David O. Selznick pursued Hitchcock to make some Hollywood films. With Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American film, and he worked in America for the rest of his career.
August 31, 2006 (Press Release) --
David O. Selznick pursued Hitchcock to make some Hollywood films. With Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American film, and he worked in America for the rest of his career. Rebecca evokes the fears of a naive young bride who enters a great English country home and must grapple with the legacy of the dead woman who was her husband's first wife. The droll touches of humor are still there in his American work, but suspense became his trademark.
Themes and Devices
Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense over surprise in his films. In surprise, the director assaults the viewer with frightening things. In suspense, the director tells or shows things to the audience which the characters in the film do not know, and then artfully builds tension around what will happen when the characters finally learn the truth.
Hitchcock took pride in his ability to sustain suspense. Once at a French airport, a dubious customs official looked at Hitchcock's passport, which was marked simply PRODUCER. The official frowned and asked, "And what do you produce?" "Gooseflesh," replied Hitchcock.
Further blurring the moral distinction between the innocent and the guilty, occasionally making this indictment clear, Hitchcock also makes voyeurs of his "respectable" audience. In Rear Window, after L. B. Jeffries (played by James Stewart) has been staring across the courtyard at him for most of the film, Lars Thorwald (played by Raymond Burr) confronts Jeffries by saying "What do you want of me?" Burr might as well have been addressing the audience; and in fact, shortly before that Thorwald turns to face the camera directly for the first time--at this point, audiences invariably gasp.
One of Hitchcock's favorite devices for driving the plots of his stories and creating suspense was described as a "MacGuffin" by the director himself. Hitchcock described the "MacGuffin" as a red herring: a meaningless, unimportant detail that solely existed to serve as a reason for the story to exist.
Rope was another technical challenge that Hitchcock set for himself: a film shot entirely on a single set with limited camera movement that nevertheless succeeds in compelling our attention. The film is commonly thought to have been shot in one take, or to have been assembled without cuts, or with only a few, but this is not the case. The film was shot in 10-minute takes; a few of the edits are apparent, and the rest are hidden by having an object fill the entire screen. Hitchcock uses that point to cut, and begins the next take from the same point, from which the object or the camera moves.
Source: http://search.msn.com
Themes and Devices
Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense over surprise in his films. In surprise, the director assaults the viewer with frightening things. In suspense, the director tells or shows things to the audience which the characters in the film do not know, and then artfully builds tension around what will happen when the characters finally learn the truth.
Hitchcock took pride in his ability to sustain suspense. Once at a French airport, a dubious customs official looked at Hitchcock's passport, which was marked simply PRODUCER. The official frowned and asked, "And what do you produce?" "Gooseflesh," replied Hitchcock.
Further blurring the moral distinction between the innocent and the guilty, occasionally making this indictment clear, Hitchcock also makes voyeurs of his "respectable" audience. In Rear Window, after L. B. Jeffries (played by James Stewart) has been staring across the courtyard at him for most of the film, Lars Thorwald (played by Raymond Burr) confronts Jeffries by saying "What do you want of me?" Burr might as well have been addressing the audience; and in fact, shortly before that Thorwald turns to face the camera directly for the first time--at this point, audiences invariably gasp.
One of Hitchcock's favorite devices for driving the plots of his stories and creating suspense was described as a "MacGuffin" by the director himself. Hitchcock described the "MacGuffin" as a red herring: a meaningless, unimportant detail that solely existed to serve as a reason for the story to exist.
Rope was another technical challenge that Hitchcock set for himself: a film shot entirely on a single set with limited camera movement that nevertheless succeeds in compelling our attention. The film is commonly thought to have been shot in one take, or to have been assembled without cuts, or with only a few, but this is not the case. The film was shot in 10-minute takes; a few of the edits are apparent, and the rest are hidden by having an object fill the entire screen. Hitchcock uses that point to cut, and begins the next take from the same point, from which the object or the camera moves.
Source: http://search.msn.com
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