Alfred Hitchcock – Director’s study

1. Introduction:

Alfred Hitchcock’s films left an indelible mark on cinema and enabled the medium’s evolution in ways that would not have been possible without his contribution to the art form throughout his remarkable six-decade career. For his 53 films, Hitchcock earned the moniker “Master of Suspense,” cementing his place as one of cinema’s all-time greats and helping to propel the suspense genre to new heights of popularity. How one defines suspense (anticipation) and what distinguishes it from a thriller (surprise) can best be explained with an example from one of his films. Consider Frenzy (1972), a movie about a serial killer who murders women by strangling them with a necktie. As the investigation begins, police suspect an innocent man due to overwhelming evidence against him. Now, if the killer’s identity is kept from the audience till the end to surprise them with the reveal, the film falls under the thriller category. But in Frenzy, Hitchcock reveals the killer’s identity almost immediately and tells us everything we need to know about the character. In this case, the suspense revolves around how the perpetrator will be apprehended and how the innocent man will be acquitted. Hitchcock defines the suspense genre as stretching out the anticipation, in which the audience should know more than the characters on screen. It is the hardest thing to execute because since the audience is aware of all the facts, it is difficult to hold their attention as the story unfolds, which is what Hitchcock excelled at doing better than anyone.

As a filmmaker who began his career during the silent film era (most notably with The Lodger (1927) and Blackmail (1929)), Alfred Hitchcock believed in telling stories visually by resorting to the minimal dialogue possible. Hitchcock’s films were not character studies because they were not based on characters but on situations, due to which he found it hard to work with actors who preferred “method acting.” The actors were serving the story, and they needed to be sexy and charismatic A-list actors with massive commercial appeal. During his 50-hour, eight-day interview marathon with French director Francois Truffaut, he stated, “An actor should be willing to be utilized and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera, and he must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights.” Hitchcock used to focus more on the technical parts of filmmaking—editing, sound, photography, etc.—than on the actors’ performances to elicit an emotional response from the viewers.

Alfred Hitchcock was famous for being a perfectionist who worked extensively with screenwriters, refining and polishing scripts to the finest of details. He was so well-prepared that by the time shooting began, he didn’t even need a script as a reference, and because everything had been laid out with minute details on paper before, he wasn’t a big fan of on-set improvisation either. As a result, he would shoot his films in a single way, his way, with limited footage and takes because he knew what he wanted from each scene and never felt the need to shoot additional takes with different interpretations. The main advantage of shooting that way was that no studio could interfere or ask him to change anything in the film, as no alternate version or additional footage was available. His initial version was the final cut of the film. For example, in Suspicion (1941), Cary Grant plays a charming playboy who marries a rich girl. Soon after their marriage, she realizes that he is penniless and a gambler, and she eventually starts suspecting him of being a murderer. RKO Studios, the film’s producers, ordered Hitchcock to remove the parts that made Grant’s character appear menacing, reducing the movie’s length to only 55 minutes. Because of the unavailability of the additional footage, the studio had to release the original version of the film the way Hitchcock intended.

2. Types of films (themes and genres):

Almost all of Alfred Hitchcock’s motion pictures made for the big screen were adaptations of books, plays, and short stories, except for a couple of films like North by Northwest (1959) and Torn Curtain (1966), which were original screenplays (both penned by Ernest Lehman). Since he was so successful at adapting other people’s work, writers would write novels just for him to make them into films. His 1958 movie Vertigo was based on the novel D’entre les morts (Among the Dead) by the French writing duo Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (who also wrote Les Diaboliques, a movie adapted by Henri Georges Clouzot in the 1955 film version), who wrote the novel only for Hitchcock to make the film out of it. Even when he worked on other people’s material, Hitchcock was still responsible for creating his famous “Hitchcokian elements” like suspense, humor, mood, and a romantic angle in his films.

Hitchcock primarily directed works of fiction and disregarded the idea that a film must be factually accurate or realistic. He believed that if a filmmaker wants to show realism, he should treat the subject like a documentary. He differentiates between a documentary and a film by saying that “a documentary is based on material created by God, whereas, in a fiction film, the director is the God; and in the process of that creation, there are lots of feelings, forms of expression, and viewpoints that have to be juxtaposed. A director must be able to do as he likes, just so long as it’s not dull.” He never made movies that dealt with common-man problems like poverty, racism, and unemployment because he thought that they were cinematically dull. Instead, his films were more akin to escapism cinema, instilling viewers with feelings of passion, fear, and anxiety.

