{"id":32330,"date":"2015-09-30T10:21:59","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=32330"},"modified":"2016-09-02T17:26:46","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T22:26:46","slug":"nightmare-alley-do-we-hear-what-he-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/nightmare-alley-do-we-hear-what-he-hears\/","title":{"rendered":"NIGHTMARE ALLEY: Do we hear what he hears?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nightmare<\/a><\/p>\n

DB here:<\/p>\n

In the 1940s, American cinema turned\u00a0wildly subjective. Visions, daydreams, nightmares, optical and auditory POV, inner monologues, flashbacks, and stream-of-consciousness montages were popping up everywhere. Sometimes these techniques rendered\u00a0what it felt like to be the character at that moment. At other times, they were occasions for gags, or padding, or spikes of emotion, or flamboyant spectacle.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they were just weird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Siren song<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most intriguing passages in Forties films comes at a climactic moment in Nightmare Alley<\/em> (1947, the year I was born). Spoilers<\/strong> ahead.<\/p>\n

Stan Carlisle has been involved in a complicated swindle with the help of psychologist Lilith Ritter. He has entrusted her with $150,000 in cash extracted from their mark. When the plan goes wrong, he reclaims the money and heads for the railroad station to meet his girlfriend Molly.<\/p>\n

In the cab en route to the station, Stan discovers that the wad of cash Lilith has given him consists of 150 singles. He returns to her apartment to confront her. There Lilith suddenly goes coldly clinical, declaring that Stan is deluded. Just as he thinks he killed a man in Texas, and he has imagined that she’s involved in his swindle. She denies any collusion with him, but does hint that she could get him indicted for the killing.<\/p>\n

Since he has been growing more anxious, her calm stream of lies unnerves him. And since she records all her sessions with her patients, she has his first visit as a confession to the Texas killing. She has been careful to never record their swindle plot.<\/p>\n

As Stan gets more panicky, we hear a police siren. He reacts, but Lilith does not. She claims not to hear it; she says he\u2019s just imagining it, like everything else. When she offers to take him to a hospital, he pulls away and flees, without his money.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the scene.<\/p>\n