Alfred Hitchcock

Overall, I was very impressed and pleased by my foray into Hitchcock that I was exposed to in this class. Having obviously, as most people have, heard of most of his work, I had only really seen "The Birds" by him, it being frequently on AMC and as something to curb my boredom during the summer months. The three movies that we watched, having heard of 2/3 of the before I took the class (The 39 steps was new to me) lived up to my expectations of what I had come to expect from him as a director.


One theme that is apparent to many that I thought made his films unique and enjoyable was the wrong man that stars in them. What I and others mean by this is the predicament that the main character, in these movies male, is put into after already having suffered a difficult ordeal (well, in 2 of the 3), being it either a broken leg or acquiring a case of vertigo. These men are normal, everyday guys who just happened to be in the wrong (or right) place at the right time. These men also seem to have in a sense an obsessive attitude that drives them, be it in Rear Window with his wanting to solve a mystery and becoming a stagnant peeping tom, or in Vertigo where his want to acquire ones love drives him to obsession.


I was also impressed by the camera work that Hitchcock uses in his films. Never one to have a fixed camera for a very long time, he fancied doing intricate tracking shots and long takes (as exemplified in one of his earlier films Rope) as well as doing creative things such as creating the "Vertigo" effect looking down the stairwell by tracking back and zooming in on a sideways stairwell, paying thousands of dollars just for a few seconds of footage.


Overall I think that Hitchcock was a worthwhile director to study as his pioneering craftsmanship and attention to detail really set him above alot of other directors that have existed.