The Thrill of a Hitchcock Moment (part 2)
By: Dan Jones
One year ago, I implored you to have an Alfred Hitchcock Halloween, intending to return the next week and review some of his best work. Now that 360-odd days have passed, I’m hoping you have seen, and learned, something worth remembering.
TIP #1: Hitchcock’s use of diegetic sound (the actual sound happening within a scene). Perhaps you’ve written or read reports on Hitchcock and already know much of his method involves not only extensive tracking camera work but an evident usage (and not manipulation) of ambient sound. This allowed him to place the audience inside the scene as opposed to being limited to visuals.
“THE BIRDS”
This 1963 classic happens to be one of Hitchcock’s most dated, and yet innovative, films; and in the end, the good outweighs the bad. Keep in mind, most classic thrillers have out-of-date moments due to insufficient technicals. “The Birds” is no different. Character-driven thrillers are, however, a rarity.
The complex characters of “The Birds” are in a state of self-absorption or self-reliance. Or they’re plain running away from their private troubles. Somehow, though, they’ve managed to hold on this long.
Then, suddenly, birds begin to attack. Don’t know why, but the town’s been targeted.
Before the film’s first gull-swooping scene, there is the set up.
‘Tippi’ Hedren is going to take a boat across the bay, sneakily drop a note at a door, and return before getting caught. The entire extent of her travel is played out. She rents the boat, she crosses the bay, she drops the note, and she crosses back; but the receiver of the note (Rod Taylor) spots her. He proceeds to his car and drives around the bay, reaching the other end of the dock first. Just before Tippi’s in earshot to exchange dialogue with Taylor, the gull swoops.
Was the entire scene necessary? Hitchcock believed so. The lack of a musical score, the use of a boat motor, and NOT utilizing a dissolve for time passage pinpoints this as a Hitchcock moment. His direction consists of careful and simple decisions.
“BLACKMAIL”
When Hitchcock first dabbled in sound in 1929 with what would be remembered as the first British talkie, he had the foresight to have a car pass the frame and honk its horn. This was before a common part of filmmaking (sound recording) was to constantly change the ambient sound. Hitchcock knew establishing a city atmosphere would contrast the quiet interior ambience of the following scene.
“REAR WINDOW”
In 1954, Hitchcock made use of having that rear window open. The pleasantness of Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart’s romance could now be swayed or cut short by a piano-playing neighbor across the yard. The weeping of a lonely woman would echo directly into Stewart’s abode. In fact, throughout the film, the ambience of the city complex allows us to concentrate on a one-room-romance while keeping an ear on what’s happening outside. If these two love birds are intrigued by mysterious happenings in their own complex, so are we.
“STRANGERS ON A TRAIN”
A carousel’s melody will linger and haunt the mind of our disturbed stranger and inevitably stir up the bad. There will be the singling out of this stranger at a tennis match as the crowd keeps their eyes on the game; all the while, we hear the ball bounce out of camera range. Screams and giggles tickle our curiosity as we watch the shadows of a couple enter the tunnel of love by boat.
TIP #2: Sometimes it is hard to know what senses Hitchcock is playing with. But they are being played with. A good director knows when, and how, to keep his audience intrigued.
“REBECCA” and “THE PARADINE CASE” have final monologues told off screen. The last puzzle pieces of “Rebecca” are connected as the camera combs a room of nothing but furniture, leaving the rest to our imagination. In “The Paradine Case,” Gregory Peck reveals his mixed emotions in the final shot as we listen to the words of another. (Open your senses for the phone calls in “FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.”)
TIP #3: Having the sense of “real time.” Cutting the “cuts.”
An audience is placed high on the Statue of Liberty (“SABOTEUR”) or the heads of Mount Rushmore (“NORTH BY NORTHWEST”) because Hitchcock will not cut away from the scene. Planes will come down on Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart will be frightened for Grace Kelly yards away, and two men can quarrel without ending a party (“ROPE”); but the audience mustn’t turn their heads or they might miss something. Real time, or extensive takes, were rare fifty, sixty, seventy years ago; and Hitchcock, with his blend of sensory and imagery, knew when to keep our eyes open.
TIP #4: Intense music can elevate a scene to caution or reinforce the terror occurring before your very eyes.
There are the amazing scores of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, but the most prominent of tones and melodies do not so much define Hitchcock as they do composer Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann’s abrupt, gut-wrenching horns and string sections have struck fear into moviegoers’ hearts on non-Hitchcock classics such as “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” “Cape Fear,” and “Taxi Driver.” But then again, Hitchcock may have inspired Herrmann’s best work: “Marnie,” “Vertigo,” and “Psycho.”
TIP #5: Nobody’s perfect.
Dated Hitchcock moments: the fast-motion in “Rear Window,” the special effects of “The Birds,” the backwards tripping in “Psycho,” the misplaced humor in “The Trouble with Harry”, the strange comical moments and singing of Doris Day in “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956), and the worst of all of Hitchcock’s films is the drunk driving scenes of “North by Northwest” – a classic on the edge of ruin.
But by the end of any Hitchcock film, you know you’ve seen something exceptional and unmatchable. To suspend the audience’s belief was all he ever wanted. Experience them firsthand.
TIP #6: When questioning a non-Hitchcock movie’s pacing or special effects, ask yourself what else the picture had going for it. Was there a director’s mark? Could there have been? Do you remember being suspended, or were you merely watching the flashing images?
When all is said and done (and heard); there can only be one master of suspense …
Master – A man having control over the action of another or others.
Suspense – Anxiety or apprehension resulting from an uncertain, undecided, or mysterious situation.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK (1899-1980)
Birds:
Blackmail:
Rearwindow: 
Strangers on a Train: