Hedren believes that Hitchcock shot the scene the way it was because he wanted to hurt her for personal reasons, and I suspect that she's correct because that's the only way this scene makes sense! It's foolish for Melanie to enter that room at all, and having her step into that dangerous room and close the door is a decision that a director interested in believability and sound characterization wouldn't make. I also suspect his issues with Hedren led to him making Melanie so broken and useless at the end of the film, because if he had put the needs of the film first, he wouldn't have spent all that time on a protagonist who goes from useless to broken, without learning anything along the way.
Interesting that you say that (I fully agree with you and Tippi Hedren btw). I watched a clip of Hitchcock's
Sabotage a while back with Sylvia Sidney. This woman was an intelligent, relatable woman who gradually pieced together that her husband is a dangerous man who's killed innocent people. She manages to defend herself and kill him without any outside help or sense of helplessness whatsoever.
Other proactive Hitchcock heroines (who aren't exploited sexually) also include
The 39 Steps, Lifeboat, The Lady Vanishes, Spellbound. It's not really until the 50's when Hitchcock gets a handle on his American films and comes across "Ice" blonds like Grace Kelly that he starts objectifying his actresses and deliberately puts his actresses in perilous situations. But, even Grace Kelly still manages to retain some form of character and proactiveness in her glamourous roles.
It gets even worse after Kelly leaves Hollywood. In
Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, etc., the woman become completely dehumanized and unable to fend for themselves in anyway shape and form. There's even a sense of sadistic pleasure with these women being placed in peril, completely defenseless; as opposed to the dread and empathy that used to placed in the earlier films when the heroines were in trouble.
It's disturbing, but also interesting to see the evolution of the female characterizations in Hitchcock films.
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