Films by Alfred Hitchcock - Analysis

chillibreeze writer — Arun Thomas

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most famous and well-known directors, artists, and producers of all time. He was educated and raised in the traditions of Conservative Catholicism, which had an immense impact on his life.

Young Hitchcock studied art, economics, political science, and navigation. His first job after leaving the University was with The Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. He made technical calculations on electrical systems installed by the company. After being with this organization for a considerable time, Hitchcock decided to move on and found himself employment as a layout man in an advertising office in a London department store. He was earning a salary of only fifteen shillings, about $3.50 a week.

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In 1923, he got his first chance at directing when the manager of Always Tell Your Wife became terribly ill and Hitchcock took over. The studio chiefs were so impressed with Hitchcock’s work that they gave him his first assignment later that year. However, the studio had to close down its British operations and Hitchcock never got to complete the film.

In his everyday life he was a writer, a title designer, and art director. After directing a few movies, he was given the opportunity to guide a British/German co-production called The Pleasure Garden in 1925, which was filmed in Munich, Germany. After filming The Pleasure Garden, Hitchcock directed The Case of Lady Camber, Champagne, The Farmer’s Wife, Juno and The Paycook, The Manxman, Murder, Number 17, Rich and Strange, The Ring, and The Skin Game.

He also managed the first well-received English talking motion picture, Blackmail. With some help from Michael Balcon and Victor Saville he then led Easy Virtue, The Lodger, and Downhill. These films had already won for Alfred’s creative reputation of suspense. Hitchcock did not get into his work seriously until he made a series of six motion pictures for Gaumont-British from 1935 to 1938. This particular series was called the, Hitchcock Cycle, the series gave him the possibility to work with the American Film Industry executives. The movies were the following: The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Lady Vanishes, Secret Agent, The Girl Was Young, Sabotage, and The 39 Steps. The movie critics of New York City voted his movie, The 39 Steps, the best-directed motion picture of 1938.

The Lodger was about a family that is suspecting their roomer of being Jack the Ripper. This kind of thriller is what really started him off. The first successful talking picture was his following movie, Blackmail, in 1929. By 1939 came around, Hitchcock was ready to leave England for Hollywood, where he filmed his first movie in 1940, Rebecca.

It is important to analyze the great effect that the general principle of concealment has on Hitchcock films and his idea of presenting audience with the portion of the events rather than distributing the whole picture at once. The director uses a very similar method in each of his films to add a feeling of suspense to them. The viewer is always aware that the villain may be right next to the heroes yet they have no idea who it is, which makes for an uncomfortable yet entertaining experience.

Hitchcock also makes sure to take a long time to show anything to gain even more suspense. This was shown in the film that has the young boy carrying a package that is a bomb and the viewer knows this but the boy does not. While he is carrying it, the audience will see the package then clocks showing the time, and back and forth. Since the person is aware of the exact time the bomb is supposed to go off they get very worried for the one carrying it. As the remaining seconds tick off the viewer wants to yell but there is nothing that can be done other than to hope. Finally the young boy drops off the package since it would not be acceptable for Hitchcock to show a young innocent boy being blown apart at this point in his career. This type of suspense is most evident in this film when the good couple is talking on the steps of the woman’s house and the villains are watching from a car parked across the street and the female even walks right passed the house. While observing them talk via a camera in the vehicle with the villains an individual gets very concerned about the safety of those talking on the steps. In Psycho a woman is in a house when everyone can see that miscreant is coming. Hitchcock does this by switching back and forth from the place where the woman is to the outside particle of the garden. Such technique is very effective even if the gangster is not watching because it gives the audience an idea that something is about to happen.

