Velk 1 Bc. Kateina Velk doc. PhDr. Tom Pospil, Dr.

Film in the USA: Institutions, Genres, Film-makers, Criticism, AJ27069 20th January 2013 Alfred Hitchcock as Auteur Surprise occurs when a film confronts spectators with the unexpected and thereby creates a momentary shock, whereas suspense involves confronting them with what they know is coming.(Poague) Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock is presumably the most famous and highly rated British director and film producer, however his most valued and well-known films were made in the United States after Hitchcocks arrival in Hollywood in 1939. Following International Movie Database, recently there appear four Hitchcocks movies among the first top fifty titles; namely, Rear Window, Psycho, North by Northwest and Vertigo. While still working in the United Kingdom, Hitchcock directed several silent movies, which he presumably preferred as deduced from his own words: The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema. Moreover, Truffaut summarises that the trend that filmmakers had to create ways to tell the story visually in a succession of images and ideas changed drastically when sound finally came to film in the 1930's. Suddenly everything went toward dialogueoriented material based on scripts from the stage. Movies began to rely on actors talking, and visual storytelling was almost forgotten. Nonetheless, some of Hitchcockian later films retained marks of a silent movie, i.e. long shots, mise-en-scene, close-ups at facial expressions of the actors instead of describing their feelings by words etc., that complementing the otherwise dialogue-oriented screenplay.

Velk 2 Alfred Hitchcock as Auteur Nowadays, Alfred Hitchcock is known for using new special cinematographic means such as camera position, angles, long shots, montage, music and lighting to create tension and fear. Hitchcock mastered these cinematic techniques, on which he later built upon in his career in Hollywood, and which established him as a great innovator, as the Master of Suspense and most importantly as an auteur. The term auteur originates in the 1920s, and is considered to be a response to the French Film art cinema movement that began in 1908 (Hayward). Auteur theory was popularized in the 1950s by French film critics, most notably by Francois Truffaut and other young critics working on a magazine Cahiers du Cinma. As Maltby puts it, auteurism represented one of the first coherent attempts to construct a theoretical framework within which to categorise the previously undifferentiated masses of Hollywood production. (501) The main concepts of auteurism articulated and presented in Cahiers focus on describing the signature of a film director in terms of their consistencies. For instance the matter of style or theme, personal aesthetic vision, established techniques, a defined view of the world and a significant degree of control over production may be considered signitures. Haywards formulation of the notion goes like this: The works of an auteur director are stamped by the personality and unique artistic vision of its creator, and are as recognisable and distinctive as the creators of any other work of art. In auteur films, the director is the one who controls the artistic statement, takes credit for the film and is responsible for attracting the audience. Moreover, film critics who propagated the auteur theory recognized directors whose work was distinguishable by its specific visual style, and directors whose work had less distinguishable visual style but on the other hand it reflected on a constant theme. Truffaut and other critics thus classified directors as auteurs who were recognizable through their

Velk 3 work, and directorswho lacked their auteur signature in their work but who were not perceived second-rate directors. Nonetheless, when the auteur theory started to be significant, the Cahiers labelled Alfred Hitchcock a consummate exemplar of an auteur director. Spoto mentions that Hitchcock was one of the first to be acknowledged a genuine auteur. Hitchcocks name became a notion that evokes certain cinematic expectations in people, especially thanks to recognisable characteristics in themes and techniques used in his movies. Since Hitchcocks films tend to shock and grip the audience, he mastered several suspense tactics for which he is recognised within the thriller genre. What is more, Hitchcock was one of the first directors who were willing to use sex, sexuality and other risky topics in his films, needless to say that those even played central and essential roles in his films. (Wood) Significant techniques Throughout his career, Hitchcock depended not only on good stories, great performances of the actors and the creative contribution of many others but mainly on his own gimmicks. There is a consistent vision, with insistent demons, observable in his films (Spoto). Hitchcock as a consummate artisan planned each shot beforehand, involved himself with every aspect of the physical production, and guided the development of the shooting from the first clapperboard to the last. Every detail was planned ahead thoroughly with the help of storyboards and pictorial outlines Hitchcock himself prepared (Curtis). This in itself affected the way his films looked and as he had planned every shot so carefully, he did not need to shoot any superfluous material. His control was justified by a profound inner conviction that he did know better than others what would work in the formulation and expression of an idea. (Spoto)

Velk 4 Hitchcocks way of filming was truly revolutionary as for the horror and thriller genres are concerned. Hitchcock masterfully controlled the audience in a way that he makes the spectators sympathize and identify with the character. Thanks to such connection, the viewers are unintentionally engaged more in the story and are more willing to be reeled in. It is typical of Hitchcocks films that they include the audience in a very powerful manner. Such behaviour may be also assigned to the human inherent compulsion of voyeurism. Voyeurism is strongly linked with the pleasure of looking at someone or something, which is not supposed to be looked at, but without being seen and judged. Hitchcock offers a suggestion that he would bet that nine out of ten people, if they see a woman across the courtyard undressing for bed, or even a man puttering around in his room, will stay and look. Gottlieb claims that the voyeuristic compulsion is the reason why people are drawn to a darkened place like theatres where they can savour for hours the images on a screen with the feeling of safety. The viewers feel confident after the movie has finished that they will be able to walk out the cinemaand resume their normal lives. (Gottlieb) In the movie Psycho, the story of Marion Crane is revealed in the first part of the film. The fact that the camera follows her and her inner voice can be heard makes the viewer empathetic with her fate. Particularly, there is one scene where the camera in a static state and shoots Marion from a close-up while she is driving her car. The situation starts to seem uncertain and anxious because she is being followed by a police officer. The emerging problems, together with the background knowledge that Marion had stolen a great sum of money, match Hitchcocks intentions to make the spectator start worrying and identifying with her. Thus, a very powerful and tense atmosphere is created. As Wood clarifies, empathising with the characters is subjective and personal. (Wood) Hitchcock plays on the inner sensitive note of a viewer. Needless to say, Hitchcock enjoyed mingling with emotions of the audience and frequently went beyond general expectations. For example in Vertigo, Scottys love for Madeline grew into unhealthy obsession with Madelines image after he

