Hitchcock Cinematic Style

Hitchcock Cinematic Style

1. The Point Of View Shot

   • Hitchcock’s signature technique is the use of a subjective camera. The POV shot places the audience in the perspective of the protagonist so that we experience the different emotions of the character, whether it be desire, confusion, shock or fear.
     • Films such as Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954) are seen almost entirely from the point of view of the main character (both played by James Stewart) and this allows the director to create and sustain suspense as we look through the character’s eyes as he attempts to solve a mystery.

2. Dynamic Camera Movements

   • Hitchcock employed camera movement as a key storytelling device through which he could provide information to the audience in a visual way.
     • He would sometimes open his films with a dynamic camera movement such as the famous crane shot through the window in Psycho (1960), where the lovers are revealed, or the extended tracking shot around the courtyard in Rear Window, which introduces all of the main characters and story elements. Hitchcock often employed dynamic camera movements to highlight the emotional distress or anxiety of the protagonist at a moment of sudden danger and threat. Key examples of this are the rapid camera movements towards Alicia’s mother- in-law and husband, seen from Alicia’s POV in Notorious (1946), and the key moments in Vertigo, where Hitchcock uses the dolly zoom to visually represent Scottie’s crippling fear of heights. The ‘Vertigo’ shot is created by combining a dolly or tracking shot with a zoom shot, so that as the camera dollies forwards while the lens

3. High Angle Shots

   • Hitchcock often uses high angle shots to convey the notion that a character is in crisis or has arrived at some terrible realisation.
     • In North by Northwest (1959) an extreme high angle is used as Cary Grant’s character flees the UN building after being framed for murder. In The Wrong Man (1956) a high angle shot is used as Henry Fonda’s innocent man is wrongly arrested for murder. In Psycho, Hitchcock employs a high angle shot to mislead the audience. In the sequence of the detective’s murder, Hitchcock suddenly switches to a high angle shot of the hallway as the killer prepares to strike. This elevated camera position keeps the true identity of the killer hidden until the final scenes of the film.

4. Expressive use of the Close-Up

   • Hitchcock will often generate dramatic tension and suspense by framing an object that presents a danger to the hero or heroine in close-up.
     • Hitchcock will often employ an expressive close- up of the face to reveal the beauty of his female characters. In Rear Window, Hitchcock employs an expressive close-up to introduce Lisa, the girlfriend of the protagonist who will help him solve the mystery. Framed in close-up from the POV of the main character as he awakens, Lisa is a vision of radiant beauty. In Vertigo, the mystery and elegance of Madeleine is conveyed by a tight close- up of her in profile in the restaurant scene.

5. Cross-Cutting

   • Cross-cutting (also known as inter-cutting or parallel editing) is a primary storytelling device which Hitchcock uses to build up suspense and narrative tension. This technique pieces together sequences that occur at the same time but in different places.
     • The opening scene of Strangers on a Train, is an example of the technique of cross-cutting being used to set up the story and introduce the two lead characters in a novel and intriguing way. Hitchcock cuts back and forth between the two, as yet unknown characters, as they separately move towards the point where their paths will cross.
     • Montage Editing: Hitchcock’s abrasive use of oblique, montage editing to mimic the stabbing cuts of the knife inthe Shower Scene in Psycho is a powerful example of montage editing

6. Expressionist Lighting Techniques

   • In the 1920’s, Alfred Hitchcock had an opportunity to work in the UFA studios in Berlin where the directors of German Expressionism, such as Fritz Lang, were making their films. The influence of Expressionism on Hitchcock can be seen in many of his Hollywood films of the 1940’s such as Suspicion (1941) and Notorious, where chiaroscuro lighting techniques are used to convey the dark fears of his female protagonists. In Notorious, when Alicia begins to feel dizzy from the effects of the poison, expressionist techniques of distortion are employed with low key lighting to transform the two sinister figures, who are poisoning her, into silhouettes. Combined with the use of a subjective camera, the expressionist lighting techniques draw us into Alicia’s waking nightmare.

7. Using Music to Convey Emotion

   • Music occupies a central place in Hitchcock’s concept of Pure Cinema. Music is commonly used by Hitchcock to evoke a range of deep emotions and to generate dramatic tension and suspense.
     • The director’s collaboration with composer Bernard Herrmann on the scores for Vertigo and Psycho is viewed as a high point in cinema history. In Vertigo, the haunting musical score conveys the romantic feelings of the protagonist Scottie for Madeleine as they spiral into full-blown obsession. In Madeleine’s first appearance in the restaurant scene, the soundtrack gradually builds in emotional intensity, the strings powerfully evoking the feelings of love and romantic fascination that suddenly overwhelm Scottie. Bernard Herrmann’s music gives the scene a dreamlike quality, as if a romantic fantasy has come to life. However, we can also detect an undercurrent of tragedy within the score that evokes a feeling of loss and a sense that Madeleine may be a doomed figure.