Alfred Hitchcock's Moviemaking Master Class: Learning about Film from the Master of Suspense...

7/29/2019 Alfred Hitchcock's Moviemaking Master Class: Learning about Film from the Master of Suspense [SAMPLE]

1/41

ALFREDHITCHCOCKSMOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS

Learning About Film

rom the Master O Suspense

TONY LEE MORAL

M I C H A E L W I E S E P R O D U C T I O N S


2/41

vi

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR

Write down your idea on a blank piece o paper

Pitching your idea

Write a catchy logline

Coming up with your own idea original screenplays

Adapting someone elses idea adapted screenplays

Themes in your story

The wrongully accused man

The duplicitous blonde

The psychopath

Secrets and spies

Content

The MacGun what is it? (And does it matter?)

Keep your plot moving

Suspense vs. Melodrama

Give your audience inormation

Involve your audience in the suspense

Other directors using suspense

Exercises

Chapter 2 WRITING YOUR SCREENPLAY

The three stages o the screenplay

The outline

The treatment

The screenplayBreaking your screenplay into three acts

Breaking it down into scenes

Know your audience

a e o on en s


3/41

TAbLE OF CONTENTS

vii

Trust your spouse

Writing dialogue

Writing subtext

Writers blockWrite or comedy

Use counterpoint and contrast

Exposition and dialogue

Take time to build suspense

Have a surprise ending

The Ice Box Syndrome

Close your eyes and visualizeExercises

Chapter 3 PRE-PRODUCTION

Work with a production designer

Change your locations oten

Make your locations dramatically

Use your props dramaticallyInspired Hitchcock lm locations

Avoid the clich in your locations

Trains, planes, and automobiles

Use controlled locations to increase tension

Feature amous landmarks

Make your sets realistic

Use color sparingly

Costume or character

Storyboard your movie

Storyboarding beyond Hitchcock: Pre-visualization

Exercises

Chapter 4 WORKING WITH ACTORS

Casting

Avoid the clich in your characters

Audience identication

Use close-ups

Less is more


4/41

ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL

viii

When stars dont shine

Kill o your main star

Solid heroes

The man Hitchcock wanted to be Cary GrantThe man Hitchcock was James Stewart

Glamorous heroines

Attractive villains

Sex scenes and censorship

Actors as cattle

Be honest with your actors

Exercises

Chapter 5 YOU HAVE A RECTANGLE TO

FILL

Subjective camera

Use lenses that mimic the human eye

Frame shots or dramatic purpose

Frame shots or emotionUse close-ups to increase suspense

Save your close-ups or dramatic eect

Use medium shots to identiy with your characters

Dont use long shots just or establishers

The high angle

The low angle

Use camera movement to keep the mood

Tracking shots

The VertigoShot

The crane shot

Use long takes or emotional intensity

Point o view

Light your lm stylistically

Exercises

Chapter 6 THE ART OF CUTTING

Cut the lm in your head

Montage


5/41

TAbLE OF CONTENTS

ix

Edit montage to create ideas

Edit montage or violence and emotion

Save your cuts or when you need them

Jump cut to shockMatch cut to link ideas

Cross-cut to create suspense

Cross-cut or contrast

When not to cross-cut

Use shot length to increase suspense

Fast cutting

Graphics and opening titlesThe opening

The ending

Exercises

Chapter 7 SOUND AND MUSIC

Utilize silence or eect

Sound eectsAmbient sound

Dialogue

Use songs dramatically

Music

Music or atmosphere

Music or emotion

Use music or counterpoint

Spotting music

Exercises

Chapter 8 DONT WORRY ITS ONLY A

MOVIE

Know your audience

Promote your lm

Cultivate a persona

Have your own signature

Dont worry about being pigeon-holed

Surround yoursel with talent


6/41


x

Be the best salesman or your lms

Have a memorable movie title

Devise a witty tagline

TrailersThe cameo

Cameo appearances by other directors

Going or gimmicks

Exercises

Conclusion

Alred Hitchcock Filmography

List o Directors Inspired y Hitchcock

biliography & Reerences

Aout the Author


7/41

xiii

INTRODUCTION

Good day. My name is Alred Hitchcock and

I will be taking you on a personal guide

through the making o a motion picture

Alred Hitchcock

was inarguablyone o the great-

est i lmmakers

o the 20th cen-

tury. He was also one

o the most inluential

directors in motion pic-

ture history, inspiringmany others through

his understanding o all

aspect o cinema and his

innovative approach to

ilmmaking. All o his

collaborators, including

screenwriters, assistant directors, actors, and produc-tion sta testiy that not only was Hitchcock a irst-rate

auteur, he was also a great teacher, regularly engaging

with his audiences and giving lectures at ilm institutes,

universities, and ilm schools across the country. He

was a great director, who inspired many others, says

Jay Presson Allen, the screenwriter o Hitchs Marnie

(1964). I couldnt learn as ast as he could teach.

In a career spanning six decades, Hitchcock directed

57 eature lms, 18 episodes o the television series

Alred Hitchcock Presentsand The Alred Hitchcock

Introduction

Portrait of Alfred Hitchcock


8/41


xiv

Hour (introducing 361 total episodes), and oversaw a

series o books and a mystery magazine bearing his name.

He became a director at the age o 25 and pioneered many

techniques in the suspense and thriller genre, ramingshots to maximize anxiety and ear and using innova-

tive lm editing techniques to create shock and surprise.

Although Hitchcock never won a competitive Oscar, he was

nominated ves times as Best Director or Rebecca(1940),

Lieboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), Rear Window(1954),

and Psycho(1960). He won two Golden Globes, a BAFTA

Academy Fellowship award, eight Laurel Awards, andtwo honorary Academy Awards. In 1979, a year beore he

died, Hitchcock was given a lietime achievement award

by the American Film Institute. In a 2012 poll by Sight

and Soundmagazine, his masterpiece Vertigo(1958) was

named the number one lm o all time, surpassing such

greats as Citizen Kane (1941), Tokyo Story (1953), and

2001: A Space Odyssey(1968).

This book is intended or everyone with an interest

in lm, not just or ans o Hitchcock or lm students.

Anyone who enjoys lm will enjoy this book i they want

to know what makes a lm good, because who better to

teach you about lm than Alred Hitchcock? His work is

an exemplary model or understanding the art and crat

o lm, because o his understanding o pure cinema. Not

only was Hitchcock the Master o Suspense, he was also

a master o directing, raming, editing, scoring, casting,

and marketing. By studying Hitchcock you study every-

thing lmmaking encompasses.

