Released in the United States on August 5, 1955, To Catch a Thief is a love suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which was nominated for the Golden Lion award at the 20th Venice Film Festival and best cinematography at the 28th Academy Awards.
As one of the most mythical figures in the history of cinema, Hitchcock won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on January 1 of the following year, he was not only the pioneer of thriller films, but also called "Horror Master" by later generations. Today we will appreciate his masterpiece "To Catch a Thief" movie ~
The panorama of the film is in a small town in France, where the terrain is blessed and the surrounding mountains provide a road with terrifying cliffs, which becomes an optimal platform for shooting by car. The film is about a thief Robbie who, after he prepares to wash his hands in the golden basin, suddenly a new thief begins to imitate his theft methods, leaving him with a wrongdoing. In order to exonerate him of this crime, he decided to re-emerge from the jianghu to find the killer's passionate and magnificent story.
The original story content is very exciting, but under the guidance of Hitchcock, such a suspense film is actually confusing to watch, the film is very illogical, all kinds of plots are incredible, this kind of expression is the West End Cotter carelessness or perfunctory for the story content, we can only slowly explore from the text.
The male protagonist Robbie in "To Catch a Thief" is a Jiangyang thief who steals jewelry for a living, but in the choice of actors, West End Cote chooses a thief who is full of integrity, gentlemanly morale, and handsomeness. Such identity and appearance are completely inconsistent with people's previous moral values. In addition, the hero is also a thief, and such an identity does not affect his personable personality as a popular lover.
Hitchcott is extremely sympathetic to Robbie's identity change in this film, mentioning in the film that Kobe Bryant once worked as an acrobat in a circus, and due to the shortage of funds in the circus, the dissolution of the entire group eventually led to robbing. However, Robbie's theft belongs to the way of theft - robbing the rich and helping the poor, similar to the modern Robin Hood. And later, robbie joined the Resistance during the fall of France. Such a special honor makes the image of this thief seem less hateful.
Conforming to the fact that life for various reasons or revolutionary wars have made the image of this thief more just, which may be a very attractive character of the revolutionary revolution of the 50s. This also shows a characteristic of the depiction of gangsters in the traditional sense of the police film genre.
In "To Catch a Thief", Robbie does not ask for help from anyone in restoring his reputation. Instead, he embarked on the path of self-honor restoration alone. This is a very common pattern presentation of a cat and mouse game. The famous Japanese film "The Hunt" is one of the masterpieces of this type of film. They wander outside the law on their own to find a kind of fairness and justice.
However, in "To Catch a Thief", Robbie is in the biggest predicament, he bears the splint gas on the one hand from the police to hunt him down, on the other hand, it is the battle of wits between him and the real thieves, such a situation brings greater obstacles to his bloody road, but from another point of view, it increases his heroic charm.
Of course, the most incredible thing about this movie is that in the process of Robbie's step-by-step search for the real culprit, the person he asks for help is really the mastermind behind the scenes. It's all incredible. How can a person who can wash away his grievances without a little bit of logical thinking. Is this still the same Jiang Yang thief who stole jewelry in front of the Royal Police without changing his face?
This may also be the inferiority of a person that West End Cote wants to show, stupidity, rudeness, and unintelligence, or maybe this is Hitchcourt's personal special love. There is no detailed logical reasoning in this movie, no intriguing cases, just want to show the wantonness of human nature and emotional indulgence in this suspenseful atmosphere
Compared to suspense and crime cases, Hitchcott was clearly less interested. However, the grasp of human nature is extremely subtle, such as Robbie's emotional line, which shows a kind of intersection between human nature and feelings. The most eye-catching thing in this film is the two heroines, and the charm and wisdom of the heroines seem to be the main theme of this film.
The relationship between the female snitch who meets on the roof and the rich woman and Robbie seems to be the core of the film, the enthusiasm of the female snitch is like fire, and the sexy and delicate of the rich woman. This is also the easiest vase type of woman in this type of police movie to set up, and the setting of this character highlights the charm of male characters. Reflecting a strong feeling that men are dependent on in the emotional world by women, it seems that women have become appendages of male characters.
The well-known "007" is also very skillful in the use of this technique, and this method of perspective shows that masculine voyeurism tends to dominate the position. Is it inferiority? Or is it commendable? Not to be evaluated at first, but in the popular framework of the film world, the form of expression is made public and spread everywhere, satisfying the film lens's display of male personality. This must have a positive role in promoting the performance of the film.
The setting of the character in the movie "To Catch a Thief" and the motivation for the development of the audition, as well as the way the female personality is set. It shows the three most representative expressions of this kind of cat-and-mouse game film. But this very representative film technology expression method, so that later films are based on this, fantasy character background, bizarre case, beautiful girl have become the three elements of cat and mouse movies must be indispensable, Hitchcott led a type of film shooting skills, so that later generations have called it "film skills treasure box". For the entire history of film, his contribution must not be ignored.