I came across this article (click) today in the Jesuit America Magazine. An excerpt:

Arguably, no filmmaker understood the psychology of obsession better than Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary British director of such thrillers as "The Birds" and "Psycho." And Catholicism had an undeniable influence on Hitchcock's compassionate, comic and often shocking treatment of humanity's dark side.

Raised in a strict Catholic household, Hitchcock (1899-1980) attended St. Ignatius, a Jesuit high school in England. A lifelong practicing Catholic, he once said in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich that the Jesuits taught him "organization, control, and to some degree analysis."

Catholic education gave Hitchcock a great fear of authority figures like policemen, a fear that he playfully evoked in many of his films. Some biographies have claimed that he fell away from the faith at the end of his life. But Father Mark Henninger, S.J., confirmed in a 2012 Wall Street Journal article that Hitchcock was regularly receiving communion and confession in his last days. Father Henninger, one of the Jesuit priests who personally administered the sacraments to Hitchcock, also noted that the great director received a Catholic funeral and burial from Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood.

Hitchcock's movies deal with recurring moral themes that resonate deeply with the Catholic psyche and imagination: innocent men wrongly accused of crimes, icy blonde femme fatales and seemingly upright people with tragic secrets or hidden flaws.

As a Catholic familiar with sin, Hitchcock was uniquely aware of the difference between our public image and our personal dysfunctions, depicting this dichotomy in a way that shocked many filmmakers accustomed to Puritanically simplified "good versus evil" plots from the days of the Hays Code. Nevertheless, many film professors and critics have judged Hitchcock to be the greatest director of all time.

Although I have never enjoyed horror movies myself, I enjoy Hitchcock. While horror films depress me, Hitchcock amuses and enlightens and sometimes moves me. He treats unspeakable things with tact, humor and style in a way that is much imitated by modern filmmakers without being fully recaptured...

...If Catholicism sometimes produces neuroses in people like Hitchcock, it also inspires great art. Without the Catholic Church to embrace or kick against, I suspect our collective imagination would not be the same, and we might be likelier to minimize the darker corners of our lives in favor of self-deluding success narratives. Without the church, there might be precious little to remind us that God ultimately controls our destinies—not us.

Gee, maybe that's why I like Hitchcock movies. He portrays the messy reality of life, not a sanitized version where only perfect people are acceptable.

-Joe-