As a ilmmaker mysel, with a lielong interest in

Hitchcock, the more I delve into the making o his flms, the

more I appreciate his artistry as a consummate cratsman

who thoroughly understood the business o moviemak-

ing. Through my two books on the making o The Birds

and Marnie, I have extensively researched the Alred J.

Hitchcock collection held at the Margaret Herrick Library


9/41

INTRODUCTION

xv

in Beverly Hills, delved into his production notes, inter-

viewed many o the key personnel who worked with Hitch,

including writers, actors, art directors, costumer designers,

storyboard artists, and illustrators. All o his co-workershave armed to me that Hitchcock was one o the most

collaborative directors that they have worked with, who not

only knew his job, but everyone elses on the movie set.

Although Hitchcock was the Master o suspense

movies, his general approach to cinema applies to all types

o genres, not only lms that are explicitly suspenseul.

Traditional lms that share elements o suspense and themanipulation o inormation to create suspense include

dramas, action adventures, and romantic comedies. This

is the very paradigm that underlies good storytelling.

Although you may not want to make a suspense lm,

its valuable to learn how Hitchcocks cinematic practices

apply to your lm, no matter what type o lm you do

want to make, because his principles are the very ounda-

tion o lmmaking.

Take, or example, a summer blockbuster like The

Amazing Spider Man (2012). On the surace it doesnt

seem to have much in common with Hitchcock, being

an adaptation o a Marvel comic book. But i you take a

closer look at the lm, many o the suspense techniques,

the withholding o inormation, the manipulation o audi-

ence identication with the central characters, the use o

point o view, etc., shows just how close to the Hitchcock

model it really is. Further clues can be seen in the posters

o Hitchcock movies prominently displayed in the back-

ground or example theres a poster oRear Window

in Peter Parkers bedroom showing that central char-

acters in both lms are photographers. Peter grieving or

Gwen also meets a redhead played by the same actress,

Emma Stone, in a scene with shades oVertigo. Theres

even an appearance by comic book legend Stan Lee as the

librarian, in the style o Hitchcocks amous cameos.


10/41


xvi

What do other movies like The Bourne Identity(2002),

Shutter Island (2010), The Ghost Writer (2010), and

Source Code(2011)all have in common? They too were

all inspired by Hitchcock. Martin Scorsese, a longtimeadmirer o Hitchcock, says, You can watch Hitchcocks

lms over and over throughout your lie and nd some-

thing new every time. Theres always more to learn. And

as you get older, the lms change with you. Ater a while,

you stop counting the great number o times youve seen

them. Ive looked at Hitchcocks lms in sections. Just like

the greatest music or painting, you can live with, or by,his lms. And you cant say that about every director.

You dont just have to like thrillers to appreciate

Hitchcock. He pioneered and revolutionized the way all

kinds o stories were told on screen. Not only the way he

handled suspense, but also romance and comedy. Even the

most romantic love story needs suspense. As Kim Novak,

who starred in his romantic epic Vertigosays, Hitchcock

is one o the great directors and one to be studied. He was

a perectionist. He didnt make any short cuts like some

directors do today. There wasnt a part o the movie he

wouldnt have a say in. When you are studying his work,

you are watching the total making o a movie.

This book is intended or everyone with an appreciation

o lm and or those who want to make a lm, whether

they are a screenwriter, production designer, editor, or an

aspiring director. Its also intended or ans o Hitchcock,

in the hope that they can gain a deeper understanding o

his methods and genius as a lmmaker. By understand-

ing how Hitchcock, the Master Filmmaker, conceived

his lms, both the novice and the more experienced stu-

dent will develop in the process a deeper knowledge o

how lms are made and what makes a lm good.

Now in this master class, we will take you through

the process o making o a movie, with Alred Hitchcock

as your guide. Each chapter covers a dierent aspect o


11/41

INTRODUCTION

xvii

lmmaking, rom coming up with an initial story idea

through writing the ull screenplay; prepping sets, cos-

tumes, storyboards, and shots; casting and directing

actors; and post-production editing, scoring, and mar-keting. Well be using examples rom Hitchcocks lms,

which span the history o 20th century cinema.

Using unpublished material rom both the Alred Hitch-

cock Collection in Beverly Hills, as well as interviews with

the Master himsel and his long-standing collaborators,

including actors, writers, and technicians, this book is an

insiders guide to moviemaking. Well discover tips romHitchcock on how to tell a story visually rather than merely

through photographs o people talking, how to compose a

shot, and how to create suspense through raming, editing,

and music. As Hitchcock said, Im not interested in content,

but more in the technique o storytelling by means o flm.

The master class is designed as an ongoing tool or

making your own movies. The exercises at the end o

each chapter are laid out to stimulate the reader and give

a better appreciation o Hitchcocks cinematic techniques.

They are designed to be used by the lm student, in class,

by individuals or groups, as a starting point or urther

discussion in conjunction with a recommended viewing

list o Hitchcocks key lms.

Although in this master class we acknowledge Alred

Hitchcock as a giant o cinema, we recognize at the same

time that modern audiences are keenly aware o contem-

porary directors such as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher,

Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, and Peter Jackson.

With the advent o CGI and big budgets driven by action

sequences and special eects, both o which are routinely

planned using pre-visualization, Hitchcocks methods o

meticulous pre-planning has triumphed in the last thirty

years. There is no director whose lms are taught more

than Hitchcocks, and whole courses are built around him

at schools and universities across the country.


12/41


xviii

Hitchcock believed that lm schools should teach the

history o cinema as much as anything rom the begin-

ning. Im a puritan and believer in the visual, said

Hitchcock. And thats what I think schools should teach.So oten you hear o schools, which send out a student

with an 8mm camera and see what he observes. Thats

only a part o it. As director and Hitchcock an William

Friedkin says, Just watch the lms o Alred Hitchcock,

thats all you need to know on how to make lms.

As well as looking to the Master or ideas and inspi-

ration, directors have remade and reworked his lms,borrowed his themes and images, and delivered their own

homage and tributes. Just one lm, Psycho, has inspired

three sequels, a shot-by-shot remake by Gus Van Sant,

and an entire genre o slasher lms, rom Halloween

(1978) to Smiley (2012). As Halloween director John

Carpenter says, I look at Hitchcock as a valuable natu-

ral resource since I try to steal rom him as oten as I

possibly can. Emotionally, I grew up watching Hitchcock

movies and learning cinematic technique without realiz-

ing I was actually in a lmmaking classroom rather than

a movie theatre. Beyond the obvious clichs o Master o

Suspense, Hitchcock loved pure cinema. More than loving

it, he understood it in as proound a way as any great

director beore or since.