Velk 5 started a relationship with Judy. According to Truffaut emotions come directly from actors eyes. Hitchcock controlled the intensity of emotions by the camera placement. Generally, a close-up shot will fill the audience with more emotion, whereas pulling away to a wide-angle shot would distract the viewers from the emotions. A sudden cut from wide to close-up will give the audience a surprise. Sometimes a strange angle above an actor will heighten the dramatic meaning. (Truffaut) As a result, Hitchcock creates an effect of uncertainty: he makes us feel as though everything may fall apart. (Wood) However, according to Alfred Hitchcocks own words, the essential fact is: to get real suspense you must let the audience have information. Information is essential to creating the well-known Hitchcockian suspense. The way Hitchcock leaks important information to spectators is by showing them what the characters in the film do not know or see. Truffaut asserts that if there exists something that is about to harm the characters, it frequently appears at the beginning of a scene while the rest of the scene is let to continue as if nothing has happened. The best way how to elevate the level of suspense is by displaying constant reminders of the looming danger. The crucial point in sustaining the suspense lies in the limited knowledge of the characters, the information thus is not in the mind of the characters, as they must be kept completely unaware of it. (Truffaut) Suspense created by the audiences awareness is what gives the viewers the on-edge feeling. An example may be inferred from the situation that is described as the bomb theory. The bomb theory gives the audience an important piece of information about, for example, a bomb that the audience can see underneath the characters table. Since the viewers cannot influence the plot and cannot warn the character, the feelings of tension and frustration arise among the audience. Alfred Hitchcock states that once the director has brought the audience into gripping suspense the situation must never end in a way the audience expects it to. Thus, the bomb must never explode and a sudden surprise twist in the story shall occur. In the kind of suspense as Alfred Hitchcock determines it, the audience experiences suspense when they expect something bad

Velk 6 to happen and have, or believe they have, a superior perspective on events in the drama's hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to intervene to prevent it from happening. In Vertigo the audience is a witness of Judys confession. In the scene, Judy writes an apologetic letter to Scotty where she explains all her behaviour. Judy also explains that she fell in love with him and can no longer keep everything a secret. Nevertheless, she tears the letter into pieces in the end and Scotty never receives it. However, the audience is full aware of the whole background story and the tension and suspense can start to rise. The suspense is then constantly growing until the very moment of Judys disclosure. In Psycho the spectators have knowledge of the crazy mother before the detective does. Thus, the scene where the detective enters the house and the audience awaits the encounter may be considered one of Hitchcocks most suspenseful scenes of his career. Moreover, tension and suspense is also created when the audience sees Norman peep at Marion through a peephole in his office wall before the murder. Another Hitchcockian suspense side effect of creating pure suspense is the so-called MacGuffin. Hitchcock used MacGuffins as a plot device the character takes special care about, even though there is no specific reason given. According to Spoto the MacGuffin is nothing, the only reason for the MacGuffin appearance is to serve a pivotal reason for the suspense to occur. (Spoto) It may happen that the MacGuffin appears in the first part of a movie but throughout the film loses on importance. However, the MacGuffin may reoccur at the climax of the story, but it may happen that the MacGuffin is completely forgotten by the end. In Vertigo, the precious family jewel Madeline has after her grandmother represented by the necklace serves as the MacGuffin. At the end of the film, it is the necklace that makes Scotty realise that Judy was in fact Madeline.

Velk 7 In conclusion, Alfred Hitchcock became one of the most successful directors of the 20th century whose legacy is still apparent even in modern-day cinematography. Some of Alfred Hitchcocks powerful means of creating suspense, identifying and empathising with main movie characters, the emotional close-up shot and MacGuffins, all of which Hitchcock frequently employed while shooting a movies were outlined.

Sources: Curtis, Scott. (2007) The Last Word: Images in Hitchcocks Working Method In Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film. Edited by Schmenner W. and Granoff. Evanston C. Northwestern University Press. Gottlieb, Sydney. "Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Selected Writings and Interviews" Los Angeles. 1997. Hayward, Susan. (1996) Cinema Studies. Third edition. Routledge, London and New York. Maltby, Richard (1995) Hollywood Cinema, Blackwell, Oxford. Poague, E. (2011). A companion to Alfred Hitchcock. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: WileyBlackwell. Spoto, Donald. (1983) The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, Collins. Truffaut, Francois (1984) Hitchcock Paladin, London. Wood, Robin. (1989) Hitchcocks films revisited. Columbia University Press, New York. International Movie Database at www.IMDb.com