Before discussing Anne Hellman’s new novel, The Indecipherables, an understanding of Alfred Hitchcock’s concept of “pure cinema” is in order. In a 1964 interview for the CBC television series Telescope, Hitchcock conflates “pure cinema” with the editing technique called montage, which is when “complementary pieces of film [are] put together, like notes of music, [to] make a melody.” Hitchcock continues: “There are two primary forms of cutting—or montage—in film. Montage to create ideas, and montage to create violence and emotions.”
However, montage is not really cutting according to Hitchcock; it is more a series of images assembled in quick succession so audience members can produce an idea in their mind’s eye. Spectators thus become active participants in a thrilling cinematic experience, rather than passive viewers merely watching disjointed, randomly moving pictures for entertainment.
A classic example of “pure cinema” and montage is the shower scene in Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece, Psycho, where a series of shots are frenetically juxtaposed and assembled to heighten the horror audiences feel when Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is stabbed to death by Norman Bates’s/Mother (Anthony Perkins). In the span of 45 seconds, over 50 cinematic cuts are devoted to Marion’s murder, and with each drive of Norman’s/Mother’s knife into Marion’s wet flesh, audience members are forced to feel powerless to save her.
Norman uses his eyes to spy on Marion, audience members use their eyes to see a vulnerable naked woman in a bathroom before she is knifed to death; and at the scene’s end, Marion’s lifeless eye is shot in close-up as her blood circles down the drain and out of literal sight. Horrified viewers are led to believe, because of Hitchcock’s use of montage editing, that they see the blade repeatedly entering Crane’s body; however, that never happens. What is seen in the viewers’ mind’s eye is worse than what Hitchcock forces them to see, thus “pure cinema” is experienced.
The Indecipherables, Anne Hellman’s new pastiche of Hitchcock’s work, as well as David Lynch’s and Rod Serling’s respective oeuvres, is a successful homage to “pure cinema”. In Hellman’s case, however, readers experience what could be deemed as “pure literature”, where inferences and references are made based on how the plot is constructed rather than what narrative details are being presented. This leads readers to become active participants in the story rather than passive observers. The book’s cover shows a series of eyes, disconnected from faces, looking in multiple directions over an austere yellow background, a stark signifier of what is to come.
The Indecipherables is a reflexive story about twin sisters, Ava and Brin, who decide to take a road trip down the California coast with an urn containing their mother’s ashes lovingly riding in the backseat. These inferences can be just perpetuated ideas based on word use and narrative development, but they can also be seen in not-so-common moments of extreme physical violence peppered throughout the text. Indeed, the ending emulates the final scenes of Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller, Vertigo.
Sometimes the violence can be as subtle as an old lady smiling broadly at the protagonists, similar to Psycho‘s Norman, who grins at Marion as they chat in his back parlor, which is adorned with disturbing taxidermy and stocked with cold milk and anemic sandwiches. Images and words, in essence, are interchangeable and can create similar effects if executed properly. In the case of The Indecipherables, the execution is on point.
Like that of “pure cinema”, in “pure literature”, the storyline is not intellectually complex or academically obscure. Like most of Hitchcock’s films, Hellman’s novel, although subtly rich with pop culture references that aficionados will be familiar with, is not overly complicated; like Lynch’s Twin Peaks or Serling’s The Twilight Zone, even when defying convention or traditional forms of storytelling as the show and anthology series often did, The Indecipherables is still very much for the masses.
Similar to the beginning of Psycho, where Marion steals and runs off with her boss’s money, Hellman’s novel is about a road trip, but the story is not as important as how it is told. Readers learn relatively early that Ava and Brin were about to take a road trip at an earlier date, but Ava fell gravely ill, so the trip was postponed. Now that Ava has, for the most part, recovered from her mysterious illness (what ailed her is never identified), they go from San Francisco (one of Hitchcock’s favorite settings) to Joshua Tree to honor their dead mother.
During the trip, the two stop off at multiple rest stops and exits to eat, shop, and relax. However, underlying these mundane moments is readers’ knowledge of Brin’s obscure motivations and Ana’s unease whilst she is still coping with her near-death experience. While on one of their multiple diversions, they learn from a confused mechanic that they resemble another pair of twin sisters who had stopped by his shop just before.
This is indeed strange, but it is also made known that Brin has been secretly working for R.I., a company that creates carbon copies of people. She calls these copies “the indecipherables”, yet another detail not really explained, and one of several “MacGuffins” produced throughout the novel. “MacGuffins”, of course, are devices that drive the plot, but do not really have any significance to it (the stolen money in Psycho, for example, or Laura Palmer’s death in Twin Peaks). Hellman is a master at using the “MacGuffin”, primarily because she seems to have a keen and comprehensive understanding of several directors and writers who regularly implement the technique in their work to create horror and suspense.
Particularly fun are the veiled references to The Twilight Zone, specifically episodes like “Mirror Image” and “Spur of the Moment”, two installments filmed with female protagonists who mysteriously and physically see their doppelgangers, but have no understanding as to why. One gripping scene has Ava and Brin at a winery, where they come face-to-face with their twins. The meta-ness of the moment just oozes from the novel’s pages. Vertigo, a film devoted to doubles, mistaken identity, and obsession, is Hellman’s primary reference point, and these themes recur throughout The Indecipherables.
What becomes a slight issue, though, are the extraneous moments when Ana and Brin speak about their interest in Hitchcock, Serling, and Lynch’s art, which stems from their mother’s love of their work. Yes, Hellman’s work is self-reflexive, but she does not have to point out to the readers that the book references these individuals; if the readers are astute enough, they will catch the Easter eggs with ease and gusto. In other words, if the audience is savvy and knowledgeable and connects with the book’s story right from the get-go, they will catch the references and the novel’s overall tone, another component of “pure literature”.
In essence, The Indecipherables is a decipherable genre piece of “pure literature” and will gleefully take readers on a surreal trip beyond a shadow of a doubt.