Who Is Hitchcock's Pivotal Scene In North By Northwest

In Hitchcock's North by Northwest, the protagonist, Roger Thornhill, is placed in a precarious position when he is abducted after being mistaken for an F.B.I. agent by the name of Kaplan. The men who took him, under orders from a man named Vandamm, proceed to make attempts on his life for the remainder of the film. However, Roger manages to survive time after time despite the circumstances he was forced into. By evaluating three of Roger Thornhill's pivotal scenes in North by Northwest, it can be understood that Hitchcock intended to demonstrate that an individual is capable of controlling his or her own existence through individual choices, despite being placed in scenarios beyond his or her control.
After being abducted, Roger makes the conscious choice to find the man he was mistaken for in order to prove he is not who Vandamm's men want dead. His first stop was the hotel in which Kaplan was said to be staying at. When he arrives, he has his mother obtain a keycard to the appropriate room, and proceeds to search for information regarding Kaplan. He asks the staff questions, impersonating Kaplan in order to get information regarding the last

time he was there and if he'd ever been seen. The belief was that if Roger could find Kaplan, then Vandamm's men would stop hunting him. In this case, Roger was demonstrating that he could choose how he handled the situation he was put in, regardless of how hopeless it seemed. It was his first step towards controlling what happened to him because he refused to sit around and wait for the next life threatening scenario to arrive.
After searching for Kaplan at the hotel, and then at the General Assembly, Roger's search leads him to Chicago, meeting a woman named Eve along the way. Eve gives him a time and location to meet Kaplan, which ends up being a set-up to kill Roger. After he escapes, Roger learns Eve was involved with Vandamm all along when he follows her to an auction and sees the two of them together. Angry, Roger provokes Vandamm, which causes his life to be in danger yet again. Realizing Vandamm's men intend to take him from the auction, Roger devises a plan to evade capture. He rudely disrupts the auction until he is forcibly removed and escorted out by police. Knowing Vandamm's men won't interfere with the police, Roger secures his safety once more. As he's leaving, Roger tells one of Vandamm's men, "Sorry, old man; too bad. Keep trying!" as if to brag about how well he continually stops their plans to kill him. Roger's ability to make choices that bring him out of harm's way is the sole reason he was able to survive that night, and why he continued to be a nuisance to Vandamm.
In the remainder of the film, Roger's choices begin to center around protecting Eve after learning that she was a double agent all along.

In one particular scene, Roger chooses to go against the orders of a government agent in order to help Eve escape the fate of ending up with Vandamm. While different from the aforementioned scenes, Roger's choice to go after Eve still demonstrates his ability to control his existence. This is because he is making a choice that will affect his future--a future he hopes will include Eve. In this sense, the scene where Roger refuses to do as the government agent wishes becomes essential to this overall happiness in the end of the film. If he had not taken control of the situation, Eve would have been killed by Vandamm and Roger would have lived his life wondering "what could have

been."
Towards the end of the film, Roger says, "Nobody has to do anything." This single line demonstrates the attitude Roger held from the moment he chose to look for Kaplan. He knew he didn't have to do anything; he was innocent regardless of what people said. However, he made the conscious choice to try and change his "fate." He was thrown into situations where he arguably had no control over what happened, but he still managed to find ways to get out. He did his best to make choices that would help save his life and the life of Eve, choices that counteracted the "impossible" situations he was in. In order to survive, he had no choice but to take control of his own existence through specific actions that would inevitably cause the destruction of his opposition.