OPPapers.com

Shadow Of A Doubt Review

Shadow of a Doubt

The film I chose to view and write about for this paper was Shadow of a Doubt, starring Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright. The movie, released in 1943, opens with credits rolling over a static shot of ballroom dancers waltzing around in a continuous, ever-looping circle. When the film started, I thought this was going to be the opening plot scene, but after the credits are over, I realized that the movie opens in an entirely different place. In fact, our characters never once step foot inside a ballroom. However, this opening shot of waltzers repeats itself three more times in the course of the film.
The waltzing shot shows up again after Uncle Charlie puts a ring on young Charlie's finger. The juxtaposition of the two shots suggests a strong, eerily incestuous love between the niece and uncle. The next time the dream-like waltz shot appears is when young Charlie is in the library and discovers the article about the Merry Widow Murderer, realizing that Uncle Charlie is the killer. She looks to the ring, realizing that it was the ring of Uncle Charlie's last victim. The montage of these two shots together gives a much creepier, foreboding feeling. It gives the sense that the love young Charlie shared with her uncle might be a sham, that it is as unreal as the dreamlike waltzers that appear in the film, that she has been lost in this dreamworld of optimism and love her whole life.
The last time we see the waltzers is near the very end of the film. Uncle Charlie tries to strangle young Charlie, who, in the struggle, throws her predator out the moving train door and into an oncoming train. This combination of shots acts as a metaphor showing that the nightmare is over and she is free from Uncle Charlie. It shows that her world can go back to the state it had been in. However, there's a bittersweet tinge to the song now, as there always was in the title, "The Merry Widow Waltz." From now on in young Charlie's life, the song will...