Characteristics of Alfred Hitchcock's Works

Hitchcock believes that terrible things not only lurk in the shadows or when we are alone, but sometimes when we are with normal and friendly people in broad daylight, we will feel very lonely, dangerous and isolated. In Hitchcock's mind, there is always a sense of inexplicable anxiety and a feeling of despair. When the movie "Destruction" was just released, Hitchcock specially added the subtitle "Be careful of someone behind" to show the fear in the subconscious. This potential fear was used as a suspense by Hitchcock.

Hitchcock has a famous example: two people walk into a room and sit down to chat. Suddenly, the bomb under the table exploded. This process provided surprises to the audience. On the contrary, if, before they enter the house, the audience first sees a murderer enter the house and hides the bomb on the table, and then two people enter the house and no bomb is found, they still sit down and talk. Then the whole process is called suspense. So Hitchcock always tells the audience the answer in advance. The most famous thing is that in "Vertigo", the mystery that Judy and Madeleine are the same person was uncovered in the middle of the plot, which caused a lot of controversy at that time, because this mystery was finally exposed in the original work. However, after telling the answer in advance, the audience naturally pointed their anxiety to the fate of the protagonist. Similarly, Despair and North by Northwest both reveal the truth in advance and then focus on the fate and choice of the innocent.

Hitchcock is best at using the extension of time and the closure of space to create a suspense atmosphere. In Psycho, Norman sank his car and deliberately parked it in the mire for one minute. In Despair, the female secretary went upstairs to look for the body, deliberately delaying the screams. Several scenes, such as Birds, Rushing out of the Iron Curtain, and North by Northwest, all use split shots, which gradually aggravate the suspense of hidden dangers. Sometimes Hitchcock's suspense results are beyond common sense, such as a boy being killed in Doomsday and a destroyer successfully blowing up a warship in Escape from the Cape-it is very rare to break the audience's expectations on the screen like this.

Middle class man

Hitchcock used innocent middle-class men to get involved in national defense, espionage, murder and other events for no reason to illustrate his consistent moral dialectical position. In the masterpiece North by Northwest, gary grant was originally a wealthy businessman, but he was kidnapped and taken away by two men in suits and ties because he moved. Note that this character is still worried about his mother's behavior, as if he had never had a love life between men and women before he met eva marie saint with blond hair and blue eyes, and most of the time he was completely occupied by a powerful family.

Blonde complex

It is said that when Hitchcock was seven years old, there was a case of poisoning a blonde near his home. He always remembers it vividly, but he is not sure how much it will affect his film creation. But one thing is certain, he has a fixed and unique aesthetic taste for actresses, which makes Hitchcock girl a legendary term, which is far higher than the more famous Bond girl in any way. "Hitchcock girl" has a unified standard: glamorous, full of sense of humor, even the same body shape and psychological image-the mysterious temperament of cold appearance and warm heart, which is unpredictable, even the hairstyle hanging in the ear, and of course, the most important point-all blond! Moreover, these blondes hide their sexiness under the reserved appearance of ladies.

In Hitchcock's first truly silent film, The Tenant, Hitchcock's films were all blondes. First, the murderer killed eight blondes in a row, and the hero's sister was one of them, so he was deeply afraid of the portrait of the blonde hanging on the wall, but he had a admiration for the heroine who was also a blonde. Since then, Hitchcock has used this blonde as the number one female in almost every movie. The appearance of Tibby Heideren in The Thief is a classic. At the beginning of the film, I never saw her face, only her hair was black. When she went back to the hotel to wash her hair, we were surprised to find that the water had turned black, and she, the last stunner of Hitchcock, Tibby Hederen, showed her beautiful face and blond hair.

Magfin

This is the most unique vocabulary in Hitchcock's works. The word comes from his favorite story: on the train in Scotland, there was a curious man. When he saw the passenger next door holding a strange package, he asked what it was. The passenger replied, "Meg." "What is McGovern?" "It is used to catch lions in the Scottish Highlands." "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands." "Ah, there was no McGovern." It can be seen that McGovern is a non-existent or irrelevant thing, but it is the core of conversation, action and even the whole story.

Thirty-nine steps is the beginning of McGovern's spread. The whole film revolves around the "thirty-nine steps" of the spy organization, but there is no mention of the information stolen by this conspiracy organization and other industries. In the later masterpiece North by Northwest, there is a typical "McGovern"-the spy named caplin doesn't exist at all. This concept is more or less used in all Hitchcock's films. His films always focus on a fictional character, such as the Avenger in The Tenant, Rebecca in Butterfly Dream, and Madeleine in ecstasy. Sometimes it takes advantage of vague events, such as murdering a salesman in the back window.

Sin transfer method

In The Tenant, he used the "crime transfer method" for the first time. Although the last tenant was innocent, the whole movie completely portrayed him as a strange and secretive murderer. Nevertheless, the audience still hoped that he would escape, and this emotion came entirely from Hitchcock's grasp of screen language. There are many "cases" like this, and Hitchcock's control over the audience's dark psychology is becoming more and more handy. At the end of honey trap, most of the audience sympathized with Sebastian who was about to be murdered by his partner, even though he poisoned the beautiful Bergman. In Psycho, when Norman sank his car into the river, Hitchcock deliberately stopped the car for a while, which made the audience really worried about him. The most outrageous thing is that in Despair, the audience almost unanimously hoped that Roske, a psychopathic murderer, would find the lost evidence.

