Analysis of the Work of Alfred Hitchcock - Research Paper Example

Analysis of the Work of Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899 – 1980) was one of the most renowned film directors in the history of modern cinema. The youngest of three children, Hitchcock had a life-shaping experience at the age of five, when his father sent him down to the nearby police station asking for Young Alfred to be locked up for ten minutes, because he had been misbehaving (McGilligan, p. 7-8). This experience would appear in many of Hitchcock’s films when characters are wrongfully accused of a crime. Hitchcock first started writing creatively while working in advertising for The Henley Telegraph. He published some early short stories in that magazine, the first of which was entitled “Gas.” The main character is a woman who believes that she is being brutally attacked on the streets of Paris, but it turns out that she was only hallucinating, under the influence of anesthetic gas in her dentist’s chair. Later, he became interested in photography and joined the London branch of Paramount Pictures as a title-card designer (used in the silent movies that were popular during that time period). Between 1920 and 1925, he began the rise from title-card designer to movie director. Many of Hitchcock’s first projects turned out badly, beginning with the unlucky film Number 13, which was canceled because of a lack of investors. His first success was The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. Many of his later cinematic techniques also appeared in this first hit – as did the notion of the “wrong man.” Marrying his assistant director, Alma Reville, in 1926, Hitchcock would soon move into the “talkies” (movies with sound), also with considerable success. His feature Blackmail was the first British feature film to be completed with sound. Another Hitchcockian motif that would become famous first appeared in this film, as the climax of the story occurs on the dome of the British Museum. Later, such landmarks as Mount Rushmore would feature prominently in suspenseful sequences in his films. Another motif that would become well-known was his own practice of making cameo appearances in his own movies; in Blackmail, he is sitting on the subway reading, while a small boy bothers him. In 1939, Hitchc0ck came to the United States to work in Hollywood, as part of a seven-year contract with David O. Selznick. However, Hitchcock was less happy during this time period as he had been previously, as Selznick began to encounter periodic money problems and took considerable creative control away from Hitchcock. His first American movie was Rebecca, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1940; however, the film did not win Best Director. In the 1940’s, Hitchcock made a variety of films, including courtroom dramas, romantic comedies, and film noir. He moved to the Cornwall Ranch in 1940, which would serve as the primary family residence until Hitchcock’s death. Suspicion and Shadow of a Doubt, two fan favorites, came during this decade. Hitchcock’s peak years, though, were in the 1950’s. His films Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest came out during this decade, and Psycho would appear in 1960. These are the most well-known of Hitchcock’s body of work, as well as The Birds which would come out a few years later. Health issues slowed Hitchcock’s work in the later 1960’s and 1970’s, and he would ultimately pass away from renal failure. One of the dominant themes in Hitchock’s work is the accusation of the wrong man. This is perhaps no truer in any of his films than Strangers on a Train. Near the beginning of the film, Farley Granger meets Bruno Antony, and Granger vents about the frustration he feels about his first wife, who simply refuses to grant him a divorce. Granger is ready to move on and marry the much more beautiful daughter of a senator, but he cannot, because his first wife is dragging her feet, and it is embarrassing for the senator to be dragged through what, at least in the 1950’s, passed for scandal. Antony hears this and makes the suggestion of a “criss-cross” murder. Antony hates his father and wants him dead, and he has the idea that if each of them commits the other person’s murder, both of them would be happy, and there would not be any motive connecting either of them with the murders. It would be easy for the two to collaborate as far as concealing evidence, as the police would not know to suspect the presence of either party in the murders. However, Granger is not as desperate as Antony suspects that he is. Instead of going along with Antony’s suggestion, he recoils in horror, with the moral objection that murder is wrong, and he also offends Antony by calling him insane for thinking of the whole idea. Antony goes ahead and kills Granger’s wife, though, and starts calling him and asking when Granger plans to carry out his end of the “bargain.” Granger claims that he made no such bargain and hangs up on Antony. However, Antony has a crucial piece of evidence – Granger’s lighter. All that he has to do is carry the lighter out to the scene of the murder and notify the police, and Granger will be on the hook for the murder. He uses this to attempt to blackmail Granger into going ahead and killing Antony’s father. Matters come to a head when Granger comes to Antony’s house late one night, sneaking into his father’s office. Granger, talking to the back of Antony’s father’s chair, reveals Bruno’s treachery – but it turns out that Bruno is seated in the chair. A race ensues, as Bruno wants to plant the lighter and implicate Granger. A climactic scene takes place on a merry-go-round, as the ride spins out of control, ultimately killing Antony. Luckily, his hand falls open as he dies, and he has the lighter – clearing Granger. This theme of the wrong person being implicated will appear over and over again in Hitchcock’s films, as it does in many of the examples of film noir. It serves as the basis of many of the most suspenseful progressions in Hitchcockian film, including The 39 Steps, one of Hitchcock’s earliest sound pictures. Richard Hannay is watching a performance of “Mr. Memory,” who has the ability to remember everything he has seen. However, shots are fired during the performance, and Hannay ends up protecting Annabella Smith – and bringing her back to his