Dayan’s “True and False Origins”

Dayan wrote, “The true origin represents the cause of the image.” In other words, there is a reason/explanation/motivation/cause behind everything viewers see on screen. Pure forms of “true origin” can be illustrated in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window

Rear Window takes place in city neighborhood, and primarily from the vantage point of crippled Jeff’s apartment. The movie does not change its setting. Furthermore, the camera’s angle is typically only in a few different positions. The causes and effects are explicitly basic and clear in nearly every aspect of the movie (e.g. Jeff spends all day in his home, so he starts spying on neighbors). One possible exception maybe the cause of how Jeff broke is leg in the first place (or maybe I just missed that detail).

Once the word murdered was uttered, the direction of the film was very clear. On a small shot to shot advancement scale, viewers were always able to see what Jeff was seeing. For instance, Jeff looks through his zoom camera lens to look at Thorwald and viewers then see what Jeff sees through the lens in the next shot. This allows viewers to follow Jeff’s thought process in predicting Thorwald to be a murderer. The logical progression is the true origin. Eventually all of the small series of cause and effect sequences (spy sequences) lead us to the climax, when Thorwald finally realizes he is being watched, which sparks the confrontation. These steps in shot progression assist in plot advancement, which further illuminate the true origin facet of film.

The true origin style can be predictable, which can be interpreted as good or bad depending upon the viewer. The form does allow films to be more focused and easier to follow. Intriguingly, Rear Window does not lose any thrill despite having true origins throughout.

Perhaps a better way to elucidate “true origin” is by contrasting it to “false origin”. A false origin does not offer viewers an explicit reason for actions seen on screen. Some prime examples of a “false origin” can be seen in certain scenes in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion. For example, the scene in which the detectives are about to leave Lina’s home and Benson (one of the detectives) is lost gazing at a painting. The whole situation seems to lack purpose, in my opinion. It challenges viewers to derive a meaning from something that is unclear and does not seem to have a motivation for the actions taking place.

Another example is in the end when Johnny drives like a drunken mad man next to a cliff trying to kill Lina it seems, but afterwards he stops the car and tells Lina he loves her and everything appears fine(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoaqbjDFnY 5:00- end). These actions cause the audience to ask themselves, “Why did Johnny do that?” That is the false origin. Johnny’s dishonest nature creates several false origins throughout the film. But, the false origins provide thrill. As a whole, Suspicion cannot truly be labeled with false origin because its story does have motivation through the plot. Instead it contains minor false origin sequences. A purely false origin film does not exist because there would be no purpose for story development and likely no chance of it becoming a film in the first place.

True and false origins are standard in film today. Both have serve discrete purposes. Hitchcock uses both in two films of the same genre, and does so effectively to create suspense and thrill.