Freudian Harmony in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest

 

“I made North by Northwest with tongue in cheek; to me it was one big joke. When Cary Grant was on Mount Rushmore, I would have liked to put him inside Lincoln’s nostril and let him have a sneezing fit.”

--Alfred Hitchcock [1]

Introduction

Though North by Northwest (MGM, 1959) is arguably the most commercial product of the nine-film Alfred Hitchcock-Bernard Herrmann collaboration, it nonetheless offers a complex Freudian narrative that is ripe for analysis. Critical readings of the film have often discussed protagonist Roger Thornhill’s oedipal complex in terms of the film’s visual narrative, but few have recognized the valuable contributions of composer Bernard Herrmann in this respect. His disingenuous public comments aside, the effectiveness of North by Northwest’s oedipal narrative owes much to Hitchcock’s direction. However, without Herrmann’s score the film's narrative would lose a great deal of nuance. That the oedipal narrative’s effectiveness issues from a cohesive narrative structure that integrates the visuals as well as the music is a testament to the fruitfulness of the Hitchcock-Herrmann collaboration.