Secondly, the film subtly inverts popular caricatures
and stereotypes of loyal Americans and saboteurs, thus symbolizing the
deceptive nature of fascism. There are two important components to fascism’s
deceptiveness related to this film: the looming threat of subversion and the
way in which fascist dictators mask their true intentions with populist
rhetoric. Saboteur seizes the
opportunity provided by the undercurrent of wartime paranoia; in doing so, the
film demonstrates that there may be seditious citizens anywhere within American society and draws a broader metaphor to
the illusory nature of the fascist promises. In the film, as opposed to
saboteurs being depicted as disgruntled, marginalized members of society, Hitchcock
portrays them as respectable aristocrats and socialites like Charles Tobin and
Mrs. Sutton. On the other hand, the “normal Americans” who enthusiastically aid
Kane along his journey are “idiosyncratic and largely peripheral members of
society who either live in isolation, like Phillip Martin, or in rootless
travel, like the truck driver who first picks Kane up, and the group of
sideshow freaks who later hide him from the police.” Whereas Kane is concerned
with justice and remains “youthful, passionate, and idealistic,” Tobin himself
admits that he seeks “power…as much as [Kane] want[s] [his] job, or that girl”
and is “willing to back his tastes with the necessary force.” Generally, the
film exhibited that “fifth columnists can be outwardly clean and patriotic
citizens, just like normal Americans.”
Moreover, Hitchcock contributes to his
audience’s distrust of fascism by adroitly understating, humanizing, and
highlighting the duplicity some of the saboteurs. For example, the affable Mr. Freeman idly
chatters with Kane about his son’s haircut and the man guarding Pat Martin in
the American Newsreel Company office mutters, “I hope we can get rid of her
soon…I promised to take my kid sister to the philharmonic.”
Yet, the most delicate expression of fascism’s spuriousness
lies in the persistent imagery of abstract and specific visual patterns
referring to the Statue of Liberty (Deutelbaum, 1984, p. 63). In the abstract
sense, the shadows in several scenes “radiate outward in a sunburst effect”
that closely mirrors the Statue’s diadem. As for concrete images resembling the
statue, Tobin’s constant readjustment of his towel in the scene at his ranch is
strikingly similar to the drapery of Lady Liberty’s gown. Likewise, the
prominent banister in the Sutton mansion “echoes the curve and closely-spaced
openings of the viewing ports inside the Statue’s diadem.” Additionally, the
image of Fry’s outreached arm when dangling from the Statue significantly
parallels Lady Liberty’s upraised arm. These visual manifestations of Statue’s
components tend to appear in association with the saboteurs rather than the
patriotic citizens, signifying that “these parts of a bogus Statue of Liberty
are hidden among other images in much the same way that the film’s saboteurs –
bogus Americans – are hidden among the Americans they superficially resemble.”
By manipulating plot themes, character personalities, visual techniques, and
dialogue, Hitchcock “casts a general aesthetic truth about the uncertainty of
appearances into a utilitarian cautionary tale declaring the need for viewers to
reconsider their presumptions about the loyalty of individual on the basis of
their appearances” in order to combat the fascist threat.
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