At this writing, 32 years ater Hitchcocks death and 90

years ater his rst directed lm, public interest in Alred

Hitchcock remains enough to warrant not one, but two

eature lm biographies Hitchcock, starring Anthony

Hopkins, and The Girl, starring Toby Jones guaranteed

to bring the mischievous genius o Alred Hitchcock to

whole new generations.

So sit back, be prepared to be thrilled and entertained,

and let Alred Hitchcock be your guide as we uncover the

tips and techniques that made him one o the greatest

lm artists o the 20th century.


13/41

1

CHAPTER ONE

TELL ME THE STORY

SO FAR

Well, or me, it all starts with the basicmaterial irstyou may have a novel, a

play, an original idea, a couple o sentences

and rom that the flm begins. AlredHitchcock

T

wo strangers meet on a train and plot to trade

murders; a wheelchair-bound photographer passes

the time by spying on his neighbors through hisrear window; an American couples son is kid-

napped while vacationing abroad and they get

caught up in an assassination plot; a young woman

is stabbed to death in a motel shower by an unknown

assailant; locks o birds inexplicably attack a seaside

town. All o these ideas have the indelible stamp o one

director Alred Hitchcock, a master o suspense andthe macabre. I think that all the ilms I make are an-

tasies, said Hitchcock. They are not slices o lie, they

are larger than lie.


14/41


2

WRITE DOWN YOUR IDEA ON A

bLANK PIECE OF PAPER

Hitchcock oten started with larger than lie ideas when

thinking about the plot o his lms and he would write

down his idea on a blank piece o paper. Imagine wanting

to lm a scene across the aces o Mount Rushmore. Or

someone addressing the general assembly o the United

Nations reusing to continue until the delegate o Peru

wakes up. When the delegate is tapped on the shoulder,

he alls over dead. Or a ght to the nish atop the Statue

o Liberty?

In nding his ideas, Hitchcock oten turned to newspa-

per articles, short stories, plays, and novels. In Hitchcocks

stories about love and romance a woman is persuaded to

go to bed with a Nazi spy or the good o her country in

Notorious(1946), and in Vertigo(1958), a retired detec-

tive attempts to reshape a shop girl into the image o his

lost love. These are just some o the many examples where

Hitchcock takes one basic idea and spins it into a movie.

The idea or Notoriousarose rom a newspaper article

about a young woman in love with the son o a prominent

New York socialite. The woman eared that a secret rom

her past that she had slept with a oreign spy to gain

valuable inormation would destroy her chance o hap-

piness. Hitchcock and his screenwriter Ben Hecht decidedto keep only the part about the young woman pressed

into sexual service or her country. From that idea arose

the plotting or one o Hitchs nest lms, which is more

o a love story than a suspense story. As he said about

Notorious, The whole lm was really designed as a love

story. I wanted to make this lm about a man who orces

a woman to go to bed with another man because its hisproessional duty. The politics o the thing didnt much

interest me.


15/41

TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR

3

Vertigo was based on a French novella, Dentre les

morts literally translated From Among the Dead

about a detective, suering rom a ear o heights, who

is hired to ollow the troubled wie o a riend. Fromthis idea, screenwriter Samuel Taylor came up with the

San Francisco locations, the characters, and the power-

ul theme o obsessive love. As Taylor said, Hitchcock

was the master o the situation, the vignette, the small

moment, the short story; he always knew what he wanted

to do with those. These ideas were part o a mosaic, and

when you put the mosaic together, then you have thewhole story.

Torn Curtain (1966), about an American physicist who

pretends to deect across the Iron Curtain, to the dismay

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) and Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) are chasedacross the aces o Mount Rushmore (North by Northwest, 1959).


16/41


4

o his ance, was conceived rom real-lie events. When

Hitchcock read about British spies Burgess and Mclean

deecting to Russia during World War II, he wondered,

What did Mrs. MacLean think o the whole thing?

PITCHING YOUR IDEA

Lie is a big mystery. I think people areintrigued about mystery, to ind out about

things that they dont know anything about. Alred Hitchcock

Hitchcock kept his stories simple so that the audience

could ollow them. I anything in your story is densely

plotted and convoluted, you wont get the suspense out o

it. Abstract stories tend to conuse the audience, which is

why Hitch tended to avor crime stories with spies, assas-

sinations, and people running rom the police, which was

suited to his highly visual style. Although he complained

that crime ction is second-class literature in America

compared to Britain, where it was more highly regarded,

it also gave Hitchcock some o his greatest lms, includ-

ing Rope, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and

Psycho. These sorts o plots make it easier to play on ear

and suspense. Can you pitch these stories in an elevator

in one line?

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman was originally contractedto write a screenplay rom the novel The Wreck o the

Mary Deare, but couldnt nd the inspiration to do so.

Instead he said to Hitch, I want to do the Hitchcock

picture to end all Hitchcock pictures. It has to have glam-

our, wit, sophistication, and move all over the place with

suspense. Hitchs response was, I always wanted to do

a scene on Mount Rushmore, where the hero hides inAbraham Lincolns nose. This scene got both Lehman

and Hitchcock thinking in a Northwesterly direction, but


17/41


5

it took them almost a year to write North by Northwest

because it was an original idea.

Hitchcock liked the rst 65 pages o Lehmans script

and went to the execs at MGM, who had been expectingan adaptation oMary Deare. Hitch was a master story-

teller and adept at selling ideas to network execs, so he

pitched the story premise and rst 20 minutes oNorth

by Northwest, not knowing where the story was going

to go. The execs were thrilled they thought they were

going to get two Hitchcock movies instead o one. Then

Hitchcock looked at his wristwatch and said Well gen-tlemen, I have a meeting to attend. Ill see you at the

preview. But he did such a good pitch that the execs at

MGM were spellbound and commissioned the lm on the

spot. Typical Hitch!

The examples rom Notorious, Vertigo, North by

Northwest, and Torn Curtain all are ideas or a solid story

premise. A story premise involves a protagonist who

must be proactive with a goal. A man pulling a knie out

o another mans back in the lobby o the United Nations

while all around him everyone thinks hes just stabbed

the guy. Thats a story premise. What can he do so not

to be arrested or it? The rest o the movie sees the man

(Cary Grant) running both rom the police and rom the

actual murderers, as he seeks to prove his innocence.

WRITE A CATCHY LOGLINE

A logline or pitch is a brie explanation o your story and

is usually one to three sentences long. It contains the

basic elements o the protagonist, the confict, the antago-

nist, and the genre. The logline is a concise description o

the movie including its essential hook. Think about these

basic ideas in Hitchcocks lms, and how the titles are

mirrored in the ollowing loglines.