At the same time of "the transfer of sin", Hitchcock often deliberately shaped the anti-horn into a personable and humorous anti-horn. Fisher in Overseas Commissioner is a pacifist. At first, we sympathized with him. Later, we found out that he was a villain, but we still sympathized with him. In The Spy Doomsday, Hitchcock even made the German spy cuter than our hero.

Stairs and shadows

How to use pictures to create suspense and tension is what Hitchcock is best at, and "stairs" and "shadows" are the elements he often calls. Hitchcock learned a lot from German expressionism when filming The Tenant, including their idea that when the characters go up the stairs and gradually enter the darkness, the audience will fall into fear. Therefore, when the protagonist in The Tenant walks down the stairs in the middle of the night with white gloves, it looks eerie, but Hitchcock actually just aims at the gloves that slowly slide down the handrail of the stairs. There are many such examples. A famous example is blackmail. When Alice and Crowe went upstairs together, the ominous shadow left on the stairwell wall predicted the tragedy. The three most famous stair shots appear in ecstasy, birds and despair. In ecstasy, the spiral staircase of the church tower is extremely high and dazzling. The attic stairs in Birds are full of fatal attraction; In Despair, when Branny goes to Roscoe's house for revenge in the middle of the night, the close-up of repeatedly switching up the stairs is almost suffocating-because you can't understand what will happen.

steal a glance

One aspect of Hitchcock's films is that people tend to peep, or shoot from the perspective of peeping. In the past, we might regard voyeurism and voyeurism as mental disorders. As Grace Kelly said in the Back Window, voyeurism is punishable. In Hitchcock's films, events are often reflected from the perspective of voyeurs, and they enter their world with the mood of voyeurs.

The Back Window is one of Hitchcock's films that apply the theme of "voyeurism" to the extreme. He obviously thinks that every normal person has a desire to peep into other people's privacy. From the beginning, the film puts the audience in the perspective of a voyeur. Because of Jeff's leg injury, he can only sit at home every day, looking at every house opposite his house through the window, and the camera sweeps through the neighbor's window opposite Jeffrey's house. From this point of view, peeping at other people's privacy is not an entertainment for some rigid and timid people, but many normal people will have such a watching mood.

In Psycho, the first scene of the film rolls through a lifeless panoramic view of the city on a hot afternoon, and then slowly pushes a half-closed window, and our eyes sneak into a hotel. Marianne lay half-naked in bed in a bra, looking at the hero without a shirt. The hero turned his back on the audience, and they fell in love like no one's watching. Hitchcock gave us the lust between men and women without reservation, and also let us. Later, at Bates Motel, Norman Bates peeped at marion, who was changing clothes, and quietly expressed her naked desire-even this desire was owned by the audience.

Clue prop

Props are essential when using the plot to create suspense. Hitchcock often uses props in movies to make the characters in the movies "suddenly realize" or "surprise" and aggravate the tension. What is even more vague is the ubiquitous "R" pattern in Butterfly Dream and the notes in People Who Know Too Much (Hitchcock even pointed the camera at the staff to strengthen the situation). Sometimes, Hitchcock will use close-ups of objects to hint at the core scenes of the film, such as the wine bottle in the honey trap. As early as the opening reception, Hitchcock had already laid the groundwork for the thrilling scene in the wine cellar with pictures. The same is true for birds, and the opening ceremony is arranged in the bird shop.

Rope is the most classic movie using props. The rope in the film is a tool to kill David, and it is also a tool used by the murderer to bind books for David's parents in order to seek excitement. Rope is an important prop, but it also contains profound meaning-twisted psychology binds knowledge and morality. Hitchcock's credits are also twisted into a rope. Similarly, the subtitles of "Despair" are also designed as striped ties-that is also the tool used to kill people in the film, and the pervert killer Roscoe kills people with ties; Ties similar to those of the protagonist Branny are used to mislead the audience; Officer Osford's tie is actually the same, deeply equating their unsatisfied desires. Of course, Despair also has the most important clue prop-Roske's brooch for picking teeth. The camera patiently explained Roske's habit from the beginning, and finally this prop triggered the climax of the film.

Other famous DAOs include Alice's gloves in Blackmail, Uncle Charlie's ring in The Voice, Haines' lighter in The Stranger on the Train, stockings and keys in The Murder of Dial M-all of which have played a subtle role in promoting the development of the plot.

Marriage crisis

Hitchcock's own marriage seems to be indisputably happy, but all the marriages in his works are shrouded in shadows. In 1932' s work Strange Rich Man, he began to satirize marriage in an all-round way. In Destruction, Willock and his wife don't even know each other and have no feelings. In the end, the knife that the wife stabbed her husband to death not only avenged her brother, but also resisted her marriage. In Butterfly Dream, the relationship between Reed Winter and Rebecca is described in horror, and there is only a thin line between love and hate, which casts a shadow over the marriage of derwent and his second wife. In The Mystery of the Boudoir, the marriage between Joan Fontaine and gary grant started from fraud and gradually escalated to the point where the wife suspected that her husband was going to poison herself. In the Palatine case, dial M for murder, back window and ecstasy, and the murder between husband and wife became a reality. In Stranger on the Train, Haines actually borrowed Bruno's hand to get rid of his wife.

