Works of Alfred Hitchcock: An Analysis - IS Muni

87 Pages·2013·0.75 MB·English

Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bc. Martin Burget

Works of Alfred Hitchcock: An
Analysis

Master´s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr.
2013

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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………
Author’s signature
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I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. for his
advice, guidance and support.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………….5
2. Hitchcock Biography…………………………………………………………..8
3. Cultural Importance Of Alfred Hitchcock……………………………..……17
4. Hitchcock and Auteur Theory, Unifying Elements in Hitchcock´s Films…26
5. Suspense…………………………………………………………………….…39
5.1 Suspense…………………………………………………………….……..39
5.2 Subjective Suspense and Exploitation of Spatial Setting………...……. 50
5.3 Shared Suspense and Morality of Suspense…………………………..…61
5.4 Sexuality, Voyeurism, Humor and Suspense……………………..….…..66
6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………..………73
Bibliography………………………………………………………………...……..77
Czech Abstract…………………………………………………………….………82
English Abstract………………………………………………………..………….83

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1. Introduction
This thesis focuses on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, British born director, who
is one of the most recognized movie directors of all time. The thesis aims on
Hitchcock´s films in general pointing out the unifying elements which connect them but
the core of the thesis and its main focus is directed at suspense, how Hitchcock
employed suspense in his films and the techniques he used to generate it. In order to
connect the thesis from a very specific field of film studies to a more general
perspective of cultural studies, the thesis also provides short examination of Hitchcock´s
author style related to auteur theory and also cultural impact of Hitchcock´s persona is
examined by a general overview of his reception in Europe and in the United States.
Alfred Hitchcock was connected with film industry almost since its very
beginning when it was making the first steps to utilize its significant potential in
entertainment provision. There have not been many film directors that would leave such
an important impact on the movie industry: “Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to
emerge from these islands (British), Hitchcock did more than any director to shape
modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for
narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and
engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else” (Smith 85). The master of
suspense is one of the most often used nicknames for the director who became almost
the official representative of suspense and psychological thriller movies. Hitchcock was
famous for exploiting the combination of love and murder and the works from his
repertoire, which contains more than fifty films, all share his signature style. “In
America you respect him because he shoots scenes of love as if they were scenes of
murder. In Europe we respect him because he shoots scenes of murder like scenes of
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love. Anyway, it´s the same man we are talking about, the same man, and the same
artist” (Truffaut, Hitchcock 18). Hitchcock ventured into numerous genres and
experimented with a variety of techniques that made him a very versatile and reliable
director he was and still is a major figure in popular culture. “He was one of the
founding fathers of the cinematic art and, together with Eisenstein and Murnau, helped
define its visual language. So fruitful was he that a single film could spawn an entire
genre, as Psycho helped create the modern horror film and North by Northwest the style
and tone of the James Bond films, not so much cloak and dagger as tuxedo and irony”
(Lewis 460). Hitchcock exerted strong control over his films and was always a
perfectionist that gave his films distinctive looks which made them easily
distinguishable. However, it is not only the craftsmanship and focus on detail that make
us remember Hitchcock more than thirty years after his death: “It is because of his
sensitive understanding of the potential for film to say and show things that cannot
easily be done in other genres of art. From his earliest silent work, he saw film as a
medium for the imaginative expression of space and thought. This is his real
breakthrough, and he exploited those potentials as no director has, before or since”
(Lewis 458).
In the chapter Hitchcock Biography, a general and brief overview of Hitchcock´s
life and mainly his films is provided in order to establish picture of his repertoire and to
facilitate orientation in number of films that shall be used in the thesis as example cases
of Hitchcock´s employment of suspense.
Next chapter is dedicated to cultural importance of Alfred Hitchcock as he was a
director whose influence reached beyond the sphere of movie industry. In the peak of
his career, Hitchcock was a well established cultural icon that was willing to accept such
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position and exploit its potential.
The chapter Hitchcock and Auteur Theory, Unifying Elements in Hitchcock´s
Films focuses on Hitchcock´s distinctive style and examines his production from the
perspective of auteur theory, a look at Hitchcock´s films through the lens of post
structuralism and cine-analysis is also provided. Finally, this chapter also focuses on the
unifying elements that can be explored in Hitchcock´s films and it gives examples of
certain features that tend to repeat in them.
Chapter Suspense and its four sub chapters analyze suspense in general, what it
is, how it is created and most importantly how Hitchcock employed suspense in his
films with the focus being primarily on spatial setting, morality and sexuality. The thesis
offers various examples from a number of movies to illustrate the discovered
observations and quotes from various academic scholars are used to support author´s
arguments.
In Conclusion the findings from the thesis are summarized to provide a final
general overview of the observed topic.

