Posted Aug 7, 2001 by Ashley
Both the film and this entry. 
'Spellbound' is an oddity for a Hitchcock film because it is largely ignored in preference for his other well known films. The whole film is over shadowed by the Dali sequence, which is great, but is incidental to the movie.
'Spellbound' is a showcase for everything that epitomises Hitchcock as an auteur - it has his icy female lead, those wonderfully long and deep focussed shots, the incredibly long zoom ins and the key to the whole mystery being unravelled through an innocent, everyday item.
Thanks for this entry - it has opened up an overlooked film from a Master of Cinema. 
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Posted Aug 8, 2001 by coelacanth
Thank you Ashley.  Strange don't you think that only the music won the Oscar. Personally I find it a little grating and loud in places.
I see the film a couple of times a year when I introduce it to a new, teenage audience. My entry here is the introduction I give so that when they watch they know what to expect and it works. The film holds their attention and manages to make them jump in all the right places. Given the attention span of teenagers and their "fast forward" culture it says a lot about the film. If I told them beforehand that I was going to make them watch a 1940's b/w film you can imagine what they would say!  Afterwards I hope they at least consider watching some of the others with an open mind.
The Dali sequence may well be, as you say "... great, but is incidental to the movie." However, it is very central to the actual theme of my entry - "Freudian themes in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Spellbound'"
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