The most common theme Hitchcock explored was “a man accused of a crime of which he was innocent,” which began with his silent film The Lodger (1927). He was drawn to this theme because he believed it gave the audience a sense of danger, making them empathize with and identify with the protagonist. Another reason he preferred this theme was that he wanted to place an ordinary man in extraordinary conditions from which he must escape and prove his innocence, which amplified the suspense element of the film. Movies with this theme included: The 39 Steps (1935), Young and Innocent (1937), Saboteur (1942), Stage Fright (1950), I Confess (1953), To Catch a Thief (1955), The Wrong Man (1956), North by Northwest (1959), and Frenzy (1972).

Alfred Hitchcock’s second favorite genre to work in was psychological thrillers, with movies like Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1942), Spellbound (1945), Strangers on a Train (1951), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and Marnie (1964). The intriguing thing is that most of the films he made in this genre included two elements: a psychological element and a crime element. For example, in Marnie (1964), the psychological aspect is that of the eponymous character having significant psychological difficulties that originated from her childhood, due to which she despises men and is horrified by their touch. On the other hand, she is a con artist, who ends up robbing Sean Connery’s publishing company, but since he has fallen in love with her, he tries to help her in both dealing with her childhood trauma and making sure that she doesn’t get caught by the police for her crime. Films like Suspicion (1941) and Shadow of a Doubt (1942) create suspense by planting doubt in the main character’s mind, from whose point of view the story unfolds, which sows doubt in the audience’s mind too. In Shadow of a Doubt, Charlie (Teresa Wright), who has a special bond with his uncle Charles (Joseph Cotten), is overjoyed when he comes to live with her and her family. But her happiness turns into a nightmare when she starts suspecting that her uncle might be a serial killer the police have been searching for. Hitchcock instills doubt in her mind about Charles being a serial killer. He also raises the possibility that Charles could be both innocent and a serial killer, heightening the suspense.

Hitchcock also relished crafting limited-setting films, also known as chamber-piece films, most of which were adaptations of plays. Movies like Rope (1948), Dial M for Murder (1954), and Rear Window (1954) allowed him to explore one of his favorite obsessions: committing a perfect murder and getting away with it. However, his first chamber piece cinema was Lifeboat (1944), which takes place entirely on a boat in a sea where passengers (British and American civilians and a Nazi) are stranded because an Allies ship and a German U-boat sink each other during the Second World War. Lifeboat makes the best use of the limited settings out of all the movies in the genre (even though I regard Rear Window as the best film of the lot for many other reasons), where he manages to visually portray isolation, loneliness, and the mental deterioration of the characters. For instance, whenever any intimate or embarrassing thing about a character is exposed, Hitchcock places him alone in the frame, at the corner of the boat, creating a sense of isolation within him.

Hitchcock also made spy movies that did not revolve around the innocent man wrongfully accused theme, such as The Lady Vanishes (1938), Notorious (1946), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Secret Agent (1936), Sabotage (1936), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Torn Curtain (1966), and Topaz (1969).

Another intriguing characteristic of Hitchcock’s work is the depiction of a romantic angle, which occurs throughout the course of most of his films. In films where the protagonist is an innocent man on the run after being falsely accused, he treats the romantic angle as a subplot where the main character meets a blonde and a beautiful woman along the way, and their love blossoms. But Hitchcock very smartly infuses the subplot into the main narrative without taking too much time, due to which the audience doesn’t lose interest in the story. For instance, in To Catch a Thief (1955), Cary Grant plays an infamous retired jewel thief who is falsely accused of stealing jewelry from rich people and is now on the run as he tries to figure out who is copying his style. Along the way, he meets Frances Stevens (Grace Kelly), and they fall in love. But Hitchcock infuses her story into the main narrative, where she (and her mother) might be the next victims of the jewel thief.

