Ominous Objects: NOTORIOUS and the Poisoned Cup

I talk elsewhere about the film’s plot revolving around coffee but tl;dr — Alexander (Claude Rains) and his mother are out to murder Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) and make it look like an accident.

So let’s get right to the SHOTS! where Hitchcock’s camera emphasises the slow poisoning of Alicia in various and wonderful ways.

The First Sip

The first scene with the drugged coffee starts wide before getting very, very close.

Starting on the whole room allows us to see Alexander and Anna bracketing Alicia; boxing her in to poison her.

The first cut is to Alexander as he urges Alicia to drink her coffee then instead of a cut — anyone can just cut to something! — the camera takes its cue from Alexander setting down his cigar tool. It continues that motion to the left, drifting over to ‘solo’ the poisoned cup, pausing, then following it to Alicia’s mouth for a sip.

We start seeing how trapped Alicia is in the house and her situation, and are left with no doubts she’s taken in the poison.

The Poison Begins its Work

This scene reverses the above, beginning with a closeup of a near-empty cup before a short sharp crane move to a wide shot of Alexander and Alicia: again; anyone can just cut to an insert shot, Hitchcock is going not for "exposition but for drama.

We get what’s just happened, and connect it directly to her fainting spell.

Realisation Dawns

The last scene of the poisoned coffee (which has been a week or so in the film’s time) is the most melodramatic.

Hitchcock tracks the coffee across the room, then literally foregrounds the ominous cup, looming large in our sight as it is in Alicia’s thoughts.

As Alicia realises what’s happening, we get a CRASH ZOOM OF REALISATION! and then Alicia’s-POV shots, complete with blurry vision stretching her would-be murderers into ghoulish spectres as the poison does its work.

Takeaways

Hitchcock finds different ways to convey Alicia’s poison intake which are not only clear, and dramatic, but affect the audience in different ways.

If we were sympathetic and feeling for Alicia at the start, by the end we’re empathetic and feeling with her.

Coming Soon

We cover another of my “Hitchcock and a dangerous liquid” faves, which involves a light bulb . . .