Hitchcocks Sabotage or The Woman Alone - Essay Example

? A Film Extract and Analysis: Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage (or The Woman Alone), 1936 Word Count (excluding s and bibliography 1000 A Film Extract and Analysis: Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage (or The Woman Alone), 1936 One of the most famous and influential film directors of the 20th century is Alfred Hitchcock. He is most known for making a distinction between “surprise and suspense, wherein surprise is defined by the occurrence of something unexpected, and suspense is the concern for how a character would respond to a threat that the audience already knows about”1. Even when the films are seen the second time around, the element of suspense is still there, and such feelings of anxiety get stirred in the audience because “the viewers feel suspense for the character rather than fright or shock with the character”2. The addition of familiar elements to the viewers such as using well-known places as the story’s settings “capture the reality”3 for the audience, making the experience seem possible in real life. In this analysis, an extract from Hitchcock’s suspense movie, Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936), also released as A Woman Alone would be used to discuss how the different film elements are utilized to show how suspense works wonders in the film. The extract starts after the first 10 minutes of the film’s beginning. After a power failure that aimed originally to terrorize but rather just surprised the citizens of London, the main characters, as well as the secret lives of Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolka) and Ted Spencer (John Loder) were revealed to the audience4. Spencer’s secret life of working as an agent in Scotland Yard was presented first, which shows that he does surveillance on the cinema that Mr. Verloc operates. Meanwhile, Verloc’s secret life as a member of foreign terrorists was revealed in the later part of the film extract. The suspense presented in this part of the film is the idea that two opposing powers live side by side in the same street, not knowing for sure about the true identities of one another. In order to portray this dilemma to the audience, certain aspects were done in order to show drama and conflicts within and among the characters. The term mise-en-scene describes the “expressive totality”5 of a particular moment that is shown to the viewers. Before and during the reveal of Spencer’s identity, he was shown to have changed his face from a welcoming face of a fruit vendor to a hard face, which was later followed by the changes in his clothing and persona to his true self, as a secret agent. Verloc, on the other hand did not change his clothing, but rather his inner self, from a seemingly-harmless cinema owner to a member of a terrorist group plotting to destroy London. In both scenarios, the lighting added to the strong effects of the reveal to the audience, as well as portraying who was in the side of justice. The added lighting in Spencer’s reveal showed how he was the one in the right side of the law, and the almost lack of lighting in Verloc’s reveal showed how he was in the wrong side of justice. The camerawork and the editing also added to the feeling of suspense in the movie’s extract. In the scenes that seem to be happening in real time, the transitions were abrupt cuts, while the scenes that showed excised time used fade, to imply the passage of time in the extract. The framing of shots also added suspense by the use of close-ups when showing the characters during the times when they have to face a dilemma. By limiting what is visible to the audience, the audience would be more focused on the character even more, as well as his or her “spatial relationship”6 to the world in the movie. The use of familiar elements such as London scenes in the movie made the movie seem even closer to home. This technique is used by Hitchcock in his movies in order to make the audience anxious because they could “find resonance”7 in the characters’ anxiety. Also, by not fully revealing the plot but just implying events that may happen makes the audience guess what would happen next, and the uncertainty adds up for the viewers. The film does not utilize any form of narrative, but rather the nuances of the characters make up for the storytelling. While the audience are fully aware of the identities of the characters, within the story secrets were still being kept, making the audience feel scared or anxious for them, and “caring about them more”8. While the extract itself does not utilize too many non-diegetic elements such as background music, the addition of music only in key scenes makes them stand out from the ordinary ones. The roles of Verloc and Spencer were integral in the suspense of the film, mainly because they kept secrets from everyone around them. In terms of micro-questions, the need to know the true identities of the two were answered, but in terms of the macro-question, on who would win the psychological war between Verloc and Spencer, it would only be revealed in the end. The film was originally from Joseph Conrad’s book, The Secret Agent, which used the “Greenwich Bomb Outrage”9 as its pattern of a world with an ever-looming threat of terrorism. Aside from this, the social relevance of the film was that it was released before the start of the Second World War, making the movie seem like a foreboding of events to happen. The extract however, kept its moral stance by making Verloc seem reluctant to participate in killing innocent lives, instead of fully agreeing to such actions. The different elements in the film added to the suspense factor that exemplifies Hitchcock’s style. This was executed through the interaction of lights, music, character portrayal and nuances, camera shots, as well as the plot. The balance among all film elements makes for a successful formula for putting viewers at the edge of their seats, even with only a few minutes of screen time as shown in the extract used in this study. Notes 1. Paula Marantz Cohen, "Conceptual Suspense in Hitchcock's Films" in A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock, ed. by Thomas Leitch and Leland Poague, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011), 126. 2. Ibid. 3. David Sterritt, The Films of Alfred Hitchcock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 5. 4. Sabotage (The Woman Alone) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, performed by Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka and John Loder, (1936. Basingstoke: Waterfall Home Entertainment Ltd., 2004). DVD. 5. Ed Sikov, Film Studies: An Introduction (West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2010), 5. 6. Jill Nelmes, An Introduction to Film Studies (London: Routledge, 2003), 54. 7. Cohen, “Conceptual Suspense”, 127. 8. Ibid. 9. John Lyon. Introduction, in The Secret Agent by Conrad, Joseph and John Lyon. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), xi. Bibliography Cohen, Paula Marantz. "Conceptual Suspense in Hitchcock's Films." In A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock, by Thomas Leitch and Leland Poague, 126-138. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011. John Lyon. Introduction, in The Secret Agent by Conrad, Joseph and John Lyon. xi-xl. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Nelmes, Jill. An Introduction to Film Studies. London: Routledge, 2003. Sikov, Ed. Film Studies: An Introduction. West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2010. Sterritt, David. The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Filmography Sabotage (The Woman Alone). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Performed by Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka and John Loder. 1936. Basingstoke: Waterfall Home Entertainment Ltd., 2004. DVD. Read More