18/41


6

A woman is haunted by the memory o her husbands

rst wie Rebecca.

A wheelchair-bound photographer spying on his

neighbors suspects that one o them has murdered

his wie Rear Window.

A secretary embezzles $40,000 rom her employer and

while on the run encounters a young motel owner

under the domination o his murderous mother

Psycho.

A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential

boyriend to a small Northern Caliornia town that

slowly takes a turn or the bizarre when birds o all

kind suddenly begin to attack people with increasing

viciousness The Birds.

COMING UP WITH YOUR OWN IDEA ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYS

Although Hitchcock developed only six o his movies

rom original screenplays The Ring (1927), Foreign

Correspondent (1940), Saboteur(1942), Notorious(1946),

North by Northwest(1959), and Torn Curtain (1966) he

loved spinning ideas rom his own imagination, and rom

the imaginations o his screenwriting collaborators.Like Hitch, Steven Spielberg says that he dreams or

a living and has the audience in mind when he makes a

lm. Quentin Tarantino sees himsel as more o a writer/

director rather than a director. The glory in what I do is

that it starts with a blank piece o paper, says Tarantino.

I you look at something like Inglourious Basterds

(2009), and i my mother had never met my ather, thatwould never have existed in any way shape or ormit

started with a pen and paper.


19/41


7

Tarantino admits that its hard work to start rom

scratch. Even though you may have made many movies

beore, it doesnt necessarily help you. He believes that

while it may be easier to direct other peoples scripts andwork with the screenwriter, six years down the line you

may have lost your original writers voice. Even though

he loved ilming the novel adaptation Jackie Brown

(1997), Tarantino says that he doesnt want to adapt other

peoples work in the uture, but instead wants to continue

coming up with his own original ideas.

Alred Hitchcock wasnt short o original ideas, buthe most oten preerred to build those ideas around solid

source material.

ADAPTING SOMEONE ELSES IDEA

ADAPTED SCREENPLAYS

A best-seller in literature is one thing itdoesnt necessarily mean its going to be a best-

seller in flm. Alred HitchcockI you dont have your own original idea you can adapt

someone elses, which is what Hitchcock most oten did.

One o his biggest challenges or Hitch was to nd excit-

ing and original source material to adapt, so he turned

to short stories, novels, plays, and newspaper articles

or inspiration. Some o his lms rom novels include

Rebecca(1940), Psycho(1960), Marnie(1964), and Frenzy

(1972); rom plays, Rope(1948), I Coness(1953), Dial M

or Murder (1954); rom short stories or novellas, Rear

Window(1954), Vertigo (1958), and The Birds(1963).

Hitchcock was reluctant to adapt major and popu-

lar literature, such as Fyodor Dostoevskys Crime and

Punishment, whose theme o guilt, murder, and redemp-tion would seem perect or him. In act he oten made

successul lms rom extremely mediocre material and

pulp ction. As he said, I have always maintained that


20/41


8

it is supreme oolishness to take any book and lm the

whole o it, just because one angle o it is really worth

screening. Most oten in Hitchcocks adaptations he ran

with the ideas rom the source material that interestedhim most, while ignoring the source material as a whole.

When he was developing The 39 Steps (1935),

Hitchcock saw the promise o John Buchans original

story, but couldnt see it in its entirety as good lm mate-

rial. So he took some o the novels characters, part o the

plot and the locations, and created the story o an inno-

cent man on the run, accused o a crime he didnt commitand caught up in a web o international intrigue. Very

oten Hitchcock didnt read the entire novel or story, but

just took the basic premise. For example, The Birdsbears

little resemblance to Daphne du Mauriers short story

set in Cornwall, apart rom the idea o birds attacking

humans. As Hitch said, It isnt because I want to change

the storyI just take the basic idea. I only read the story

once, and never look at it again.

Sometimes Hitchcock would write a scenario without

even completing the original book, knowing only the bare

plot, the characters, and the rough outline. The basic idea

may be in any o these elements or in certain o the situa-

tions. But i you plan to adapt a book, be careul, because

a good book doesnt necessarily mean it will make a good

lm. Hitchcocks Topaz (1969) was adapted rom Leon

Uris novel, a best-seller at the time, but the result wasnt

a successul movie.

THEMES IN YOUR STORY

You now have the idea or your movie, but what are the

major themes and what kind o story do you want to tell?

The theme is the main subject o the lm, the central

characteristic, concern, or moti, and it should arise rom

your basic idea. For Hitchcock, the themes must blend

two important elements.


21/41


9

Firstly, your theme should hang on one single central

idea that the audience must always be thinking about.

Hitch believed the ormula or making an exciting lm

is to nd a single problem, which is suciently enthrall-ing to hold the attention o the audience while the story

unolds. A good movie ormula states in the rst ten min-

utes the single central theme what the lm is about, and

it must state what the problem is. It could be as simple

and tried and tested as boy meets girl, boy alls or girl,

boy loses girl, and nally boy and girl get back together.

Secondly, your theme must have scope to introduce anumber o other elements or sub-themes in the movie. For

Hitchcock, such themes included love (Vertigo), guilt and

innocence (The Wrong Man), psychology (Marnie), moral-

ity (Rope), and duty (Notorious). As Hitch understood,

deep underlying themes add essential emotional reso-

nance to the surace plot.

THE WRONGFULLY ACCUSED MAN

Im not against the police, Im just araid othem. Alred Hitchcock

The wrongully accused man was a subject Hitchcock

returned to repeatedly throughout his career in stories

oten eaturing innocent men orced to dodge both the

real villains and the police until they can unmask the true

criminal and prove their innocence. Think o Robert Donat

being chased by police in The 39 Steps (1935), Robert

Cummings being ramed in Saboteur(1942), Henry Fonda

arrested or crimes he didnt commit in The Wrong Man

(1956), Cary Grant being mistaken or a spy in North by

Northwest(1959), and Jon Finch being set-up or murder

by his best riend in Frenzy(1972).Another reason behind Hitchcocks ondness or the

wrongully accused man story is a structural one. The

audience must have sympathy or the man on the run. But


22/41


10

they will wonder, Why doesnt he go to the police? Well,

the police are ater him, so he cant go to them. Otherwise

there will be no chase story. The important thing is that

he cannot and must not go to the police. Hitchcock stated

that his greatest ear was o the police, and he oten toldthe story o when he was ve years old his ather sent

him to the local police station, with a note to the chie o

police, who read the note and promptly put me into a cell

and locked the door or ve minutes; and then let me out,

saying, Thats what we do to naughty little boys.

