Sir Alfred Hitchcock is recognised as one of the most pioneering and renowned directors in the history of cinema (Hockensmith A, 2012). His cinematic style that favours the use of suspense over surprise has become iconic and influential in modern film. Hitchcock’s early days as an assistant director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin (German Expressionism, 2007), had a lasting impact on some of his later works produced in Hollywood. During Hitchcock’s time in Germany he became fascinated with German Expressionism. The film style, prevalent in the 1920s, arose from Germany’s post World War I experiences and largely reflects the dismal reality of life during the era and often invokes distorted and abstract images, as opposed to naturalism …show more content…
This is best established during the ‘Parlour scene’, when a discussion between Marion Crane and Norman Bates becomes tense on the topic of ‘Mother’. Hitchcock intentionally frames the film’s central characters separately, from opposing angles to suggest a psychological imbalance of power. The true purpose of this contrast is only realised when the sequence is viewed in its entirety. For the majority of the sequence, Marion is framed mid-shot from an eye level, frontal perspective. Having previously stolen $40,000 from her employer, the angle and warm lighting, suggests the sense of normality and contentment that Marion now feels having taken the decision to atone for her theft. Hitchcock uses the camera and lighting to make it apparent to the audience that Marion no longer has anything to hide. As the sequence continues, Hitchcock changes the mood of the scene, by juxtaposing Marion against the framing of Norman from an abnormally low angle. The cut to Norman’s perturbed angle coupled with harsher lighting, hints for the first time that his personality may be skewed or troubled, and the audience is moved to discomfort in his presence. The camera shoots Norman from a low angled, profile view, effectively obscuring the other side of his face. This shot ultimately serves to foreshadow the exposure of Norman’s split personality. Through the use of camera angles, Hitchcock is able to effectively craft a …show more content…
Hitchcock employs camera angles and montage editing as vital mechanisms to elicit varying emotional responses from the viewer. This is evident throughout his extensive list of film credits and certainly, what is arguably his greatest film, Psycho. His unique cinematic approach to his films left an undeniable trademark, placing him deservedly amongst the greatest directors in the history of modern
The films of Alfred Hitchcock provide some of the best evidence in favor of the auteur theory. Hitchcock uses many techniques that act as signatures on his films, enabling the viewer to possess an understanding of any Hitchcock film before watching it. His most famous signature is his cameo appearance in each of his films, but Hitchcock also uses more technical signatures like doubling, visual contrast, and strategically placed music to create suspense.
Hitchcock has characteristics as an auteur that is apparent in most of his films, as well as this one.
In conclusion in “Rear Window” Hitchcock is shown off as an auteur and realist though his modification and implementation of his own creative mind and as a realist by conveying reality and occurrences of everyday life respectively. He also used methods such as eye line matching, cinema as window and frame, and potentially character specific lighting to connect the audience with the characters and to give the main characters more individualized
Alfred William Hitchcock, the ‘master of suspense’ was a talented and remarkable director.Hitchocks extended family was known to be a jolly group specifially his parents he acquired an interest and fondness for the theater. Three years after his strict fathers death, Hitchcock began to path his own future in the film Industry. After attending the at Goldsmiths college, London university, allowed him to start from the adverstisment department to writing and drawing titles cards for film and then to designing sets.
Alfred Hitchcock’s films not only permanently scar the brains of his viewers but also addict them to his suspense. Hitchcock’s films lure you in like a trap, he tells the audience what the characters don’t know and tortures them with the anticipation of what’s going to happen.
All directors of major motion pictures have specific styles or signatures that they add in their work. Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest directors of all time, has a particularly unique style in the way he creates his films. Film analyzers classify his distinctive style as the “Alfred Hitchcock signature”. Hitchcock’s signatures vary from his cameo appearances to his portrayal of a specific character. Two perfect examples of how Hitchcock implements his infamous “signatures” are in the movies, A Shadow of a Doubt and Vertigo. In these movies, numerous examples show how Hitchcock exclusively develops his imagination in his films.
Alfred Hitchcock’s unique sense of filmmaking and directing has allowed him to become a very famous and well known film maker of his time. He uses similar recurring themes, elements, and techniques in many of his films to engage the viewers in more than just the film, but the meaning and focus behind the story.
Alfred Hitchcock developed his signature style from his earlier works The Lodger and Blackmail. These films were the framework for his signature films later on. His themes of “an innocent man who is accused of a crime” and “the guilty woman” were first seen in these two films and are repeated throughout Hitchcock’s cinematic history
There are three key scenes that best exemplify Hitchcock’s technical competence. After Alicia’s party and run in with the police, she is shown lying in bed with a hangover. We see a close up of a concoction Devlin made Alicia for hangovers. The next shot is a Dutch angle of Devlin, arms crossed and in shadow. Alicia drinks more of the concoction and camera’s perspective is in Alicia’s point of view. The Dutch angle slanted to the right rotates clockwise to an upside down shot of Devlin because Alicia is lying upside down on the bed. Coincidently, after the elaborate camera work, Alicia sits up and says, “What’s this all about? What’s your angle?”. Hitchcock’s technical competence in this scene is a testament to his authorship.
Marion's reflection is often noted in several mirrors and windows. Hitchcock is therefore able to create a voyeuristic sensation within the audience as it can. visualise the effects of any situation through Marion's conscious mind. In the car dealership, for example, Marion enters the secluded bathroom in order to. have privacy while counting her money.
Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite subject was the superficial placidity of American life, whose clean, bright surfaces disguised the most shockingly moral, political, psychological and sexual aberrations. For Hitchcock, the most striking, funny, and terrifying quality of American life was its confidence in its sheer ordinariness. Beneath the surface, ordinary people and normal life were always ‘bent’ for Hitchcock.
The highly acclaimed Citizen Kane creates drama and suspense to the viewer. Orson Welles designed this film to enhance the viewer’s opinion about light and darkness, staging, proxemics, personal theme development, and materialism. Creating one of the most astounding films to the cinematography world, Welles conveys many stylistic features as well as fundamentals of cinematography. It is an amazing film and will have an everlasting impact on the world of film.
Cinematography of Hitchcocks Psycho Alfred Hitchcock is renown as a master cinematographer (and editor), notwithstanding his overall brilliance in the craft of film. His choice of black and white film for 1960 was regarded within the film industry as unconventional since color was perhaps at least five years the new standard. But this worked tremendously well. After all, despite the typical filmgoer’s dislike for black and white film, Psycho is popularly heralded among film buffs as his finest cinematic achievement; so much so, that the man, a big
A dynamic interplay of art and life can be evinced in the relationship between films and society. Films provide escape from daily life, opportunity to solve mysteries, chances to identify with powerful competent heroes and discussions of morality that are comfortingly unambiguous. By opening a window on exotica, films enable us to become voyeurs, secret observers of the personal and even intimate lives of characters even when we know that the stories are largely fantasies. The present thesis proposes to focus its attention on film studies, subsumed within Cultural Studies to examine Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre. Cultural Studies evident in the study of cultural artifacts (films, music, novels) and examination of practices (sports, national events) is
The character of Norman Bates deviated from the book's original character, a forty year old pervert, to Anthony Perkins' character 'a tender vulnerable young man' one could almost feel sorry for. Perkins plays Norman Bates as if the role were written for him, with his nervous voice used throughout the movie and his awkward appearance and actions. A distinct part of Norman's character is his subtle lapses in which he shows signs of the ever present 'Mother'. The parlour scene is an excellent example of these lapses. The lines 'a boy's best friend is his mother' and 'we all go a little mad sometimes' are e...