meaning of the ring in shadow of a doubt

Rather, the film primes the viewer to understand their occurrence as a further manifestation of the telepathy between Charles and his favourite niece, Charlie (named after him).Īgainst the better judgement of most critical accounts of the film, which prefer to interpret its use of the “Merry Widow” tune differently, I wish in this paper to consider the film’s insistence on the telepathic passage between heads – between the heads of two characters that Hitchcock has said (in his interview with François Truffaut) were conceived of with the figure of the double in mind. But while the tune and the waltzing couples appear on one occasion in a lap dissolve over a shot of Charles, the film’s narration does not unequivocally mark this image-sound set as coming from ‘inside’ Charles’ head (there is nothing like a close-up shot of Charles looking off-screen as if imagining or recalling the tune or image). Through its name, the tune alludes to the secret identity of Uncle Charles (Joseph Cotten) as the “Merry Widow” serial killer of rich widows, on the run from a nationwide police hunt. Occurring firstly during the opening credits and then at crucial moments during the unfolding story, and neither simply diegetic nor non-diegetic, this melody and the brief, hallucinatory scene of waltzing couples that sometimes accompanies it present a conundrum to the spectator/auditor about how to attribute their occurrence in the film. This paper contemplates the curious employment of the “Merry Widow” waltz in the soundtrack of Hitchcock’s early American classic, Shadow of a Doubt.

This paper was presented at the Alfred Hitchcock conference For the Love of Fear convened by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, held from 31 March to 2 April 2000.

Meaning of the ring in shadow of a doubt