In one of the Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1946) advertising posters, Ingrid Bergman is holding a coffee cup, and her expression is anxious. The coffee cup does not represent the normal impression of leisure time. In contrast, the coffee cup plays a key role in one of the most intense moment in the film. What is the relationship between the coffee cup and the actress? Hitchcock did not give the answer to the audience immediately. He uses it as a Maguffin to trigger the audience’s curiosity to seek the answer of the film. Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is an American agent. An assignment requires her to spy on the activity of a Nazi organization, so she marries to Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains), the leader of the organization, in order to get information from the Nazis. Shortly afterwards, Alicia and the other agent T.R Devlin (Cary Grant) found out the Nazis are developing a nuclear project. Meanwhile, Alex also figure out his wife is spying on him. Thus, he gets lost in that situation, because he might be murdered if his colleagues knew he is a betrayer whose wife is an agent. Therefore, he seeks help from his mother, and figures out a solution: to make Alicia die slowly and without other people’s suspicious. The conversation ends with an incomplete sentence of Alex’s mother who says, “She could become ill and she may ill for a time, until…” Thereafter, a poisoning plan is practicing on Alicia without her awareness. There are three key poisoning scenes in the movie. However, Alicia awares her situation until the most significant poisoning scene which takes place in the Sebastian’s living room. The editing and sound effects did a great contribution to the scene of suspense. Hitchcock not only manipulated various shots and di... ... middle of paper ... ...he chessboard. In this poisoning scene, the audience’s psychological changes are strongly tied to the elements that constituted by Hitchcock. As a master of suspense, he puts the audience in an extreme intense condition through the whole scene, but not the audience only get shock in one particular moment. When the Mrs. Sebastian says the plan should practice without anyone’s suspicious. In fact, the audience is the one who actually suspicious the most in the game of Hitchcock. The reason why we are the one in most suspense can explain by the audience could anticipate the answer before hand, but the character in the scene does not know it. The process is a “torture” to some audiences, because it is similar to the theory that a prisoner might be executed just in five seconds, but the process of waiting for the execution maybe five minutes, five days or five years.
Suspense is the feeling of uncertainty or excitement, in waiting for an outcome or decision. Edgar Allan Poe uses suspense in his story “Masque of the Red Death” by using objects and great descriptive detail. Poe’s story is about a prince that tries to escape from the inevitable. He tries to lock himself away from the ‘red death’ and has a masquerade ball that doesn’t end happily. Prince and all of his guests die inside or around the seventh apartment room. The seventh room is preceded by six colored rooms which are meant to symbolize either the stages of life, or the seven sins. Inside the last room there are black velvet tapestries that hang all over the ceiling and down the walls. The window panes are a deep blood red color which gives the room an unwelcoming atmosphere. On the western wall, there is a gigantic clock of a deep black wood. Inside it has a pendulum that swings back and forth with a dull monotonous clang. When the minute hand marks a new hour, there is a clear, loud, deep sound, which can be heard from far away. Although it can give off an eerie feeling, the great eb...
Now we will address a few of these from the film. First, Drawing parallels between characters with a difference, usually a negative one, is a repeated concept in Hitchcock films. Such as in the film “Strangers On a Train”, where Bruno ends up killing Guys’ wife while Guy had himself been desiring to be rid of her somehow. Here in “Rear Window” early in the film we can see this between Lisa and Jeff to Thorwald
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.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a thrilling film filled with mystery and suspense. However, Hitchcock left many unsolved issues at the end of this film. In contrast, when comparing Vertigo to more recent films of similar genre’, mysteries are usually always solved and thoroughly explained by the end of the film. Ironically, Hitchcock’s failure to explain everything to the audience in Vertigo is one of the film’s best attributes. This lack of knowledge allows the viewer to use their own imagination and speculate as to what might or might not have become of certain characters.