3. Visual Filmmaking:

Alfred Hitchcock’s most successful films, which are still revered today, are those in which his visual storytelling was at its finest. In an interview with Truffaut, he said, “In writing a screenplay, it is essential to separate the dialogue from the visual elements and, whenever possible, to rely more on the visual than the dialogue.” Here are a few examples of Hitchcock telling a story visually:

Notorious (1946) follows Devlin, a US government agent, played by Cary Grant, who recruits Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the daughter of a German war criminal, to go undercover and gain the trust of Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), who is part of a circle of Nazis hiding out in Rio de Janeiro, plotting something sinister during WWII. There is a segment in the film where a key to a room in Sebastian’s mansion plays a vital role in unearthing some critical information. Hitchcock uses a scene in which a large reception is being held at Sebastian’s house to convey this idea visually. He begins the scene by positioning the camera at a height, taking a wide-angle shot of the entire reception hall. He then tracks the camera down slowly (Crane shot) and ends the scene with an insert shot of a key in Alicia’s hand. The point is to illustrate that the drama occurring behind the scenes of a luxurious party is far more significant than the party itself and that the key is the most crucial aspect of that drama.

Also, in Notorious (1946), Devlin’s opening scene is magnificently shot, especially in terms of lighting. The scene begins in Alicia’s house, where she is hosting a party, and Devlin has arrived with one of the guests, but Alicia doesn’t know him. The camera shows everybody’s faces at the party, but Devlin is shown from behind, sitting in darkness, making him an enigmatic figure, which is what he is to Alicia in that scene.

In the first scene of Rear Window (1954), James Stewart’s character is introduced without any dialogue. The scene begins with the camera showing his sweaty face (indicating it’s hot outside) and then pushing back until his cast-wrapped leg enters the frame. Following that, the camera pans and shows things like a broken camera, some photographs on the wall, and a front-page magazine photo of Grace Kelly, all of which sum up and tell us that he is a professional photographer who got injured on the job and has some connection to Grace Kelly’s character. The audience acquires all this information in just one continuous shot.

Hitchcock’s only Academy Award-winning film, Rebecca (1940), stars Joan Fontaine as Mrs. De Winter, a naive young woman who marries a wealthy nobleman (Laurence Olivier) whose first wife (Rebecca) has recently passed away. As she moves in with him into his massive castle, Mendeley, she is overwhelmed by its vastness and feels alienated by the bourgeois atmosphere surrounding her. Hitchcock portrays that in a scene which begins with a closeup of a cloth on her thighs. The camera then starts pushing away from her and shows her sitting at a big dinner table. Along with pushing out, the camera starts going up using a crane shot, showing how small and intimidated she feels in this vast place. Eventually, Mrs. De Winter quickly realizes that Rebecca’s presence looms large in the mansion, and she is fearful that she won’t be able to measure up to her reputation. To make matters worse, she must face off against the film’s main villain, Mrs. Danvers (played by Judith Anderson), who adored Rebecca and despises Mrs. De Winter for taking her place. Mrs. De Winter finds her extremely intimidating and is even afraid of her. To make Mrs. Denver look ominous, Hitchcock never shows her walking. She always appears as if she’s gliding through rooms, giving her a sinister personality.  

4. How Hitchcock elevates suspense:

Alfred Hitchcock loved to terrify the audience and make them suffer by constantly putting his protagonists, whom we are rooting for, in increasingly dangerous situations. He would put as many obstacles as possible between the protagonist and his destination, elevating the suspense. In I Confess (1953), Hitchcock takes the theme of an innocent man wrongly accused to another level by making that man a Catholic priest by the name of Father William Logan, played by Montgomery Clift. In the movie, a man who murdered a lawyer confesses to Logan, who, according to his religion, isn’t allowed to reveal information acquired during confessions. When the police start their investigation, Logan becomes a prime suspect, but he still refuses to disclose the killer’s confession. The masterstroke in the screenplay is giving Logan a more compelling motive for murdering the lawyer than the killer, whose purpose is trivial in comparison. As inconclusive evidence starts mounting against Logan, his acquittal looks impossible, elevating the suspense of how he will get out of this impossible situation.

Another example is Stranger on a Train (1951), in which Guy Haines (Farley Granger) and Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) meet on a train, and the latter, a psychopath, recommends that they exchange murders of the person they hate individually to avoid getting caught. Guy doesn’t take the talk seriously, but Bruno kills Guy’s promiscuous wife, a person Guy detested. Now, Bruno wants Guy to kill his controlling father and blackmails him into doing so. Hence, the scene is about Guy going to Bruno’s father’s bedroom at night, but Hitchcock doesn’t make it easy for him. As he ascends the stairs in the dark, Hitchcock places a wild-looking dog on the stairs, elevating the suspense by putting an obstacle between him and his objective and making the audience anticipate the dog’s action.