The man on the run in these wrongully accused lms

is the average man. Hes not a proessional, detective,or criminal, but the everyman. As Hitchcock said, That

helps involve the audience much more easily than i he

The innocent Manny balestrero (Henry Fonda) lines up in The Wrong Man(1956).


23/41


11

was unique. I have never been interested in making lms

about proessional criminals or detectives. I much preer

to take average men, because I think the audience can get

involved more easily. So or Hitchcock, the theme o theinnocent, wrongully accused man taps into the audiences

own ear that it could easily be them in the same position.

In Hitchcocks lms, the best example o the wrong-

ully accused man is The Wrong Man, the true story o

musician Manny Balestrero (played by Henry Fonda)

who was alsely accused o armed robbery. As Hitchcock

says, Well it happens so oten, and I think it creates arooting interest within an audience, because nobody

likes to be accused o something that he wasnt respon-

sible or. The Wrong Man being a true story added to the

audience ascination.

Martin Scorsese, when making his New York-based

movie Taxi Driver (1976), was inspired by Hitchcocks

lm. The Wrong Man is a picture I oten used repeatedly

or mood, paranoid style, beautiul New York location pho-

tography, says Scorsese. And I think ultimately its the

reason I asked [Hitchcock composer] Bernard Herrmann

to do the score. I think about the paranoid camera moves,

the eelings o threat when Henry Fonda goes to pay his

insurance in Queens. Hes standing behind the counter

and the womans looking over and you see Henry Fonda

rom this point o view. And the way the camera moves,

her perception, excellent bit part players, the ear, the

anxiety and the paranoia, is all done through the camera

and the perormers ace.

This theme o the wrongully accused man is a popu-

lar one in todays movies, rom The Fugitive(1993), The

Shawshank Redemption (1994), and Minority Report

(2002), to Eagle Eye(2008) and The Adjustment Bureau

(2011).


24/41


12

THE DUPLICITOUS bLONDE

Blondes make the best victims theyre likevirgin snow that shows up the bloody oot-

prints. Alred HitchcockHitchcock is amous or casting blonde leading ladies

who are cool, mysterious, and elegant. Throughout his

career he gave us some o the screens most ascinating,

complex, and duplicitous emale characters. Memorable

Hitchcock blondes include Madeleine Carroll in The 39

Stepsand Secret Agent, Joan Fontaine in Rebeccaand

Suspicion, Ingrid Bergman in Spellboundand Notorious,

Grace Kelly in Dial M or Murder, Rear Window, and To

Catch A Thie, Kim Novak in Vertigo, Eva Marie Saint

in North by Northwest, and Tippi Hedren in The Birds

and Marnie.

The morally

conicted Alicia

Huerman (Ingrid

bergman) in

Notorious(1946).


25/41


13

These women are oten punished or a crime that they

have committed, such as the characters played by Janet

Leigh in Psycho, Kim Novak in Vertigo, and Tippi Hedren

in Marnie. Ever since his early lm The Lodger (1926),where the serial killer, a Jack the Ripper type, murders

blonde women, Hitchcock maintained that blondes make

the best victims. He loved contrast, so he presented women

who were very ladylike on the surace. As Tippi Hedren

said, He liked to take women who are cool and in con-

trol, jumble them about and see i they survive and how

they survive. In The 39 Steps, the public sees MadeleineCarroll have no time to be her usual sophisticated sel

she is ar too busy racing over moors, rushing up and

down embankments, and scrambling over rocks.

Todays blonde emme atales have been inspired

by Hitchcock heroines. Think o Glenn Close in Fatal

Attraction (1987), Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct(1992),

Kim Basinger in L.A. Confdential (1997), and Naomi

Watts in Mulholland Dr. (2001).

THE PSYCHOPATH

Id like to discuss a subject very dear to me homicide. Alred Hitchcock

The serial killer or psychopath has long ascinated

Hitchcock ever since The Lodger (1929). His lms ea-

ture a roster o crazy psychopaths. In Hitchs avorite o

his lms, Shadow o a Doubt (1943), a beloved uncle is

really the Merry Widow Murderer. In Rope(1948), two

buttoned-down students are actually thrill killers. Two

men swap murders in Strangers on a Train (1951). In

Psycho (1960), motel manager Norman Bates has guest

(and mommy) issues, and in Frenzy (1972), a rapist andmurderer leaves a necktie around the neck o each o

his victims.


26/41


14

What do these crazy guys have in common? They are

all attractive and seductive. As Hitchcock knew too well,

evil is attractive, otherwise the murderers would never be

able to get near to their victims. Well be getting up close

to these villains too in more detail in Chapter 4 to show

how Hitchcock cast and directed actors, oten against

type, to play these sympathetic murderers.

The attractive psychopath is a tradition that continues

in recent movies. The characters played by Robert De Niro

in Cape Fear(1991), Anthony Hopkins in The Silence o

the Lambs(1991), Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley

(1999), and Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones (2009)

all owe a debt to Hitchcock. All o these murderers arecharming, devious, sympathetic, and deadly.

Anthony Perkins as the psychopathic oy next door, Norman bates, in Psycho

(1960).


27/41


15

SECRETS AND SPIES

The spy genre is one o the oldest in lm history and

Hitchcock was ascinated with spies and secrets. Many

o his lms deal in espionage, such as Secret Agent, The

39 Steps, Sabotage, Saboteur, Foreign Correspondent,

The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest,

Torn Curtain, and Topaz. Hitchcock spies are either ordi-

nary men plunged into the world o espionage, such as

James Stewarts American doctor abroad in The Man Who

Knew Too Much (1956) or Cary Grants advertising exec

in North by Northwest (1959).Or they are real spies, as

in Secret Agent (1936) and Topaz (1969). As Hitchcock

remarked, spies are really two dierent people heroes

in their own country and villains in the oreign country.

This contrast ascinated him.

These early spy lms rom Hitchcock heralded the way

or todays iconic spy characters, as North by Northwest

(1959) triggered the cycle o James Bond lms. Indeedthe attack on Bond by the helicopter in From Russia with

Love(1963) bears many similarities to Cary Grant being

pursued by the crop-duster plane, as do chase sequences

in The Prize(1963) and Arabesque(1966). But by the mid

1960s, Hitchcock had tired o that character, eeling that

the Bond lms had become a comic book version o his

original idea, so he set out to make more realistic spythrillers such as Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969).

In recent years, Hitchcocks spy lms have heavily infu-

enced both the Bourneand Mission: Impossibleseries.

