Alfred Hitchcock Comparison Paper

Alfred Hitchcock (1899 – 1980), the “Master of Suspense”, was a English film director, who was well known for his use of suspense and psychological elements to shock and surprise his audience. Hitchcock was known for his use of recurring themes, motifs and plot devices, such as the use of birds, hand motifs, the audience as a voyeur, mothers, blonde women, and sexuality. He was also very technical in his editing, using filming techniques such as deep focus, point of view, close up and wide, tracking shots. Montage was also a technique he used frequently in his films. He believed that by using visuals, he could convey thoughts and emotions just as well as dialogue could.

I will talk about how auteur theory can be applied to the study of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and vertigo.

Throughout the term I have begun experiencing movies in a different way. The class has taken ideas of cinematography, theory, and film history and practically applied it to physically watching movies. By breaking down scenes and movies as a whole, the way I look at films in general has developed. A reflection on two of the films from this term, Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942) and North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959) will carry the bulk of the essay. Though, I will also be discussing how this class changed the way I saw a movie just a few weeks ago. Casablanca’s script and acting are of particular caliber, and North by Northwest unfortunately does not deliver with the dialogue and casting of lead actor Cary Grant. Though, overall, they both

The story begins with James Stewart (L.B. Jefferies), a professional photographer on a wheelchair due to an accident. He was sitting on his wheelchair in the morning near his rear window watching his neighbors, who has their windows open. He saw Sara Berner (Woman on Fire Escape), Frank Cady (Man on Fire Escape) slept on their balcony, Georgine Darcy (Miss Torso) dancing, Havis Davenport (Newlywed), and Rand Harper (Newlywed) who just moved into the apartment complex, and Lars Thorwald who is a salesman irritated by his sick wife, Irene Winston (Mrs. Emma Thorwald). Around dinner time, Jeff’s girlfriend, Grace Kelly

Recently while watching two old film classics, Vertigo and Notorious, I found myself thinking of other movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Most of his movies have many things in common, while remaining completely independent of each other. These two films have different plots, actors, and most obvious one is filmed in color the other black and white. Which leads me to believe that Alfred Hitchcock really knew what he was about; as a result his films all a have a distinctive theme about them. Both films keep you in a state of anticipation as the stories unfold and reveal the twist and turns that Alfred Hitchcock was famous for. Notorious was written in 1946 a year after World War II came to an end and the

The first half of this course focused on Alfred Hitchcock and how his techniques are now recognized as iconic. From class discussions and film screenings, it is clear that Hitchcock pays every attention to detail when he crafts a scene. Many Hitchcock films we have seen this semester highlight how he builds suspense through cinematic elements such as shadow, dialogue, and composition. While many of his suspenseful scenes stir feelings of intensity and uncertainty, Alfred Hitchcock builds a more romantic suspense in his 1955 film To Catch a Thief in the fireworks scene (1:06:35-1:11:00).

Whenever beloved books appear on screen, there are critical changes made which can be either beneficial and detrimental to the audience’s response to the film. Films can either capture the entirety of a book, or change the plot so drastically it becomes reminiscent of the book. This often leads to the age-old argument of whether the book or film is better. In the film interpretation of Rebecca, Hitchcock manipulates Du Maurier’s intended theme of justice and judgment by altering the purpose of critical scenes, characters, and the ending of the book through the cinematography and reconstruction of key events.

The Alfred Hitchcock film; Vertigo is a narrative film that is a perfect example of a Hollywood Classical Film. I will be examining the following characteristics of the film Vertigo: 1)individual characters who act as casual agents, the main characters in Vertigo, 2)desire to reach to goals, 3)conflicts, 4)appointments, 5)deadlines, 6)James Stewart’s focus shifts and 7)Kim Novak’s characters drives the action in the film. Most of the film is viewed in the 3rd person, except for the reaction shots (point of view shot) which are seen through the eyes of the main character.(1st person) The film has a strong closure and uses continuity editing(180 degree rule). The stylistic (technical) film form of Vertigo makes the film much more

