In the famous last scene of Notorious, Ingrid Bergman lies in bed, trapped in the house of her Nazi husband, she is being slowly poisoned by Nazi-man (Claude Rains) and by his terrifying evil Fraulein mother (Leopoldine Konstantin). Bergman lies in bed, coming in and out of consciousness due to the poison, the sleeping pills – Cary Grant has come to rescue her – finds her in this state – and he tries to keep her awake, he dresses her so that they can leave that terrible mansion – and he also, in his tortured way declares his love for her.
He has been cruel, distant, misogynistic, etc., throughout the rest of the film – but the genius of it is that Cary Grant (and Hitchcock, of course) lets us in on the secret: Devlin (the character) is actually not a cruel or distant man at all – he is only cruel and distant because underneath all of that, he is vulnerable, and he needs her too much. Cary Grant’s performance is a show-and-tell masterpiece. WE can see the truth, but Devlin can’t. WE can look at him and see the vulnerability, but Devlin thinks he’s invulnerable, and that he can’t be hurt.
What the character does is obvious: he throws her to the wolves, he refuses to believe that she can change her nympho-drunk ways. But clues are dropped, along the way, that this guy is tormented. Who knows why. He treats her like a whore, except when he is out of her presence, when he then is very very touchy about any slights on her honor. He defends her character to his fellow secret agents, and yet – refuses to do so when she begs him to, in person.
In the last scene, he helps her to sit up, her head is flopping back. The lighting is spectacular: the pillow behind her head is blazing white, and her face is completely in the glow of the light. But he – he is a dark silhouette, he remains in the shadow. The only time he is fully lit in that last scene, is when the 2 of them emerge from the bedroom, and begin the descent down the stairway. And LOOK at how different his face is when he steps out into the brightness with her. It’s a genius acting job. He looks, for the first time, like a complete man – like he has joined the land of the living. For the entirety of the film, he’s uptight, his eyes are cynical, he never smiles (except when he’s pretending, at the party). But somehow, Cary Grant creates this character without completely alienating us in the audience. Notorious is obviously on “her” side – the film sympathizes with Ingrid Bergman – and yet he is not villainized. This is a guy who is dying for love, and the only reason he resists it is because he needs it too much. The brilliance, of course, of all of this – is that that is only implied, never ever said.
He sits with her on the bed, her face ablaze in the light, and he is a shadow-man, a black-cut-out silhouette. He holds her – she says, “Why have you come …” He whispers, “I had to see you one more time … so I could tell you I love you …” He has never said he loved her, and earlier on in the film, she makes reference to the fact that their love affair is very interesting, because he doesn’t love her. He tries to weasle out of it, saying, “Actions speak louder than words…”
So the “I love you” is not like other “I love yous” in films. There’s no swelling music, there’s no feeling that this “I love you” is really a victory. It’s more hard-won, more tragic.
She is, again, falling in and out of consciousness – but when she hears those words – there are tears in her eyes (Bergman is absolutely spectacular in this film, especially in the last scene) – she says, “You love me? Why didn’t you say so before?”
He holds onto her, says into the side of her cheek, “I was a fat-headed guy … full of pain.”
The entire scene is done in surreptitious whispers, which adds to the insecure feeling of it, the secretive-ness, the neuroses – this isn’t a normal love scene. She’s in the light, he’s in the dark – These two people are all fucked up, basically. I don’t feel hopeful about their futures, really – even though they drive away together. Whatever happened, they’d have a difficult path.
If you want to know why Cary Grant is not just a great movie star, but a great actor – see what he does with that “fat-headed guy” line. It’s really that he does nothing, that’s why it’s so incredible – he just says it – simply – with no self-pity, no self-importance, no ego – he just says it … but the eyes … the eyes …
Jesus. Look at those eyes. “Full of pain”, indeed.
This is probably my favorite scene from any movie. Hitchcock understood Bergman’s screen persona very well and knew that she was best when she was suffering, so he used her well to explore his theme of redemption through woman. In his first film with her, “Spellbound,” the theme is obvious enough where Bergman is both doctor and cure. “Notorious” is much more fascinating, though, because of the way that Bergman/Alicia as fallen woman becomes Madonna, saving Devlin from himself.