Stuart Lenig writes in middle Tennessee where he covers visual communication, film, and visual/performing arts.  When not writing he is either directing a play, making a film, or creating a collage or painting. He is blessed with a wife, Joni, a dog, Zorro, and two cats, Coco and Andy. When not at home, he is at the college where he teaches. Present projects include creating a digital media degree program to train tomorrow’s micro-serfs, starting a new media journal, Electra Lite, and authoring a study of glam rock subculture, Lust O’Life. His favorite quote is: “we’ll see…” (from me mum).

Dread and existentialism

As always, Hitchcock is having a field day with one of America’s sacred cows, the business world. The guy who has completely lost his soul and is completely without meaning is by far the best businessman.

Unravelling a nation’s psychic damage

Psychology was a way to make sense of the madness of war and God’s silence at the violence and carnage of the Nazis. Hitchcock was using the plot to provide the sort of assurance his audience needed at the war’s end - the massive sacrifice had been for a meaningful purpose.

Split psyches

The film is a parable of the modern animus that moves in darkly postmodern ironic/comic turns, welding the problems of violence, morality, and identity to the fleeting notion of self. Underlying Evans’ anxious tale is the disquieting notion that the force that guides and sustains modern life may be violence and murder.