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2. Hitchcock Biography
Alfred Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England on 13 August 1899
to a family of William, a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane. Hitchcock family
was Catholic which placed them outside of the majority of England´s Protestant
religion. Alfred was the second son and the youngest of three children. When he was 11
he was sent to Salesian College and the Jesuit Classic School St. Ignatius College in
London. He recalled the years spent at this school as being very important for the
formation of his personality: “It was probably during this period with the Jesuits that a
strong sense of fear developed-moral fear of being involved in anything evil. I always
tried to avoid it. Why? Perhaps out of physical fear. I was terrified of physical
punishment” (Truffaut, Hitchcock 26). After he finished the studies at St. Ignatius
College at the age of fifteen, Hitchcock begun to work at Henley Telegraph Company
where he was employed as a draftsman and advertising designer. At the same time he
was taking courses at the University of London where he studied art. Hitchcock was
interested in film already at this time and he read movie journals from the age of
sixteen. During his time at Henley Hitchcock started to express his creativity by
regularly submitting short articles for in-house publication which had been established
at the company. Hitchcock soon became one of the most prolific contributors and his
first ever short story called Gas from 1919 already revealed what themes and topics
were close to Hitchcock – the story is about a young woman who thinks she was
assaulted only to be revealed that it was a hallucination. It was in 1920 when Hitchcock
applied for job at title department at London branch of Paramount's Famous Players
Lasky which would eventually become Paramount Pictures. The establishment of
Famous Players Lasky in England created a lot of excitement and expectation as the
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American company was expected to bring the know how to British film industry which
was at the time significantly inferior to that of its American counterpart.
Compared to Hollywood, the British industry
was a perennially weak sister. English films
were fewer in quantity, and generally
considered inferior in quality. The production
equipment and values were often second-rate.
(McGilligan 100)
Hitchcock got the job and he soon became head of the title department and it was
through this work that Hitchcock got close to film making when the industry was still
making its small steps to become a mainstream media and during times when it had to
recover after devastating world war which crippled its output and this recovery would
take another ten years. “In those days it was possible to completely alter the meaning of
a script through the use of narrative titles and spoken titles. Since the actor pretended to
speak and the dialogue appeared on the screen right afterward, they could put whatever
words they liked in his mouth” (Truffaut, Hitchcock 27). Hitchcock met several
established American writers and he begun to be involved in scriptwriting and shortly
after he became assistant and art director at Islington Studios. It took Hitchcock fife
years from his starting point as a draftsman to become a film director. The move to
Islington was important for Hitchcock not only from the perspective of his professional
life but also personal life because it was at Islington where he met his wife and
collaborator Alma Reville. In 1922 Hitchcock had the first opportunity to shoot his very
first picture which was named Number Thirteen. However, Hitchcock´s first projects
were plagued by production problems and simply bad luck and his first movie was no
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different. Number Thirteen was canceled after only few shots had been made and the
film would never be finished. Ironically, Always Tell Your Wife which Hitchcock
directed a year later faced the same fate, it was never finished and only two reels are
known to survive. The first movie that Hitchcock finished was The Pleasure Garden
which was, however, a flop. The film was shot in Germany where Hitchcock had spent
time before which was important for him as he “he had immersed himself in
expressionism (in Germany)” (McGilligan 172). The true breakthrough came in 1926
when The Lodger: A Story of the London fog was released. This is considered to be the
first true “Hitchcock film” with themes and motives that would run through many films
during his entire career. The film features a man on the run who is hunted down by
mainstream society. “The Lodger was also a novel Hitchcock professed to love. The
story of a psycho killer stalking London, it was the kind of material that struck a deep
chord with him. And though in his later work he would often drastically change the
novels he filmed, revising their stories to meet his own needs, in this first important
instance he tried to be faithful” (McGilligan 177). After the commercial success of The
Lodger Hitchcock was becoming a popular figure and it was at this time that he got
married with Alma Reville, a woman who accompanied Hitchcock in his professional
and personal life until his death.
Hitchcock started to work on his next films Downhill and The Ring, which is the
only film with Hitchcock´s original screenplay, followed by Farmer´s Wife, Easy Virtue
and Champagne in 1928 which Hitchcock considered as “probably the lowest ebb in my
output(...)What happened, I think, is that someone said, "Let's do a picture with the title
Champagne"” (Truffaut, Hitchcock 57). The next stage of Hitchcock´s career begun
after he finished filming The Manxman in 1929. His tenth feature was intended as
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