CONTENT

So many people are interested in the content,that i you painted a still lie o some apples ona plate, youd be worrying whether the apples

are sweet or sour. Who cares? I dont care

mysel. Alred Hitchcock


28/41


16

Youve decided on the theme or your movie, now you need

to inject a heavy dose o content and bring your movie

to lie. Hitchcock amously declared that he didnt care

about content in his movies, and that he was more inter-ested in lm technique. As long as the audience reacted

in a certain way, the idea or the lm could be about any-

thing you like. I you begin to worry about the details,

about the papers. I dont care what the spies are ater,

Hitchcock said. First and oremost he put cinematic style

beore content; I dont even know who was in that air-

plane attacking Cary Grant. I dont care. So long as thataudience goes through that emotion.

What did Hitch mean by these quotes? Does that mean

that you shouldnt care about the content o your movies

too? Maybe some o what Hitchcock said in public was

intended to shock or otherwise create reaction and con-

troversy, and he may have not meant it literally. When he

says he doesnt care about the content o the lm, he may

have meant he cares about keeping the audience emotion-

ally involved more than he does in the logic o a mystery

story. Suspense was oremost to him, but there cant be

thrills without mystery or some other dramatic context to

make us care.

Although Hitchcock may have said he doesnt care

about content, its only content that creates suspense.

There can be no suspense unless you crat the combina-

tion o your story and character that makes the viewer

care about whats going to happen. All o that is content.

It may not matter who the pilot o that gun-rigged crop-

duster is, but it doesmatter that someone with a motive

(content) has hired them to kill our hero. They were hired

or a reason. There must be motivation to keep us emo-

tionally involved, and what Hitchcock is the master at

is keeping the audience emotionally involved. Thats the

denition o suspense content.


29/41


17

This all leads naturally into what Hitchcock called the

MacGun a key plot device in his lms that drives

the story.

THE MACGUFFIN WHAT IS IT?

(AND DOES IT MATTER?)

Its the device, the gimmick. Alred Hitchcock

Hitchcock oten talked about the MacGuin in his

lm, but what exactly is it? Lets hear it in Hitchs ownwords: It might be a Scottish name, taken rom a story

about two men in a train. One man says, Whats that

package up there in the baggage rack? and the other

answers, Oh, thats a MacGuin. The irst one asks,

Whats a MacGun? Well, the other man says, Its an

Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Alred Hitchcock and James Mason ponder the

MacGufn, in this case microflm hidden inside a ceramic statue, during the

flming oNorth by Northwest(1959).


30/41


18

apparatus or trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.

The rst man says But there are no lions in the Scottish

Highlands, and the other one answers, Well, then thats

no MacGun! So you see, a MacGun is nothing at all.Does it make any sense? Or are you still in the dark?

Well thats hal the point. The MacGun is the engine

o the story and was coined by Hitchcock scenario editor

Angus McPhail. It is the object around which the plot

revolves, and motivates the actions o the characters. It

could be stealing the secret papers, the plans to a ort, an

airplane engine, or an atomic bomb, and is the thing thateveryone in the lm wants, but the audience doesnt really

care about.

Oten a MacGun is central to thrillers, spy stories,

and adventures, and becomes very important in a Hitchcock

movie. Most o the characters in the story will base their

actions on the MacGun, although the nal result will

usually be o greater signicance than actually getting,

controlling, or destroying the MacGun. So a MacGuns

purpose is to motivate the characters into action.

Examples o the MacGuin in Hitchcocks ilms.

The 39 Steps Top secret plans or a revolutionary

aircrat engine.

Notorious Radioactive uranium ore.

North by Northwest Government secrets hidden

on microlm inside a pre-Colombian ceramic statue.

Hitchcock called it my best MacGun the empti-

est, the most nonexistent, and the most absurd.

Psycho $40,000 in stolen cash.

The Birds The reason why the birds attack.

Torn Curtain The secret ormula or an anti-

missile device.

Family Plot Valuable diamonds.


31/41


19

Hitchcock was joking when he told his story about

the lions in the Scottish highlands. But i the MacGun

is important to your characters, it has to be important

to your audience. Theyve got to know and understandenough to become emotionally involved. When Hitch and

his screenwriter Ben Hecht were writing Notorious, the

MacGun o the uranium ore became so involved it actu-

ally got in the way o the real plot, which was about a

woman, played by Ingrid Bergman, who has to go to bed

with a Nazi sympathizer. She chooses duty over love, as

does her real lover, played by Cary Grant. (When research-ing Notorious, Hitchcock quite coincidentally asked a

Caltech scientist how big an atomic bomb was, and he

later heard that the FBI kept him under surveillance or

three months!)

In North by Northwest, the MacGun is the narra-

tive device that propels the plot, but who in the audience

really cares about the roll o microlm in the pre-Colom-

bian statue? Theyre having too much un watching Cary

Grant run all over the map and all in love with Eva Marie

Saint. As Hitchcock said, A true MacGun will get you

where you need to go, but never overshadow what is ulti-

mately there.

For the irst 40 minutes o Psycho, the audience

becomes invested in the character o Marion Crane (Janet

Leigh), who fees town ater having stolen $40,000 o

cash rom her boss. But then she is suddenly killed in a

motel room shower, and the cash is casually tossed along

with her body into the trunk o her car, which itsel ends

up in a swamp. The lms real story then begins, which is

about who killed Marion and why. The MacGun the

money got Marion to that shower, and thats all that

really matters.


32/41


20

Examples o the MacGuin in other directors

ilms.

During an interview or Star Wars(1977), George Lucas

described R2D2 as The MacGunthe main driving

orce o the movie, or the central object o every characters

search. Thats because both the Rebels and the Empire

were ater the plans o the Death Star inside R2D2, and

the search or R2D2 drove the plot o that lm.

In Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Fiction (1994), the viewer

never nds out whats inside the briecase, which book-

ends the movie. All that matters is that this MacGun is

wanted by a crime boss, who sends his two thugs, played

by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, to retrieve it.

In Avatar (2009), the MacGun is the Unobtanium,

the sought-ater mineral that sets the plot in motion

(much like the uranium in Hitchcocks Notorious) ulti-

mately inconsequential to the actual story being told.

KEEP YOUR PLOT MOVING

When making a picture, my ambition isto present a story that never stands still. Alred Hitchcock

The length o the ilm should be directlyrelated to the endurance o the human blad-

der. Alred HitchcockYou have your MacGun and all o your characters are

ater it, and now its on to the chase. Hitchcock used to say

that there should be a slogan, Keep them awake at the

movies! As he well knew, lms usually play rom 90 to

130 minutes, and an audience starts to tire ater an hour,

and so they need an injection o what he called dope.The dope to keep them awake is action, movement, and

excitement. But there is more to it than that, because

movies need careul pacing, ast action, and quick edit-

ing. A well-paced lm should keep the audiences mind


33/41


21

occupied and this is achieved not necessarily by acting or

quick editing, but by a very ull story and the changing

o one situation to another.

