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The Techniques He Uses To Make |
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| Although Alfred Hitchcock has never won an Academy Award for
directing motion pictures, he is still considered to be one of the finest
directors living today. Books have been written about him by directors
themselves who were trying to find out what makes Hitchcock tick. They all
came to the same conclusion. Hitchcock has been able to consistently entice
the audience into becoming a character on the screen. Through clever
techniques, he enables the audience to actually have feelings for characters
he develops. It seems Hitchcock has found that by merely forming characters
on a realistic human level, audiences could accept them. To Hitchcock, realism need not be simple. By approaching a theme from several directions, even the most basic situations can be transformed into crucial experiences with complex characters acting them out for the audience. Naturally, these characters must be formed expertly, and many directors cannot take this on, but Hitchcock can. Hitchcock has been known to "break the rules of the movie game." That is, he can cast highly respected actors and actresses and turn them into burglars, agents, and even murderers right before their fans' eyes. After seeing this, the audience is shocked, and thus, an effect is created by one of his films. Hitchcock is also known to give the audience a "double surprise" in his films, and the second surprise is always more shocking than the first. An example of this was when Janet Leigh, a well-liked actress, played a thief in Hitchcock's Psycho. The audience was surprised at seeing her play a thief, and even more surprised when, while taking a shower, she is brutally stabbed by Anthony Perkins. However, even though the characters, casting, and surprises in a movie might be good, the stories from which the characters were taken must also be good. Hitchcock chooses his stories (or screenplays, as they are referred to in Hollywood) from books that he has enjoyed, and from plays that he considers for audience enjoyment and adapts for the screen. Occasionally, Hitchcock writes a story for one of his own films. Hitchcock has a way of taking a badly constructed story and turning it into an excellent film. He can create hypnotic atmospheres and outrageous events such as that even an occasional movie-goer will notice them. Having always pleased the audience, Hitchcock has received special recognition in that he is one of the few directors who has total control over the script, casting, and editing in his films. Certainly, this gives him an advantage over the many directors who must rely upon other people to do these jobs for them. Hitchcock understands that if a director has all of the main aspects of filmmaking in his power, it is his main job to keep them under control. Even such small items as the soundtrack, synchronization, and publicity of a film must not be forgotten. Many directors' films have been degraded by these minor details, but Hitchcock remains to be an all-around specialist and excels at every image. The camera seems to be his main aspect, though, and mainly because he effectively shows the audience exactly what he wants them to see. He gives the camera its maximum impact and seems to film the thoughts of characters at the same time. Hitchcock realizes that when an audience knows what a character is thinking, suspense builds, and the audience cannot help but to have feelings for the character. Both critics Pauline Kael and director Francois Truffaut have said that Hitchcock knows precisely where to put the camera, particularly in close-up situations. Examples of this are the scenes in which Robert Taylor is nearly devoured by a gruesome flock of birds in The Birds, and the frightening extra close-up stabbing of Oscar Homolka by Sylvia Sydney in Hitchcock's Sabotage. Although not all of Hitchcock's films have become hits, it is the scenes similar to these that make even his worst films interesting to watch. In almost all of Hitchcock's films, although it may seem that suspense has built up throughout the movie, it is probably just an individual scene that is causing the suspense to occur. The audience usually does not realize this because they are too involved in the film that they are watching.Only the more expert viewers will see that all of Hitchcock's scenes are very solid, and that each tells a little story in itself. When a movie is totally composed of individual scenes like this, it usually turns out to be either very good or very bad. Consecutive scenes also tell a story, even it the individual scenes that make it up do not. Most directors use consecutive scenes to tell a story that the audience is not acquainted with. In Hitchcock's case, his consecutive scenes tell a story, but are actually sequences of human experience that the audience is familiar with. Thus, through all of these technicalities, we find that Hitchcock's films not only create and sustain emotions, but also clarify and simplify the most complex relationships between human beings. Hitchcock has directed fifty-three films to date, and in each there is something that arouses the audience. Whether it be the characters, actors, stories, surprises, camerawork, or merely the knowing that the person making the film knows exactly what he's doing, audiences will continue to enjoy the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the many ways in which he made us respond to them. |
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| by Michael Aita | ||
| Quelle: | ||
| www.geocities.com/Hollywood/3031/Essays.htm | ||