Good Eeev'ning

Today, March 12, is National Alfred Hitchcock Day.  I can't really figure out why March 12.  It isn't Hitchcock's birthday (August 13), anniversary of his death (April 29) or anything important to his life as far as I can tell.  But still, I couldn't let the day go by without giving the most famous director in Hollywood history a little attention.  He still has his critics who say he was over rated, etc., but I don't see how anyone could say that.  Not only are his films vastly entertaining, they are visually and thematically rich as well.  The man truly was a genius and a true film innovator.  Everyone working in the movies today owes him a debt.  We would do well to have movies of the caliber that Hitchcock produced coming out regularly today.

One of his truly great, and to many his greatest film is Vertigo.  This last year, respected British film magazine Sight and Sound's poll of critics that is done every ten years named Vertigo the greatest movie of all time, demoting long time champ Citizen Kane to second place.  It is ironic that one of Hitchcock's financial and critical failures upon its original release is now considered by many to be the greatest movie ever made anywhere, anytime.  Because of its lack of success at the time, Hitchcock did some distancing from it, naming Shadow of a Doubt as his personal favorite of his own movies, though many suspected that Vertigo actually held that title.  All that said, the film is truly remarkable.

I am going to tie this all in to lent, believe it or not, but without giving too much away for those who have never seen Vertigo, I want to focus on some of the story.  It is about a former police detective, "Scottie" Ferguson (played with surprising subltety by the great Jimmy Stewart) who suffers from a crippling fear of heights because of a major accident on his last day on the job.  He is hired by an old college friend to follow his wife to find out what she has been up to during the day, just to make sure she's safe.  You see, this old chum, Gavin Elster, believes his wife Madeline believes that she is being posessed by the ghost of a dead relative who committed suicide and is afraid that Madeline might do the same.

So there is lot's of following and mysterious happennings eventually leading to Scottie and Madeline (played by the stunning Kim Novak) fall in love.  But still, Madeline runs to the top of a mission tower and Scottie, suffering from crippling vertigo, is unable to follow her and sees her jump to her death.

Scottie is haunted by this deeply and soon starts seeing Madeline wherever he goes.  Then, one day, he swears that he actually sees her and approaches a young woman named Judy.  Except for her hair color and clothing, Judy is the spitting image of Madeline.  Scottie then becomes obsessed with remaking Judy into the image of Madeline, buying her clothes and jewelry and eventually asking her to dye her hair blonde and put it up like Madeline used to.  I'm not going to give away more.  If you haven't seen the movie, you must see it.  It's a great film and a powerful meditation on obsession, love and acceptance of people as who they are. 

But, I think we can be a lot like Scottie in our relationship with God.  We would rather He fit into our concept and be made in our image than be who He is.  We can fall in love with a God who does what we ask and can be controlled.  The omnipotent, untamable God of scripture is big and even scary sometimes.  But, God will not be changed.  But, we must stop creating God in our image or casting Him as we hope He would be.  The more we know God for who He really is, the less we want to change Him and the more we want Him to change us. 


Not in some false fashion like Scottie changed Judy into Madeline.  Instead, God changes us to be who we really are, how He created us to be in the first place.  He made us to be stripped of fear, idolatry, jealousy, contempt and clothed in compassion, mercy, righteousness, grace.  What joy it is to let go of changing God, who cannot be changed, and allowing Him to not change us, but make us new and remake us daily into who we are meant to be.