There is no better feeling in filmmaking than deceiving the audience and surprising them with something unexpected. Hitchcock enjoyed that feeling after he made Psycho (1960). The film has two halves, with the first half focusing on Marion Crane (played by Janet Leigh) and the second half on Norman Bates (played by Anthony Perkins). Hitchcock purposefully elaborates on the first part about Marion stealing $40,000 from the bank where she works and fleeing because he wanted the audience to become entirely immersed in her story. While on the run, he also presents obstacles in front of her, such as running into a police officer, who suspects something peculiar about her and starts following her. She manages to lose his tail by going off the road, where she comes across the Bates Motel and decides to spend the night there. She meets Norman Bates, the hotel manager, and when she talks with him, she resolves to return the money to the bank the next day, making the audience empathize with her character. The audience is now thoroughly invested in her story, and just when we begin to root for her, Hitchcock kills off her character, completely shattering everybody’s expectations. The film then pivots to focus entirely on Norman Bates, elevating interest in its eventual direction.  

5. Even Hitchcock wasn’t perfect all the time:

With a body of work as extensive as Hitchcock’s, one cannot expect every movie of his to be flawless. He, too, made mistakes, and he proudly owned them. Even though none of his films were complete trash, there were a few that I would consider my least favorites from his illustrious career, given how high the bar was for watching a Hitchcock film. Here are some examples of films that weren’t up to his lofty standards:

Hitchcock possessed an extraordinary ability to balance a lighter tone in his films with an effective romantic and suspense angle. The 39 Steps (1935) is an excellent example of this combination. The film had a lighter tone, and even though the protagonist found himself in increasingly dangerous situations, he dealt with them with playfulness and lightheartedness, making it a treat to watch his journey, which becomes adventurous. This type of storytelling compels the audience to revisit the film, increasing its replay value. Hitchcock tries the same approach in Young and Innocent (1937), another spy film about a young man wrongfully accused of a crime, but it falls short in execution. The film’s tone was lighter than necessary, the stakes weren’t high enough, and the suspense was lacking—all the elements that The 39 Steps did so well.

One of my least favorite Hitchcock directorial efforts would be Under Capricorn (1949), a period film in which Charles Adare (Michael Wilding) comes to Australia in 1831 to start a new life. There, he meets and befriends a powerful landowner and an ex-convict Sam Dusky (played by Joseph Cotten), who is married to Henrietta (Ingrid Bergman), an alcoholic and depressed woman on the verge of madness. When Charles meets Henrietta, he realizes they knew each other when they were young and falls in love with her, which begins a complicated love triangle. The film is decent until the extended 9–10 sequence begins, in which Henrietta tells Charles the history and details of her relationship with Sam Dusky. It was unusual to see Hitchcock use heavy dialogue for pure exposition over 10 minutes straight. In the scene, he employs a variety of camera angles and movements, which don’t work because they feel emotionally hollow. But things are made even worse by Bergman’s lackluster performance in that scene. Eventually, the film becomes too melodramatic for my taste. Misunderstandings between Sam Dusky and Henrietta serve as plot points that felt unconvincing. The film also features a subplot of Sam’s maid, who would be like a sister to Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca, which felt unnecessary and harmed the film even more. Cotten and Bergman had hardly any chemistry; therefore, it was hard for me to believe in their love for one another. To summarize, the film lost its way midway through its runtime.

Stage Fright (1950) was another movie with the theme of an innocent man accused of a crime, and I think Hitchcock chose this project for its twist ending. Wilfred Smith (Michael Wilding) is on the run after being suspected of murder and seeks the help of Eve Gill (Jane Wyman), who is in love with him even though he loves Charlotte (Marlene Dietrich). The problematic aspect of the film was Eve taking excessive risks in the name of love, which we don’t see on the screen and thus don’t believe in. Furthermore, the risks she takes do not amount to anything, as she is not in any real danger due to them, which reduces the element of suspense and causes the film to suffer.

Rope (1948) had a good story with trademark Hitchcock suspense about two guys trying to get away with a perfect murder, but the problem is that its lead characters, Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger), and Brandon Shaw (John Dall), come across as two unlikeable individuals with no redeeming qualities. Even though they are the bad guys, there still should be something about them, like charisma, or some other character trait, which would make watching them enjoyable. Instead, they come across as a couple of assholes who constantly bicker, which becomes annoying and makes you think twice if you ever decide to rewatch the film in the future. The movie gets a boost only because of James Stewart’s presence.