Hitchcock never lmed a physical chase just or thesake o it. For every lm, your central character should

have a goal, an aim, and the audience should be rooting

or that character. A chase is essentially someone running

toward a goal, or feeing rom a pursuer (which is actu-

ally the pursuer running toward a goal). Hitchcock said,

Probably the ox hunt would be the simplest orm o the

chase. But put in place a girl instead o the ox, and sub-stitute the boy or the hunters, then you have a chase o

boy ater girl, or the police chasing a criminal. So long as

a plot has either fight or pursuit, it may be considered

a orm o the chase. In many ways the chase whether

in low or high gear makes up 60% o the construction

o all movie plots. Well or one thing, the chase seems

to be the nal expression o the motion picture medium.

Where but on screen can automobiles be shown careening

around corners ater each other? Then too, the movie is

the natural vessel or the chase story because the basic

lm shape is continuous. Once a movie starts it goes on.

The 39 Stepsis one o Hitchcocks avorite lms because

o the rapid and sudden switches in location. Once the

train leaves the station the lm never stops moving. Such

movement takes time to plan out, especially to blend the

characterization with the action. Halway through the

movie, lead character Hannay (Robert Donat) leaps out

o a police station window with hal a handcu on, and

immediately walks into a marching Salvation Army band.

To escape the police, he marches with the band, then slips

into a public hall, where hes immediately mistaken or

a guest speaker and ends up on an oratory platorm. Its

the rapid movement rom one scene to another, and using

one idea ater another, that keeps the audience hooked.


34/41


22

SUSPENSE VS. MELODRAMA

Its been my good ortune to have somethingo a monopoly on the genre. Nobody else seems

to have taken much interest in the rules or

suspense. Alred HitchcockHitchcock was dubbed the Master o Suspense and

rightly so. But what is suspense? It could be described as

the stretching out o anticipation. And what is the dier-

ence between mystery and suspense? The two terms oten

get conused. So lets hear it rom the Master himsel:

Mystery is an intellectual process, as in [solving] a who-

dunitbut suspense is essentially an emotional process.

With suspense its necessary to involve emotion.

One example o mystery occurs in Vertigowhen Scottie

(James Stewart) ollows Madeleine (Kim Novak) to the

McKittrick Hotel. He sees her in the bedroom window, but

when he goes up to her room, she has disappeared, as has

her car parked outside. Kim Novak remembers, I asked

Hitchcock how did Madeleine leave the hotel, because we

never see her leave. His answer was Thats why its a mys-

tery, my dear. In a mystery, you dont need the answer to

every question. And that was very important to Hitchcock,

to leave some questions unresolved so that the audience

will be thinking about them at the end o the movie.

Suspense, however, is dierent rom mystery. Nearly

all stories can do with suspense, not matter the genre.

Even a love story can have suspense. Its much more than

saving someone rom the path o an oncoming train;

theres also the suspense o whether the man will get the

girl. Suspense has largely to do with the audiences own

desires or wishes. So getting the suspense right in your

movie is a very important part o the process. Hitchcockcreated dierent ways o generating suspense, rom build-

ing story tension to editing techniques, to using sound

and music to evoke terror and anticipation.


35/41


23

GIVE YOUR AUDIENCE

INFORMATION

There is no terror in the bang, only in the

anticipation o it. Alred HitchcockAll suspense comes out o giving the audience inormation.

I you tell the audience that theres a bomb in the room and

that its going to go o in ve minutes thats suspense.

Hitchcock knew how to mix the ingredients o suspense

so that emotional tension became almost unbearable.

Were sitting here talking, said Hitch in an interview,and we dont know that theres a bomb hidden inside your

tape recorder. The public doesnt know either, and sud-

denly the bomb explodes. Were blown to bits. Surprise.

But how long does it last, the surprise and the horror?

Five seconds, no more. The secret, Hitch maintained,

was to let the audience in on the secret the ticking

bomb. In that way, instead o ve seconds o surprise,youve created ve minutes o suspense. The bomb need

not even go o or the audience to have had a thrilling

emotional experience.

The number one rule with suspense, then, is that

you must give the audience inormation. For example,

i something is about to harm the characters, show it

at beginning o the scene and let it play out. Constant

reminders o this looming danger will build suspense and

keep the audience on the edge. But remember that sus-

pense is not in the mind o the character. They must be

completely unaware o it.

A good example o this type o suspense building,

where the audience knows more than the characters,

occurs in The Birds. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) sits

in ront o a jungle gym outside Bodega Bay School and

starts to smoke a cigarette. Unbeknownst to her, one

crow lands on the bars o the jungle gym behind her. As

she continues smoking obliviously, two, three, our more


36/41


24

crows gather on the jungle gym. Finally Melanie notices a

single crow in the sky and ollows its movement down to

the jungle gym. It is now covered in a mass o menacing

crows, all awaiting Melanies next move. The suspense inthis scene is so exciting because it comes rom the audi-

ence knowing more than the character. There will be more

about this celebrated sequence in Chapter 6 on editing.

In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock lets the

audience know the moment an assassination attempt is

to be made at an Albert Hall diplomatic concert at the

strike o an orchestras cymbals. By pre-amiliarizingthe lms audience with the piece o music, and cutting

repeatedly to the percussionist holding the cymbals, the

build-up to the possible moment o murder becomes lled

with suspense.

INVOLVE YOUR AUDIENCE IN THE

SUSPENSEHitchcock made the bold decision in Vertigo to reveal to

the audience 40 minutes beore the end o the movie

that Madeleine Elster and her mysterious doppelgnger

Judy Barton (both played by Kim Novak) are in act the

same woman. Hitch said to his screenwriter Samuel Taylor,

This is the time or us to blow the whole truth. Taylor

was shocked, saying, Good God, why? The Paramountstudio executives were also against this, because they

wanted the ending to be a surprise, but Hitch knew that

it would be more powerul i he let the audience in on

the secret.

One o the atal things in suspense is to conuse the

audience. Without knowing that Madeleine and Judy are

the same person, audiences would be as conused and rus-trated as Jimmy Stewarts character, Scottie. So Hitchcock

decided to tell all in a fashback, and, in doing so, the

audience then sits through the remaining 40 minutes o


37/41


25

the lm thinking, What will Scottie do when he nds

out that its the same woman? What will Judy do when

he nds out? I the reveal were let to the very end, all

the audience gets is ve minutes o surprise. Good sus-pense should actively involve the audience in the telling

o the story.

