brother's death, gets stuck in the "dream zone" of the screening room. She stops and watches a sequence of a Disney animated picture, somehow re enacting her brothers carefree life and its brutal end. The movie in the movie makes her state of distress more acute. She turns back to the appartment and finally stabs Mr. Verloc to death. A similar spatial sequence as in the Bijou is shown in a pet shop. In its back room a bomb is prepared for Mr. Verloc by the owner, an equally miserable and twisted character. Again there is a "respectable" front, a middle zone with a surreal situation (many caged exotic animals), and a stuffy back room for a chaotic unconventional family of three (in this case father, daughter, granddaughter) where modern-day sciences are turned into a senseless destructive force. The meeting between Mr. Verloc and his anonymous employers (as in Conrad's novel, it is never explained who they are and in whose favor the acts of terrorism should be) takes place in the zoo, in a dark cavern with windows into different aquarium (I strongly suspect Orson Welles of having copied the set with few alterations for The Lady from Shanghai). The conspiracy thus takes places in a subterranean commando bunker (a predecessor of Ken Adam's war room) from which you do not see a clearly defined "battlefield" but just murky waters and strange, silent creatures moving through space in slow motion. In a short, dream like sequence the scared Mr. Verloc sees through one of the aquarium windows Piccadilly Circus distorted and destroyed by the bomb he is ordered to plant there.
In Sabotage the sets are very important. The character's lives are conditioned by their surroundings. They move little. There is not too much action and the viewers of the movie are required to watch carefully. Maybe this is Hitchcock at his most uncommercial ...
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
Certain parts of Sabotage seem to pay tribute to the silent era expressionist and avant garde heritage of Germany and the Soviet Union. The movie starts in an impressive, unforgettable way: First we see a dictionary, then Battersea Power Station with one smoking chimney in the moonlight, then a gaudily lit city street at night. The lights in the street go out; change to a piece of big machinery half in water, lit only by a flashlight; several hands excitedly fussing with the machinery, digging up a muddy substance from the water, rubbing the substance between the fingers. Then the first words of the movie are spoken by an anonymous voice: "Sand!". Then another voice "Sabotage!". Then a third voice: "Who did it?" With a quick succession of different scenes partially accompanied with a nasty humming sound like from a generator - the viewer is brought right into the movie. The audience is now informed about the dark nature of the subject terrorism - and the wanted atmosphere is firmly established.
The use of spaces or spatial sequences is extraordinary. They have a symbolic significance that in my opinion is uncommon in later Hitchcock movies. The main character, Mr. Verloc, operates a small, shoddy movie theatre, the Bijou. He lives, together with his young wife and her brother, in a small appartment behind the movie screen. Whoever wants to visit the Verlocs walks up to the ridiculously pompuous, brightly lit front of the Bijou, passes through the front into the dark, stuffy small screening room, walks towards the screen, passes it and is at the Verloc's door. Mr. Verloc, a twisted character without discernible ethnic or ethical roots, executes acts of sabotage or terrorism for whoever pays him. The sequence of light and darkness that lead from the outside to the "brain" that concocts acts of madness is repeatedly shown in the movie. A detective tries to squeeze himself into the space behind the screen in an attempt to spy, but there he is unprotected and spotted by the people in the appartment. At the end of the movie, Mrs. Verloc, fleeing from the appartment when she understands that Mr. Verloc caused her brother's death, gets stuck in the "dream zone" of the screening room. She stops and watches a sequence of a Disney animated picture, somehow re enacting her brothers carefree life and its brutal end. The movie in the movie makes her state of distress more acute. She turns back to the appartment and finally stabs Mr. Verloc to death. A similar spatial sequence as in the Bijou is shown in a pet shop. In its back room a bomb is prepared for Mr. Verloc by the owner, an equally miserable and twisted character. Again there is a "respectable" front, a middle zone with a surreal situation (many caged exotic animals), and a stuffy back room for a chaotic unconventional family of three (in this case father, daughter, granddaughter) where modern-day sciences are turned into a senseless destructive force. The meeting between Mr. Verloc and his anonymous employers (as in Conrad's novel, it is never explained who they are and in whose favor the acts of terrorism should be) takes place in the zoo, in a dark cavern with windows into different aquarium (I strongly suspect Orson Welles of having copied the set with few alterations for The Lady from Shanghai). The conspiracy thus takes places in a subterranean commando bunker (a predecessor of Ken Adam's war room) from which you do not see a clearly defined "battlefield" but just murky waters and strange, silent creatures moving through space in slow motion. In a short, dream like sequence the scared Mr. Verloc sees through one of the aquarium windows Piccadilly Circus distorted and destroyed by the bomb he is ordered to plant there.
In Sabotage the sets are very important. The character's lives are conditioned by their surroundings. They move little. There is not too much action and the viewers of the movie are required to watch carefully. Maybe this is Hitchcock at his most uncommercial ...