Even though Hitchcock was a master of creating tense situations, he occasionally went too far, resulting in exaggerated suspense that overstayed its welcome. Movies like The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and Torn Curtain (1966) were prime examples of Hitchcock overdoing what he did best. In “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” a couple (James Stewart and Doris Day) and their young son are on vacation in Morocco when they accidentally stumble upon a plot to assassinate a foreign ambassador. The conspirators kidnap their boy, and they must save him and prevent the ambassador’s assassination. The film is outstanding and should have concluded with the masterfully directed 10-minute unspoken sequence in which James Stewart and Doris Day foil the assassination attempt. The film could have benefited from resolving the boy’s kidnapping quickly after that sequence. Instead, the screenplay drags on for another 10–15 minutes, which I felt overstayed its welcome. In Torn Curtain, Hitchcock keeps the film tight and tense until the second act. But in the third act, he places way too many obstacles between the protagonist and his final destination, dragging the film down unnecessarily. The frequent problems with Hitchcock’s later stage films were that they were dull, overlong, and had too much exposition, with examples like Topaz (1969) and his final film, Family Plot (1976), which has a stretched-out ending.

6. Technical Mastery:

6.1. Editing:

The infamous shower scene from Psycho (1960) is a perfect example of how he employed editing to heighten the suspense in a scene. The scene opens with Marion (Janet Leigh’s character) having a shower, shown from a couple of camera angles. Then, Hitchcock picks a camera angle that shows someone entering the bathroom in the background without alerting Marion, giving viewers more information than her. It is just a matter of time before she finds out, and as soon as she does, the ominous music starts playing, and the montage accelerates with quick cuts, including shots of the knife, her body, blood running in the bathtub, etc., making the scene terrifying to watch.

However, Hitchcock uses a reverse technique to show the famous cornfield sequence in North by Northwest (1959), where he keeps the duration of the shots longer. The scene begins with Cary Grant waiting for someone at a bus stop in the isolated countryside, in the middle of nowhere, when a crop duster plane attacks him. The long shots show Grant running for cover as the plane attacks him, but there isn’t any cover to run to because it’s an open field. It is also worth noting that Hitchcock changes the point of view in this sequence to heighten the intensity. The entire film is from Grant’s point of view (subjective POV), but Hitchcock abandons that for an objective POV for the crop duster sequence. It opens with Grant speaking to a man (who is waiting for a bus) in the foreground while the crop duster plane is visible in the background. When the man says, “It’s funny that the crop duster plane is there because there are no crops to dust,” the audience’s suspicions arise. Then, as the plane begins to attack Grant, showing him from an objective point of view amplifies the tension by allowing the audience to see everything happening clearly. If shown from a subjective point of view, the plane would just be in and out of the frame in a flash, leaving the spectators perplexed about the action happening on the screen.

6.2. Sound:

The best example of the use of sound can be seen in The Birds (1963) because, in the entire film, there is only sound and no music. “The Birds” is a nature-horror film set in the little community of Bodega Bay, northwest of San Francisco, where birds begin attacking people in large numbers. There is a scene in which Lydia Brenner (played by Jessica Tandy) goes to a farmer’s house and discovers him slaughtered by the birds. She freaks out and starts running, and because the camera is in front of her, she is racing towards the camera. The more she approaches the camera, the louder the sound of her heels gets to accentuate her paranoid state of mind. Then she runs out of the house, gets in the car, and starts the engine hurriedly. The shrill squeals of the truck’s engine are cranked up and accelerated to show her being frantic and trying to run away from the house as quickly as possible. The final scene of “The Birds” begins with Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) opening the door of his house and seeing birds everywhere as far as the frame goes. Then he slowly and quietly goes to the garage, brings his car in front of the house, puts his mother, sister, and an injured Melanie (Tippi Hedren) inside, and drives away. The entire sequence is silent, without any music, and the low sound is achieved electronically with a hum, heightening the anticipation that the birds might attack any minute.  

6.3. Production Design:

Even though many of Hitchcock’s films were shot in studios, he always insisted on being as geographically realistic as possible. As a result, before filming began, he would scout locations, photograph whichever house, or place he thought would be ideal for that particular film, and then construct a replica of that site in the studio. For example, while Psycho was shot in a studio, the Bates Motel and the home behind it were replicas of places he saw in San Francisco. In “North by Northwest,” the United Nations refused permission to shoot on its grounds. So, he secretly took photographs with a photographer’s assistance and built the same set in the studio. Lifeboat (1946) was also entirely shot on a studio set, with a boat preserved in a large tank. To make it more realistic, Hitchcock pressed for the vessel to be constantly moving and never stationary. He also added a touch of mist and fog in the background to create the illusion of a boat adrift in the middle of the ocean.  

