Esthétique et éthique de la responsabilité dans le cinéma d’Alfred Hitchcock

Penser la responsabilité comme un problème éthique va de soi ; mais en irait-il de même si on l’abordait aussi comme un problème esthétique ? Le cinéma peut-il nous éduquer, nous changer, nous éveiller à nous-mêmes, nous amener à prendre la mesure de notre propre responsabilité ? Autrement dit, à quelles conditions la responsabilité peut-elle devenir un problème de cinéma ? Ce mémoire porte sur le rapport entre esthétique et éthique dans le cinéma d’Alfred Hitchcock, et ce, à partir de la question de la responsabilité. Il s’agit d’examiner de quelle manière l’esthétique d’Alfred Hitchcock peut être la condition d’un questionnement éthique, et, inversement, d’évaluer comment la responsabilité donne un sens ou une valeur éthique à l’esthétique de ce cinéaste. À cet objectif général s’en ajoute un second, complémentaire : faire la preuve qu’Hitchcock problématise la responsabilité en recourant aux moyens propres au cinéma, et que c’est précisément en problématisant l’éthique qu’il découvre ce qui appartient en propre au cinéma. C’est autour de trois grands axes que s’articule cette lecture éthique de l’œuvre d’Hitchcock. À l’instar de Deleuze qui parlait d’Alfred Hitchcock comme étant le « cinéaste de la relation », on cherchera à voir comment le problème des relations s’articule, relève ou participe d’un problème plus profond, celui de la responsabilité. On tirera ensuite les conséquences de cette prépondérance des relations pour montrer comment l’identité personnelle s’en trouve profondément affectée. Par l’étude de films particuliers, on sera à même de voir comment la notion d’identité est tantôt instable, tantôt fictive ou relative, pour ne pas dire violente. Enfin, on en arrivera à la responsabilité entendue comme l’exigence d’en passer par une création de soi par soi, laquelle est étroitement liée à la reconnaissance de notre condition humaine et la reconnaissance de l’humanité d’autrui, mais aussi à la prise de conscience de ce que nous sommes, de ce que nous avons été et de ce que nous aspirons à être. One may easily accept that responsibility is a matter that pertains to ethical thinking; but what if we also make it an aesthetical problem? Are we willing to accept that cinema has the ability to educate us and change us, so that we can acknowledge our own responsibilities? In other words, under what conditions can responsibility become a cinematographical problem? This dissertation is about the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in Hitchcock’s films, based on the problem of responsibility. Throughout analysis and descriptions of many of his films, I will examine how Hitchcock’s aesthetic can lead to an ethical questioning, and, conversely, how responsibility gives meaning or ethical value to the aesthetic of this filmmaker. In doing so, an additional objective is added: to demonstrate that Hitchcock problematizes responsibility only with the means of cinema, and that it is precisely through this ethical questioning that he discovers what is cinema, its means, its possibilities and its specificity. This ethical reading of Hitchcock’s films is divided into three sections. Taking up Deleuze’s reading where Hitchcock was described as the filmmaker of relations, the first section is an attempt to evaluate how relationship’s economy is articulated with or belongs to a deeper problem, that of responsibility and accountability. The second section follows by demonstrating how relationships transforms the very notion of identity, which is revealed as unstable, fictional, partial, when not simply violent. Indeed, we’ll see how during trials, the defendant is denied the possibility of having his own voice, or how domestic spaces represent a danger for the integrity of key feminine characters struggling to find their place in this world. In the final section, it will be clear to us that for different reasons, comically or dramatically, Hitchcock’s films are filled with character’s living a life of self-denial; characters who, instead of being part of this world, are simply haunting it. Therefore, the problem of responsibility will be defined as the demand for self-creation, that is, being the actors of our own existence. For this, we need to acknowledge our human condition, which is precisely that we are not yet accountable for our place in this world; but moreover, responsibility is about acknowledging who we are, who we’ve been and who we aspire to be.

Keyphrases: Responsabilité, Alfred Hitchcock, Esthétique, Éthique, Philosophie, Cinéma, Relations, Identité personnelle, Création de soi, Relations, Responsability, Cinema, Ethics, Relationships, Personal identity, Aesthetic, Self-creation, Philosophy