home, where she tells him that she is the target of assassins, but that she is also a spy who has discovered a plan to make off with important military secrets. The ringleader of this group has a top joint missing from a finger. Later in the evening, she enters his room suddenly, having been knifed in the back, carrying a map of Scotland with a town circled, telling him to escape. He disguises himself as a milkman and skulks out of the apartment, only to find in a newspaper that he is wanted for her murder. Hopping a train, Hannay kisses Pamela and works her way into her compartment. She hollers, bring the police, and Hannay is forced to jump out of the train. Hannay makes his way to the town in Scotland and tracks down the newest resident, assuming that this newcomer must be Annabella’s accomplice. Unfortunately, the newest resident turns out to be Professor Jordan, the ringleader of the group stealing the secrets. Right after Hannay notices the missing joint in the professor’s finger, Jordan shoots him and runs off. Thankfully, Hannay had been carrying a book of hymns in his coat pocket, and that is what stopped the bullet. The police inspector is a friend of the professor’s, so he does not believe Hannay’s story. He flees the station and enters a political meeting, and gives an ad-lib speech supporting the candidate (whom he does not know). Unfortunately, Pamela is there again, and she tells the police who Hannay is, and they arrest him. However, these “police” turn out to be part of the conspiracy instead of members of the actual force, and they spirit Pamela away as well. When the villains stop the car to move some sheep out of the way, Hannay and Pamela escape from the back seat, handcuffed together. Pamela decided that she believes Hannay, and they go back to London. Hearing the theme song for Mr. Memory as they walk by the London Palladium, Hannay realizes that the spies are not making written copies of the secrets but are instead sneaking the secrets out of the country through the memory of this remarkable man. At the show, Hannay asks Mr. Memory what the 39 Steps is (this is a mysterious phrase that Annabella had uttered), and Mr. Memory automatically begins to identify the group, but he is shot. Another movie involving the plight of a wrongly accused man is North by Northwest. Roger Thornhill gestures to a bellhop who is paging a “George Kaplan.” Suddenly, two men grab Thornhill and kidnap him, having been on the lookout for Kaplan and assuming that Thornhill is answering the page. After he is kidnapped, he is interrogated, but he refuses to admit that he is Kaplan (and rightly so, because he is not Kaplan). One of the henchmen is assigned the job of killing Thornhill. Rather than simply shoot him, though, they decide that they should have him drink a lot of bourbon and then have a deadly car “accident.” However, even though he is highly intoxicated, he is able to kick the villain out of the car and drive away. Unfortunately, he is pulled over for drunk driving, and can’t even convince his mother, let alone the police or the judge, about what really happened. After his mother bails him out, Thornhill takes her to Kaplan’s hotel room, but no one on the property can recall having seen Kaplan. The phone rings while they are in Kaplan’s room; Thornhill answers, and it is one of the villains. Fortunately, Thornhill is able to jump into a cab, ending up at the United Nations, where he sees Lester Townsend (in whose house the henchmen have been hiding, unbeknownst to Townsend). Before Townsend can reveal any more information, though, one of the men who kidnapped Thornhill throws a knife, killing Townsend. Thornhill pulls the knife out, getting his fingerprints on it (and making himself look guilty). Having learned, though, that Kaplan has a hotel room reserved in Chicago the next day, he runs to the train station and hops on a train heading there. He meets Eve Kendall, and they flirt, even though police are on the train looking for Thornhill. Also, Eve happens to be in league with two of the henchmen – and in love with one of them. Thornhill does not know this, though, and when Eve gives him directions to a place where she has “agreed” to meet Kaplan, he travels to an empty intersection in the middle of the country. A plane flies over, nearly chopping Thornhill’s head off, and then the plane flies back and forth; an automatic weapon is fired at Thornhill several times. Thornhill runs out in front of a gasoline truck, and it is forced to stop. The plane hits the gasoline truck, making a huge explosion. When other drivers pause to find out what has happened, Thornhill swipes a truck and goes back to Chicago. Thornhill is now suspicious of Eve, but he lets her leave; he looks at a note pad and discovers that she is headed to an art auction. When he gets there, he finds her and two henchmen. He gets disorderly at the auction, and the police are called. However, the officers take him to the airport instead of the station house, and there he meets the Professor, who reveals to him that Eve is actually on the good side, but she had fallen in love with one of the henchmen before realizing that he was actually in the plot. Eve’s life is now in peril because of her association with Thornhill, and he agrees to join the Professor and save Eve. After a brisk scene on Mount Rushmore, the last henchman falls off, almost pulling Eve to her death, but Thornhill saves the day. In many of Hitchcock’s films, finding the correct killer drives interest in the plot, keeping audiences on the edge of their seats, and it is this theme, among others, that has placed Alfred Hitchcock in the pantheon of the most famed directors. While there are other factors that also contribute to the greatness of his films, using suspense and the power of suggestion, Hitchcock created works that will last much longer than those that rely, for example, on the power of shock value. Works Cited Avedon, Richard. “The Top 21 British Directors of All Time.” The Daily Telegraph 14 April 2007. McGilligan, Patrick. Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. London: Regan Books, 2003. Mogg, Ken. “Alfred Hitchcock.” Sense of Cinema 12: 11-18. Wood, Jennifer. “The 25 Most Influential Directors of All Time.” http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/article/the_25_most_influential_directors_of_a ll_time_3358/ Read More