Fiction
She smokes her cigarette quickly, eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. The envelope filled with money is safe in the new car she just purchased in Arizona, the one with California license plates, but it might not be enough. The cop saw her get into it. He probably wrote down the numbers and letters, he probably called it in. Why did she have to look so suspicious?
She took the money from her boss. $40,000 dollars.
Now she is a criminal, fleeing from the law. She needs this cigarette to calm down before her next move, so she won’t make a new mistake.
The sky looks like it’s about to rain, storm clouds approaching. She’ll need somewhere tonight to stay the night. If she’s to be caught, then let it be with a roof over her head, not in a car like some vagrant. Yes, she needs dinner and a warm shower. That’s what she’ll do. She’ll find a motel off the highway. Tonight she’ll sleep calmly. No one will wake her. No one will find her. Tomorrow will be a better day.
End of fiction
Psycho is considered to be the first slasher film in cinema and one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best. The director —also known as the “Master of Suspense” due to his predilection for grim, bloody movies— took the story of a troubled killer and turned it into a masterclass in horror filmmaking, with one of the most memorable scenes ever to be projected on a big screen: the infamous shower murder. The influence of this film has been evident since its release in 1960. From then on, explicit violence became the craze in Hollywood, opening the doors for other influential directors to start experimenting with images of blood and sex in ways unthought of until that moment.
Besides his innovation of the thriller genre, Alfred Hitchcock created his own unique style, filled with colorful set-pieces that contrasted heavily with the themes in his stories of crime and punishment. His influence as a visual stylist transcended cinema, something that becomes evident when looking at the work of artists like Jack Vettriano, a Scottish painter whose work seems to transport us into that suspenseful cinematic world. The best example of this being the painting titled Suddenly One Summer, which features a woman resting against her car, smoking a cigarette. She greatly resembles Marion Crane —Psycho’s leading lady— on her way to Bates Motel, where she’ll meet Norman Bates and fall victim to the knife of “Mother”. However, this isn’t the only “Hitchcockian” work of art in Vettriano’s pieces.
Vettriano’s paintings exist in a time that’s long gone. His characters interact with each other in an atmosphere that resembles the United States in the fifties, its bright colors reminiscent of films like Vertigo and North by Northwest. But what at first sight might seem like merely a visual recreation, also finds links to the director’s work in the aura of mystery that can be found in them. Hitchcock famously talked about constructing suspense through editing, Vettriano does it through the positioning of his characters, their body language and facial expressions, the lighting and color. There always seems to be more than meets the eye in his scenes, just like it occurred with Hitchcock, a constant threat looming just outside the frame.
The tension creeps into you as you stare at the paintings, the same feeling you experience when watching Psycho for the first time. Their cinematic quality —very similar to that of Edward Hopper— raises the question: what is going on there? What’s the story within the painting? It’s as though a hidden narrative is about to unfold before our eyes. He reinforces this sense of wonder and puzzlement by portraying sexually charged scenes that depict the darker side of desire. His characters want each other, not for love, but thanks to a perverse, dominant, and violent impulse.
By immersing us in a world oozing with mystery, Jack Vettriano develops the themes that obsessed one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. He does so with a precise technique that generates haunting atmospheres that make the hairs on the back of our necks stand up. Two masters of suspense, each great in his own medium.
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Once you’ve done that, check out 12 paintings that show how frightening art can be and 5 male nudes for art connoisseurs.