Alfred Hitchcock is arguably the greatest director of all time. Many of his films are considered standards of American cinema and inspired many of today’s directors. Even though Hitchcock is known as timeless director, he had an understanding of philosophy that was beyond his time. Hitchcock had a brilliant perception as to how the mind works and human reaction. Hitchcock’s understanding of philosophy can be seen in his film Vertigo and illustrates how many theories can be debilitating in everyday life.

drives from the city to her lover and, on the way, stops at the Bates

Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, was shocking for its time. Made in the 1960's when film censorship was very tight to today's standards, Hitchcock pushed the limits of what could be shown and did with psycho things that had never been done before. The cinematic art, symbolism and sub-conscious images in this film were brilliant for the time and still are now. Realised for this, psycho has been copied in many ways and the things that made it great have become very clichéd.

I believe that in I Confess, the first four minutes is not only the most important, but it also relates back to the rest of the film perfectly. In the beginning of I Confess the audience is shown several shots of the beautiful povince of Quebec to emphasize the location and then we see a murder and a confession occur in the same night. In this essay, I 'm going to be analyzing the mise-en-scene, cinematography, and sound of the cinematic masterpiece I Confess by Alfred Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is one of the foundational films in cinema, especially in the horror genre. The film set new box office records around the world and received 4 OSCAR nominations. The movie is characterized by plot simplicity, a small cast, new effects, and a handful of locations. In the plot, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals 40,000 dollars from her employer to spend it with her boyfriend and ends up in an isolated motel where she meets the proprietor, Norman Bates, who ushers her in a friendly way. The young woman is later brutally murdered without an explanation, turning the film into a mystery. The subsequent events indicate that Norman has been hiding a most bizarre secret. A secret that, at the time, no one watching the film would have guessed. Since its release in 1960, the movie has had a significant influence on film making and audiences alike. Psycho changed the way movies worked by owning up to the notion that rather than existing as a dream to be inhabited, movies are a game to be played. This paper will demonstrate just how profoundly the movie Psycho has affected the film industry.

The professional photographer L.B. Jeffries or known as Jeff breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. While he can’t travel the world because he has a broken leg, he gets placed in a small New York apartment where he spends his time looking out of his rear window, watching the lives of his neighbors. Jeffries becomes increasing interested in the lives of his neighbors as each day goes by. One rainy night, Jeffries sees one of his neighbors, Lars Thorwald, leave and come back to his apartment a couple of times which raises his suspicion. Following the night Jefferies also sees that Lars got a knife and a small saw. Jeffries also notices that Lars’s sickly wife is now missing too and suspects that Lars murdered his wife. At first, both Jeffries girlfriend Lisa and his nurse Stella are skeptical of his theory but come around when they both see more event unfold in front of them. Lisa comes up with a dangerous plan to break into Lars’s apartment to get key evidence to the murder. Lisa ends up getting caught by Lars’s who gets saved by the arrival of the police.

When people hear the word “Vertigo” the first thing which comes in mind is the disease but here this word refers to a movie “Vertigo” which is directed by the famous Alfred Hitchcock. This movie hooked the audiences ‘attention from it’s opening credit to the very shocking end. Vertigo is mixture of desire for love, rage, obsession, madness etc. It is based on a French novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) written by Boileau Narcejac. Hitchcock’s Vertigo got mixed review when it was released but by the time it’s popularity increased and today it is viewed as Hitchcock’s most deeply felt work. The famous character in the movie Scottie which was played by John Stewart, he played the role of detective who was afraid of heights, acrophobia, after an unfortunate incident due to which Scottie retires from his job. Later in the movie, Scottie falls in love with Madeline (Kim Novak) who he was spying because his friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) believed that his wife was possessed with her late great-grandmother. Scottie goes through many phases in the movie like curiosity, obsessed, phobic, mental illness etc. In this essay I want to focus on “Dolly zoom technique” which triggered Scottie’s acrophobia, the Ernie scene from Scottie’s point of view and the immersive videos also known as 360-degree camera movement when Judy Barton’s retransformed herself as Madeline