Hitchcock's Narrative Rules

Hitchcock's Narrative Rules

1. Shared suspense

   • Often the audience is made to share the suspense with a character, rather than on the character’s behalf.
     • E.g 'Rebecca' and 'Suspicion'
       • Both of these movies use shared suspense between the audience and the characters about the shared fear of the husbands.
     • Sharing suspense with a character elicits a more intense experience of suspense, as shared suspense creates a greater identification with a character’s mental and emotional state.

2. Surprise

   • Hitchcock also withholds narrative information from the audience and will occasionally spring a surprise.
   • Psycho and Vertigo, depend upon the sustained withholding of information from the audience to build the suspense and not ruin the climax of the film.
     • By with-holding info, in psycho it makes the shower scene much more dramatic s it appears to come out of nowhere

3. Vicarious suspense

   • This rule is about letting the audience know information as early as possible to help build suspense.
     • E.g If the bomb suddenly goes off, without the audience being aware of its presence, the result is a fifteen second surprise. Althugh if they know the bomb is there, suspense is built as they know more than the character.
   • Sabotage (1936) is a key example of Hitchcock’s use of vicarious suspense.
     • A young boy, Stevie, carries a package across London unaware that it contains a bomb.However, the audience is made aware that the bomb will explode at a specific time and Hitchcock uses repeated images and sounds of a ticking clock to build up suspense.

4. Dual or split suspense

   • Often Hitchcock makes the audience identify with more than one character in his films, known as dual or split suspense.
     • E.g After the murder of the protagonist, Hitchcock in effect places the audience in a dual or split perspective of wanting the investigation into Marion’s murder to succeed but dreading the consequences for Norman.

5. Direct suspense

   • We experience anxiety and uncertainty primarily on our own rather than on a character’s behalf.
   • E.g In 'Psycho' Hitchcock employs POV camera technique to place the audience in extreme jeopardy as the murder stabs the character they are part of
     • At the moment where Mrs Bates’ corpse spins around to face Lila, Hitchcock dispenses with POV camera technique and confronts the viewer directly with the shocking close-up of the dead woman’s grinning skull.