As the paradigm in which this curiosity is exposed inhabit the human being, that voyeurism that uncounted of us have inside. Hitchcock is able to use this element to catch the spectator, building a devilish and fascinating tale of suspense set in a microcosm. In which there reflects the intimate and daily life of the current man, where the protagonist observes from his window. The viewer sees what Jeff (the protagonist) observes, has the sensation of being the protagonist, observing through his window.
poisoned. Hitchcock, in fact, goes out of his way to make sure that a shot of
Stam, Robert & Pearson, Robertson., ‘Hitchcock’s Rear Window: Refluxivity and the Critique of Voyeurism’ in Deutelbaum, Marshall & Poague, Leland A. ed., A Hitchcock Reader (John Wiley & Sons: 2009).
Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo is a film which functions on multiple levels simultaneously. On a literal level it is a mystery-suspense story of a man hoodwinked into acting as an accomplice in a murder, his discovery of the hoax, and the unraveling of the threads of the murder plot. On a psychological level the film traces the twisted, circuitous routes of a psyche burdened down with guilt, desperately searching for an object on which to concentrate its repressed energy. Finally, on an allegorical or figurative level, it is a retelling of the immemorial tale of a man who has lost his love to death and in hope of redeeming her descends into the underworld.
Often regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Citizen Kane written and directed by Orson Welles is a classic film that defied the conventional styles of the Hollywood Cinema. Welles was committed to the Mise-En-Scene of his movies by using his characters, props, settings, and even the camera to tell the story of his characters. The Lighting, the camera shots, and the character 's actions to depict the life of Charles Foster Kane. The Mise-En-Scene of this narrative creates a film that is ahead of it’s time and a genius innovation to the cinema.
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 enjoyable. The stylistic film form includes camera movements, editing, sound, mise-en-scene and props.
One major attribute in Hitchcock films is how creatively Hitchcock tricks the audience about the fate of the characters and the sequence of events. Many people argue that it is a tactic by Hitchcock to surprise his audience in order to increase the suspense of the movie. For example, in Shadow of a Doubt, the audience assumes that young Charlie is an innocent young girl who loves her uncle dearly. However as the movie progresses, Young Charlie is not as innocent as the audience suspects. Young Charlie, once a guiltless child, ends up killing her evil uncle. In Vertigo, the same Hitchcock trickery takes place. In the beginning, the audience has the impression that the Blond women is possessed by another woman who is trying to kill her. The audience also has the notion that the detective is a happy man who will solve the murder case correctly. Just before the movie ends, the audience realizes that the detective was specifically hired by a man to kill his wife. The detective, in the end, seems to be the hopeless, sad victim.
Suspense is a key factor to the story, “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe. According to the Oxford Dictionary, suspense is the state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. Poe uses the senses to bring the reader aware of the building suspense. He does this by telling the reader about the ominous setting of all the chambers, especially the seventh chamber. The sound of the grandfather clock, sending sinister shivers throughout the party goers each hour, keeps them on their toes. Finally, the fast-paced chase of the intruder and the Prince build to the suspense at the final moments of the story.
In Hitchcock’s narrative structure, he focuses on relationships. The relationship between society and their thoughts of morality, guilt and innocence. In the film, we never witness a murder, only the outcome of them. What we do see are the reactions to the killings. Every single week, the newspapers write
Hitchcock has a way of throwing clues in the face of the spectator, yet still allows some room for the spectator to find their own less obvious details. In the same museum scene, Hitchcock shows the viewer exactly what he wants them to see. In a sense, Hitchcock can be very manipulative with the camera. The audience sees the picture containing the women with a curl in her hair holding flowers, and then the direct connection is made by the camera, by showing the curl in Madeline’s hair, and the flowers sitting next to her. The spectator is led to believe that they have solved the mystery and she is truly possessed by the women in the picture. However, Hitchcock does this on purpose to lead the audience away from the truth that she is only acting. It is for these reasons that Hitchcock’s work at an auteur adds a level of depth and intrigue.
There are two other scenes that exemplify Hitchcock’s technical competence and ability to connect his vision with the film’s subject matter. A turning part of the film is when Alex realizes he has married an enemy to the Nazi party. He drudges up the staircase, a central facet of a Hitchcock film, to break the news to his mother. Alex, sitting in a chair, delivers the line “I am married to an American agent”. The image of Alex is an overhead close up shot in low-key lighting. This scene denotes a shift in Alex’s character. He is no longer trusting of Alicia because now she poses a threat to his façade for the Nazis.