Hitchcock-style marriage seems to be full of secrets or misfortunes, and so are the marital situations in Honey trap, Confession and Thief. In the case of paladin, Hitchcock used two clues to show his point that marriage is fragile. The seemingly beautiful marriage between Anthony's lawyer and his wife broke down at an incredible speed after Mrs. Palatini appeared. Because of the unfortunate marriage, Mrs. Palatini killed her husband. In Harry's predicament, Jenny was in high spirits when she heard her husband's death. Henry fonda's marriage in Revenge is the most faithful in Hitchcock's films. During the period when her husband was suspected to be guilty, his wife always supported him, showing the most touching family scene-but even so, the pressure of life eventually made his wife collapse and blame herself. Hitchcock used this to prove that no couple is happy, just as he said in The Farmer's Wife: Marriage is like a steam roller, crushing men's hopes and women's happiness.

black humor

Hitchcock's black humor is exactly a kind of "cruel humor". The most cruel one appeared in Despair. Roske is fighting a corpse lying in a pile of potatoes. At first, he was kicked by a dead body, and then the knife used to pry open the dead body's finger broke-this set of shots can actually make you laugh in horror.

There is also a funny scene among the birds, which happened after the attack on the primary school. After the terrible escape, Melanie came to the bar in town, but no one believed her. Everyone is still laughing loudly when the disaster comes. In fact, long before Melanie came to this seaside town, it was ridiculous that she was swinging around with two love birds in the car, but who would have expected that the birds would launch a terrible attack soon.

Sexual assault

Seeing Hitchcock's movies seems to have nothing to do with the word "sexual abuse", but if you look at how he handles the self-righteous blonde in his works, you will find that there is a highly repressed desire under his harmonious and calm mind. The female politician in Thirty-nine Steps and the female model in The Cape Escape are dragged around by murderers, but they are all dressed in fashion without losing their dignity.

Almost all the heroes and heroines in Hitchcock's works are sadists and masochists. Mark and Marnie are the most typical and obvious couple in The Thief. Marni felt sexually abused for life because he killed a sailor's client by mistake. But Mark has a strong desire to conquer and possess this female thief.

In "The Tenant", the beautiful young Daisy is attracted by the tenant, and he is the suspect in an extremely horrible serial murder case. From then on, Hitchcock's blondes never tired of dangerous people. In Doctor Edward, ingrid bergman loves gregory peck not only because of his handsome appearance, but also because of his deep psychological desire for danger (abuse), just like Tibby Hedren in Birds will go to a dangerous attic for no reason.

When you carefully watch Hitchcock's works, you will find that the control of the hero over the heroine and the submission of the heroine to the hero are very obvious, which is the most basic manifestation of sadism and abuse.

montage

Hitchcock's most mature films in the later period almost all adopt montage editing style, such as North by Northwest, Psycho and Birds.

Montage editing style is to use a series of short shots (usually close-ups) to quickly edit, creating a sense of visual confusion and psychological tension.

North by Northwest: gary grant was cheated into a large cornfield by himself. In the shot taken from the sky, the bus came slowly from a distance, and the protagonist who got off the bus was just a small point in the picture, which was obviously very small and embarrassing. Then, his shot and his subjective shot are edited with each other. Then he was attacked by a plane spraying pesticides, and the whole process was disassembled into mutual editing of gary grant and the plane. Finally, gary grant found a big truck coming in the distance. He lured the plane into a big truck and shifted his perspective to passers-by. gary grant stole someone else's car while no one was looking. This passage is not only a classic demonstration of film language, but also included as an example in countless film textbooks.

Psycho (Bathroom Murder): janet leigh takes a bath in the bathroom, where the whole process is disassembled into different items and filmed from different angles. For example, the shower head can shoot from a horizontal angle, and suddenly the shower head can spray water in the direction of the lens from a super elevation angle. Janet leigh's human body is also photographed selectively, which not only creates the situation of her being alone and forgetting herself, but also avoids the trouble of film censorship caused by over-photographing naked human body. Suddenly the bathroom door was opened, and a close-up of a knife appeared. Then the camera took a picture of the figure behind the waterproof plastic sheet from janet leigh's point of view, and predicted the next murder. The whole killing process was also disassembled into the action close-up of moving knife and janet leigh's frightened roar, and finally ended with the close-up of blood flowing to the water outlet.

Bird: A group of people are hiding in the restaurant, watching the passage attacked by birds at the gas station. Due to the accidental outflow of gasoline, people in the restaurant edited "people in the restaurant" and "subjective shots of people in the restaurant" along the flow direction of gasoline, and finally ended up with the picture of an unsuspecting man accidentally igniting the spilled gasoline for lighting a cigarette, which led to the explosion of the gas station.