The Master of Suspense

How many of you have heard of Alfred Hitchcock? How many of his films can you name? How many of his leading stars can you name? Why is he so well known, when usually the actors are the stars?

What might Hitchcock have in common with these directors? Kevin Smith Tim Burton Quentin Tarantino Wes Anderson

Auteur (oh-tur ) A filmmaker (usually a director) who exercises creative control over his/her works and has a strong personal style In the auteur theory, film is art and the director is the key visionary Can you name any other directors who have such a unique style that you could immediately recognize his/her work?

Trey Parker and Matt Stone Michel Gondry Martin Scorcese Stanley Kubrick The Coen Brothers (they’re one person, after all….)

Hitchcock History and Trivia Came to America in 1939 from England when he was already England’s most successful director. Is/was as well known as his stars (before him, directors were much more “invisible”) Even though his work is critically acclaimed, artistic, and he is hailed as “genius,” he wanted to be known as a popular director, not an “artsy” one. His storyboards were legendary—they were extremely detailed and each move was carefully choreographed for precise effect. His preparation was exhaustive: prep for a movie might include 600 set-up shots Has a cameo in most of his films--he eventually began making his appearances in the beginning of his films, because he knew viewers were watching for him and he didn't want to divert their attention away from the story's plot. In late 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock Rebecca was the only one of his films to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, although four others were nominated. However, Hitchcock never won an Academy Award for Best Director. As a child Hitchcock was sent to the local police station with a letter from his father. The desk sergeant read the letter and immediately locked the boy up for ten minutes. After that, the sergeant let young Alfred go, explaining, "This is what happens to people who do bad things." Hitchcock had a morbid fear of police from that day on. He possessed one additional phobia: eggs.

Themes and Motifs Loss of identity or assumed/mistaken identity Likeable criminals Bathrooms as plot devices Hair, Mirrors, and Birds to suggest splits (identity, reformation, male/female, respectively) Intrusive and domineering mothers Blonde actresses as leading ladies (he thought audiences would be more suspicious of brunettes!)

Hitchcock’s 13 1: The Mind of the Audience 2: Frame for Emotion 3: Camera is Not a Camera 4: Dialogue Means Nothing 5: Point of View Editing 6: Montage 7: Simple Story Lines 8: Characters that Break Cliché 9: Humor Adds Tension 10: Two Things Happen at Once 11: Suspense and Authorial Focalization 12: Surprise and Twist 13: The MacGuffin

1: The Mind of the Audience Hitchcock knew why people are drawn to a darkened theater—they go to have fun and to be shown dangerous, or physically or emotionally charged situations with no chance of being harmed. As a film director you can throw things at them, hurl them off a cliff, or pull them into a dangerous love story, and yet they know nothing will really happen to them. Analytic Editing: began in 1912; allows directors to control the viewer’s attention and responses. In Alfred Hitchcock’s case, analytic editing was used in these ways: -Each scene is constructed so that it affects the audience in some predetermined way -Characters are created to tease the viewer -Each member of the audience is meant to consider him/herself as a voyeur (a prying observer seeking something scandalous)

2: Frame for Emotion Emotion (e.g., fear, laughter, surprise, sadness, anger, boredom, etc.) is the ultimate goal of each scene. Emotion comes directly from the actor's eyes. Hitchcock controlled the intensity of that emotion by placing the camera close or far away from the eyes. How does a close-up create an emotional effect? What about a long shot? How might you combine these shots to create a more jarring emotional experience for the audience?

3: Camera is Not a Camera Or, more directly, Camera is More Than a Camera. Hitchcock started his career in silent films. Without sound, filmmakers had to rely on the camera to tell a story and create emotional response. Hitchcock never liked that once sound was introduced in films, movies began to rely on actors talking, and visual storytelling was almost forgotten. He continued to utilize his camera as a major factor in his films, specifically in the following ways: The camera takes on human qualities and roams around playfully looking for something suspicious in a room (adds to sense of voyeurism) Scenes often begin by panning a room showing close-ups of objects that explain plot elements. *This emphasis on the camera is also noted in the next technique, which explains Hitchcock’s frivolous dialogue…

4: Dialogue Means Nothing Hitchcock once said, “We don’t have pages to fill, or pages from a typewriter to fill, we have a rectangular screen in a movie house.” Hitchcock’s films often employ dialogue that doesn’t mean anything (doesn’t contribute to the plot) but rather, sets up a moment in which a character may visually recognize or suggest an important element to the plot. This technique pulls the audience into a character's secretive world. How this type of scene might play out in a film?