I said i we dont let them know, they will speculate,

some o them will even say, maybe its the same girl,

Hitchcock said. Now they will get a blurred impression

o what is going on.

In Psychothe audience also knows more than the char-acters know when detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam)

enters the Bates house to investigate, one o the most

suspenseul scenes in Hitchcocks lms. We cant help but

eel anxious or Arbogast as we know that the murderous

Mrs. Bates is waiting or him at the top o the stairs. (And

yet, unlike Vertigos big reveal, Psychos secret the true

identity o Mrs. Bates is let as a nal shock or both

the characters and the audience. An interesting and

successul choice on Hitchcocks part.)

Another good example o suspense building occurs in

Marnie. The audience knows that a cleaning woman is

around the corner while Marnie is robbing the Rutland

oce sae. Marnie doesnt know which is more sus-

penseul or us, because although shes a thie, we dont

want her to be caught. The irony here is that through

this suspense technique the audience builds a sympathetic

attachment to the wrong-doer a Hitchcock specialty.

We know that stealing is wrong, but our desire to warn

Marnie about that cleaning lady ends up overwhelming

our logic.


38/41


26

OTHER DIRECTORS USING

SUSPENSE

Suspense is like a woman. The more let to

the imagination, the more the excitement. Alred Hitchcock

Although many people think o Hitchcocks lms as vio-

lent, Hitchcock actually rarely used graphic violence.

Suggestion was enough in his masterul hands. In

Psycho, ater the shower scene and Arbogasts murder

(themselves suggested more than graphically shown),there is less and less violence as the movie goes on. Hitch

elt that he had already worked the audience into enough

o an emotional state that just the expectation o possible

violence was now all that was needed. Nearly all suspense

movie directors draw upon the techniques used by and

usually rst developed by Hitchcock. One that comes to

mind more than any other is Steven Spielberg. During

the lming oJaws(1975), Spielberg had a great deal o

trouble with making the mechanical shark look authen-

tic and rightening. Suddenly Spielberg was let with

having to tell a story like Hitchcock, which is that you

dont show the shark or most o the movie. So he used

suspense techniques to tell the story. You see the reac-

tions o people to the shark, you see the shark towing

things through the water, you see spurting blood, you

see people being yanked underwater, but you never see

the shark itsel, and thats something Hitchcock would

have done and indeed did do during the bird attack on

the Brenner house towards the end oThe Birds. Its all

lmed with suggestion.

The whole technique which we used on The Blair

Witch Project, says director Daniel Myrick, and what I

continue to use to this day because its like Horror 101,

and it comes rom the Hitchcock Book you give clues

to whats happening or you hear whats happening or you


39/41


27

catch glimpses o whats happening, but you dont actu-

ally see it.

Hitchcocks infuence on suspense can also be clearly

seen in Jonathan Demmes The Silence o the Lambs(1991).Demmes editor Craig McKay says, Suspense is really an

expression o ear. We can build that in our storytelling

by withholding inormation. Frankly, its manipulation,

but in using that manipulation it also empowers the

story. Not knowing where were going to go next is the

thing that human beings hate the most. We would all like

to know where were going, i its all going to be alright.McKay and Demme always attempted to keep the audi-

ence rom getting ahead o the story in The Silence o the

Lambs, to keep it suspenseul.

Alejandro Amenbar, director o The Others (2001),

says, Steven Spielberg, Alred Hitchcock, and Stanley

Kubrick are the three directors that, when I was a teen-

ager, I used to analyze their movies and watch them over

and over. Their perspective I identied with them. In

the case o Hitchcock, his use o suspense is something

mathematical, and my rst three lms Tesis, Open Your

Eyes, and The Others have something to do with that.

The Bourne Identity(2002) has more action than most

Hitchcock movies and also has lots o suspense and sur-

prise together with an active chase sequence. Watch how

the story is told visually, through the editing, and how

the main characters point o view is used to make the

audience eel like a participant in the movie. Notice how

the audience oten knows more about the dangers than

the characters, and listen to how the tempo and type

o music raises the suspense. There will be more about

all o these techniques or developing suspense in the

ollowing chapters.

Many o todays movies take little time to build sus-

pense and are oten just one big explosion or CGI eect

ater another. Youve got to give your audience time to


40/41


28

get into the scene, and to build up suspense gradually, as

evidenced in the crop-duster scene oNorth by Northwest.

Today, youd have the guy get o the bus, and immedi-

ately the plane would show up and chase him into theeld. There would be dozens o special eects shots, and

the sequence wouldnt play nearly as well emotionally

with an audience. Its to Hitchs credit that he builds sus-

pense over eight minutes o silence.

E X E R C I S E S

1. Write down some ideas or a thriller or suspense movie

and see where it leads you. What are your themes and

how do they relate to the plot? Can you say what your

movie is about in one sentence?

2. Lay down your story in its barest orm and start to

write down your idea on one piece o paper. You dont

have to write very much, maybe just a man is asked tomeet someone at Grand Central Station and then some-

thing eventul happens. Where does the story lead?

3. Once youve written down your idea on one sheet o

paper, pitch to your riends what the lm is about.

Are you excited telling your story? Are your riends

excited about it and want to know where your

story leads?

4. Think about the protagonist or your lm. Is he or

she a hero or a heroine, a wrongully accused man, a

spy or a villain? Give your character attributes so that

they come alive on paper.

5. Come up with an idea or a MacGuin and how

it might drive the plot in your lm. Why do your

characters want it so badly? Watch the ollowing

lms: Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and Mission:


41/41


Impossible III. Can you spot what the MacGun is in

these movies? How does it drive the plot?

6. Write a suspenseul scene. Make sure that the audi-

ence knows more than your characters. How does that

make the scene more suspenseul?

7. Examine the ways inormation was manipulated in

the last lm you watched or in your avorite lm.

Focus on the rst 15 minutes o the lm. How are

Hitchcocks cinematic practices applied to these lms?

Key Hitchcock ilms to watch

North by Northwest(1959)

Psycho(1960)

The Birds(1963)

Other directors ilms to watch

Pulp Fiction (1994)

The Usual Suspects(1995)

Se7en (1995)

Inglourious Basterds(2009)

The Tourist(2010)

Further reading

Save the Cat!(2005) by Blake Snyder

Writing with Hitchcock(2011) by Steven De Rosa

Alfred Hitchcock's Moviemaking Master Class: Learning about Film from the Master of Suspense...

Documents

Transcript of Alfred Hitchcock's Moviemaking Master Class: Learning about Film from the Master of Suspense...