The Man Who Knew Too Much

Abstract

Whereas The King examines audience involvement as that which is integral to the mechanism of mass entertainment, correlating fairground and cinema in terms of the essentially vigorous albeit combative relationship between spectator and spectacle, The Man Who Knew Too Much is intensely troubled by the dynamics of the association. In a significant perspectival shift, no longer is a visceral interchange between exhibition and reception vital to visual culture. Rather, Hitchcock’s 1934 political thriller portrays the active audience as a force that wields wholly debilitating power over display. The spectrum of exhibitions that originate in an upscale resort in the pristine Swiss Alps and conclude in the rundown flats of London’s dingy Wapping district—including a ski jumping competition, shooting contest, dinner dance, church service, and classical music concert at the Royal Albert Hall— are continually marred and often ruined by spectator engagement.