Sample Answer A husband and a wife are having a conversation at the dinner table about the events of their day. The conversation is fairly monotonous, and the abusive husband is berating his wife about the dirty house once again. This doesn’t really reveal anything new about the characters, but as the man is speaking the wife looks to the counter and sees the large butcher knife she left on the counter after preparing his meal. What secret is revealed?

5: Point of View Editing Using P.O.V. editing, Hitchcock associates an image or idea with a character without explaining it in dialogue (since he doesn’t really like dialogue anyway…) 1. Start with a close-up of the actor 2. Cut to a shot of what they're seeing 3. Cut back to the actor to see his reaction 4. Repeat as desired How might this work?

Sample Answer Scene 1 Close-up of man’s face looking concerned Eye-line match cut to a dog running across the street just before a car passes Back to man to show a smile (relief) Scene 2 Close-up on a girl’s face with her eye’s closed Eye-line match cut to a present about to be opened Back to girl to show a big smile (excitement)

6: Montage In this sort of montage, the action is divided into a series of close-ups shown in succession. For example, Hitchcock may film a close-up of a hand, an arm, a face, a gun falling to the floor – the montage ties them all together to tell a story. Hitchcock used the montage to not only portray more of an event, but also to control the timing, and therefore, the audience’s reaction. He could also hide parts of the event so to engage the audience’s imagination. Can you think of another cinematic technique through which the hiding/omission of a particular element stimulates the audience’s imagination?

7: Simple Story Lines As Hitchcock said, “what is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out…” Hitchcock often relied on simplistic, linear stories that the audience could easily follow, which is why so many of his films concern crime stories with spies, assassinations, and people running from the police. These sort of plots follow cause and effect schemes and make it easy to play on fear.

8: Characters that Break Cliché Hitchcock developed characters to be the exact opposite of what the audience expected. –Hitchcock’s criminals tend to be wealthy, upper class citizens; the policeman and politicians are usually the bumbling fools; the innocent are accused; and the villains get away with everything because nobody suspects them. They surprise you at every step of the plot.

9: Humor Adds Tension According to Hitchcock, humor does not diminish the effectiveness of dramatic suspense. In fact, he argued that humor heightens the drama and makes it even more potent. “For me, suspense doesn’t have any value unless it’s balanced by humor,” said Hitchcock. Although we don’t tend to think of his movies as “funny,” Hitchcock considered some of his films “practical jokes” because in a way they play a practical joke on the main character of the movie by giving him the most ironic situations to deal with. For example:

10: Two Things Happen at Once Hitchcock builds tension into a scene by using contrasting situations in which two unrelated things happen at once. The audience is focused on the momentum of one, and is interrupted by the other. Usually the second item is a humorous distraction that means nothing (this can often be dialogue). It was put there only to get in the way, and ultimately to make the audience pay more attention to what is really going on.

11: Suspense and Authorial Focalization Authorial Focalizaton: the audience is given information a character doesn’t have, or attention is drawn to something a character isn’t seeing. Hitchcock capitalized on the ability of A.F. to create suspense. If something is about to harm the characters, he shows it at beginning of the scene, perhaps cuts to it again at various intervals and then lets the scene play out as normal. Constant reminders of this looming danger build suspense.

12: Surprise and Twist Hitchcock’s plots make the audience think they know what’s coming next, and then pull the rug out from under them. His stories usually never turn out the way the audience expects. What are some famous films that contain twists? What makes them work so well?

13: The MacGuffin A plot device that motivates the characters to action and/or advances the story but has little or no other relevance. Hitchcock popularized both the term and the technique, although the use of a plot device like a MacGuffin is widely used in films and has been since the silent era. Because the MacGuffin means very little to the story other than to act as motivation, they are often difficult to define, mostly because they are arbitrary or are easily over-looked. Hitchcock offered very obtuse definitions when probed about the meaning of “MacGuffin” but did offer this explanation to students attending a lecture at Columbia University: “In crook stories it is most always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers.” A more helpful way to think of a MacGuffin may be to remember this famous object from Pulp Fiction…

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