6.4. Use of camera and blocking:

When setting up a scene, Hitchcock followed a few basic rules, but these minor details had a significant emotional impact on the screen. Consider a scene in which two characters are sitting and conversing. During their conversation, the camera switches back and forth between close up shots of each character. But when one character stands up, Hitchcock never believed in cutting the scene and showing that character getting up by using a long shot. Instead, he stayed on the same closeup shot and tracked the person, which maintained whatever emotion the character was experiencing. The cutting to a long shot dissipates that emotion and makes the scene hollow.

Hitchcock was not only a master of suspense but also an expert at crafting physical love on screen. In Notorious (1946), the love story between Devlin (Cary Grant) and Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) is at its heart. There is a scene in the film in which Devlin and Alicia are kissing one another while moving around the room. Hitchcock shoots them together using a closeup, and these two characters occupy the frame with no room to show anything in the background. Even while they are moving across the room, Hitchcock keeps the same closeup and tracks the couple so that the romantic moment between the two does not break, strengthening their chemistry.

Hitchcock was also responsible for inventing a technique called “The Dolly Zoom” in Vertigo (1956) to convey James Stewart’s character’s acrophobia. The effect was created by mixing a track-out shot with a zoom-in shot. Several filmmakers have used this technique to portray a character’s disorientation. For instance, Steven Spielberg uses it in Jaws (1977), when Robert Schneider first sees someone getting killed in the sea, which shocks him.

A scene at the beginning of “Vertigo” (1956) is a fitting example of the excellent use of blocking. In this scene (five and a half minutes long), John Ferguson (James Stewart), a retired police officer suffering from vertigo, visits the workplace of Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), an old college friend. Gavin requests John to follow his wife Madeleine (played by Kim Novak), alleging that she’s been acting strangely (possessed by an old ghost) and that her mental state is unstable. But it’s all a lie since Gavin is duping John and exploiting John’s illness (vertigo) to get away with murder. The scene begins with Gavin sitting at his desk and John standing behind a chair in the center of the room. Initially, John is the dominant one asking questions, so he moves around the table while Gavin remains seated. By acting and sitting coyly, Gavin lures John into his space and his confidence under the illusion of sincerity. But when John sits in a chair, Gavin gets up and starts telling how someone dead possesses his wife. He moves around and goes up a few stairs in the upper room, making it appear like he is towering over John and being a dominant one. Because of his disbelief in supernatural things, John declines the offer and walks toward the door. Gavin doesn’t press him because he wants John to take the job willingly. He walks near John and enters his space again, and before John says anything, Gavin starts revealing details about how his wife fades in and out of her personality and wanders around to odd places. John again sits in the corner chair while Gavin is talking and walking in the upper room, two stairs above, making it look like John is a spectator and Gavin is a performer. John becomes engrossed in Gavin’s story and begins to regard Gavin’s wife as an enigmatic person. After hearing the story, John gets up and is still unsure, but Gavin comes into his space again and requests that he at least see her once. John finally relents and accepts the job. The attention to detail in this scene is exceptional because it serves as a starting point for how John falls into the trap and is crucial in the context of the film.

7. Final thoughts:

I watched 33 films directed by Alfred Hitchcock over a period of 35 days to study his work, and I must admit that it was the most fun I’ve ever had watching movies. I always looked forward to his next film, and it was exciting to delve into his movies and read about his process and the techniques he employed. Hitchcock’s films demonstrate that the suspense genre, when done correctly, can keep audiences engaged even after multiple viewings. People went to see Hitchcock movies not because there was a big star in them but because it was a “Hitchcock film” and he was the biggest star. A filmmaker being the selling point of a film is rare, and only a few directors have acquired that status (Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, and Christopher Nolan are common examples). He was brutally honest about his work and frequently criticized himself, believing he might have done a better job. Despite his success and recognition, he has always maintained that there is always more to discover about filmmaking, both in storytelling and technical aspects. Francois Truffaut says this about Hitchcock at the end of his book Hitchcock/Truffaut: “Alfred Hitchcock not only intensified life, but he also intensified cinema,” which is a perfect way to sum up his work. 

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