In one of the films, there is a body in a potato sack that is being transported and the murderer knows that it has a piece of evidence that could be very incriminating to him. The viewer goes on the ride as well as he looks through the sacks trying to find the one that has the pin he needs. When he finally gets to the women the stiffening of the body has already set in and he needs to break the fingers to get it out. The audience is nervous and feels a sense of pity for him until a crazy look appears in the killer’s eyes again. In Psycho, the young man is disposing of a body and drives the car into a swamp. As the car sinks, the viewer watches through the eyes of the killer and stops for a second right before the complete submerging. Such effect brings out the same feeling as the other do. Hitchcock also tries to keep the pity “fairly low by making both the good and bad person in the film very hard to kill” (Prince, p.187). This leads to drawn out fight scenes, or thought out plans that work to help the good characters win. The depicted earlier effect was shown in the end when the couple locks the two villains in the cell room after devising a plan that was made fast and worked brilliantly.

In Hitchcock’s movies, relatively normal people find themselves involved with murder, assassination attempts, and espionage all of a sudden. In The Lady Vanishes, Iris, who is in search of Miss Froy, gets tangled up in a plot to smuggle international spy secrets back to England. In Shadow of a Doubt, little Charlie has to come to terms with the fact that her favourite Uncle is a murderer. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Ben and Jo get mixed up in an assassination plot. Finally, in The Birds, the town of Bodega Bay has to cope with unprovoked attacks by the local birds.

Hitchcock uses these story lines to relay a number of themes to his audience. Over his career, the director has explored many different motifs through his work. In Strangers on a Train, Guy Haines gets involved in a murder scheme because a stranger started a conversation with him on his way home. In both The Wrong Man and North by Northwest, the lead males’ worlds are thrown into disarray when they become objects of mistaken identity. The epitome of this theme is in The Birds when the birds of Bodega Bay and subsequently elsewhere in California begin attacking the citizens for a reason that is never explained. The second theme we would find in the typical Hitchcock movie is that of original sin. This concept is enforced by a reoccurring shot that he uses in the films: a close-up on a character’s hand covered with blood or a substance that symbolizes blood. In Notorious, Devlin and his boss Prescott are supposed to be the good personages, yet they could not be more cavalier about putting Alicia in a very dangerous situation as well as making her a prostitute of sorts in the meantime. In Strangers on a Train Hitchcock goes to great lengths to show that everybody has an evil side to them but most of people are able to suppress this side. In Psycho, Marion Crane steals thousands of dollars from her boss and subsequently pays with her life. The epitome of this theme is in Shadow of a Doubt where “little Charlie lives in a “utopian” kind of town” (Prince p. 79).

The idea of original sin as presented through Shadow of a Doubt brings us to one of the techniques that would likely be found in the typical Hitchcock film. This is the idea of the double. Hitchcock often links his characters using missing scene, editing, dialogue and, in the case of Shadow of a Doubt, their names. In Shadow of a Doubt, the two main characters are both named Charlie. Hitchcock not only confuses them by name but also crosscuts their very similar introductions. A common theme in almost all Hitchcock movies is that the audience start from far out and go farther and farther in, both literally and psychologically. In The Lady Vanishes Hitchcock opens with long shots of the snowbound town and then closes in on it. In Shadow of a Doubt Hitchcock crosscuts between long shots of little and Uncle Charlie’s respective towns getting closer and closer until he enters into their bedrooms. Rope begins with a long shot of a street and then turns and pans to a close-up of a window. Finally, in Psycho, the camera begins on long shot of the city and then it pans and closes in on a hotel room and enters it.

Hitchcock does more than let his viewers watch the characters from a distance. He actually brings his audience inside the heads of his characters and makes the viewer an active participant in his films. One sees a strong use of point of view shots in Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo, and Notorious. Another way the director does this is by placing the viewer in a position where they are forced to identify with the main character due to the fact that audience knows as much as they do. This is the case in The Lady Vanishes, The Wrong Man, and Vertigo where in all cases neither the main characters nor people know exactly what is happening. All of this has to do with Hitchcock’s interest in taking us from outside his character’s worlds and bringing us into their deepest psychological depths. The characters the producer uses have patterns of their own.

The fixture of almost every Hitchcock “film is the presence of an icy cool blonde” (Modleski p.143). She would most certainly be present in Hitchcock’s typical film. These women often derive their iciness from their ability to do wrong. In Psycho, Marion steals. In Rear Window, Lisa commits breaking and entering. In Vertigo, Judy/Madeleine is an accessory to murder. Finally, in Marnie, Marnie is a jewel thief. Their beauty is likely to be part of Hitchcock’s obsession with these women and his need to control them. This issue comes to a head in Vertigo where in Jimmy Stewart plays Hitchcock as he attempts to transform Judy into the object of his desire. Another hero that would likely to be found in the Hitchcock film is the domineering or sadistic mother. In Strangers on a Train, Bruno’s mother files his nails. In North by Northwest, Roger’s mother berates and humiliates him in public. In Psycho, Norman Bates is quite literally controlled by his mother who is dead. In The Birds, Lydia is extremely attached to her son Mitch and it is implied that she was the reason Mitch and Annie broke up. Finally, in Notorious, Mrs. Sebastian conspires and orders her son to poison Alicia when they find out that she is a spy.

In Shadow of a Doubt Hitchcock effectively uses architecture and props to inform audience about the characters. In the kitchen scene Uncle Charlie stands in front of a wall that splits into two directions. This is symbolic of his dual nature (he’s both very charming and a murderer). His background is full of assistance whereas little Charlie’s is almost empty. In The Man Who Knew Too Much Hitchcock effectively uses space in the scene when the assassin comes to the door. Ben and Jo are separated two dimensionally by Bernard in the background. At the same time they are trapped three dimensionally between Bernard and the assassin who has come to the house. In Strangers on a Train Hitchcock effectively uses framing and re-framing in the scene with Guy and Bruno at Guy’s apartment. Here Bruno starts behind the gate (symbolic of prison bars) and Guy is not framed behind the barrier. As the scene progresses and Guy learns that he is involved in the eyes of the law he is “re-framed to be behind the bars with Bruno as the scene ends” (Truffaut p.220). Finally, in Marnie the director effectively uses colour to associate and contrast personages. Marnie is often seen with the colour yellow while Mark is represented by greens. Red signifies Marnie’s suppressed trauma from her childhood. Hitchcock is able to manipulate missing scene in many ways to tell us about the characters. He effectively uses editing for different purposes too. Hitchcock uses editing to build suspense, shock and alarm. For instance, during the shower scene in Psycho people are drawn into desire to watch the murder because the girl is naked. It is the editing that makes this sequence so alarming since we never see the knife actually make contact with Marion. Finally he uses abridgment to emulate the nature of the animals in The Birds.

An interesting method Hitchcock used was to have the paths of two important characters cross in the very beginning of the movie before there is any idea of the importance of the two. The director uses this approach in his final film but it is most apparent in Strangers on a Train. In the beginning of the movie one follows the feet of two people until the sets of feet cross inches from each other while entering a set of doors at the train station. The passage is also shown in the beginning of the film when two sets of train tracks intersect as the camera shows this at an angle that makes the viewer feel as though it is the head of the train.

Hitchcock claimed that “Movies… are delightfully simple!” All that is needed is a certain time in life is to throw in a little color, a simple or even a complex pattern, and there is a film. Hitchcock is one of the few that has been successful at directing and producing movies. This man has been everything in his life. At the age of eight he had already ridden every bus line in London, and had explored all its docks and shipping terminals. He has been catholic schoolboy, electronic engineer, and of course what he was most famous for, a director, a producer, and a writer. His movies have touched many different people in many different ways. Alfred Hitchcock is definitely one of the greatest directors and producers of all times. He was not only able to create films that impressed a number of people but the writer also created an unequalled and unique style that cannot be duplicated or repeated for more than 70 years in a row.

References
Branigan, Edward. Narrative Comprehension and Film. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 1992.
Kapsis, E. Robert. Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999- reprinted edition.
Truffaut, Francis. Hitchcock New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Modleski, T. The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory. New York: Methuen, 1997.
Prince, G. A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001- reprinted edition.

Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in January, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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