Alfred Hitchcock, full name Sir Alfred Hitchcock, (born 13 August 1899 in London, England – died 29 April 1980 in Bel Air, California, United States) is a British-born American film director whose suspense films and television shows have won great popularity and acclaim over a long and productive career. His films are marked by a creepy sense of humor and a somewhat bleak view of the human condition.
Hitchcock's first film as director was the comedy Madame Peabody (1922; also known as Number 13), which was unfinished due to lack of funds. His first film was Always Tell Your Wife (1923). In 1926, Hitchcock married Alma Revel, his film editor and scripting supervisor. The following year, he produced the melodrama Downhill, Easy Virtue (from Noel Cowward's play) and the boxing play The Lord of the Rings, which were hugely successful. The comedies The Farmer's Wife and Champagne (both 1928) were followed by the tragic romance (box office hit) and Maxman (1929). In 1939, Hitchcock left England for Hollywood. His first film produced in the United States, Butterfly Dream (1940), won the Academy Award for Best Picture. His best-known films include Horror (1960), Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). His work is known for its depictions of violence, although many of his plots simply act as bait, intended as tools to understand complex psychological traits. His cameo appearances in his films, as well as his interviews, movie trailers, and the gift of the TV show Alfred Hitchcock (1955–1965), made him a cultural icon.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Hitchcock's creative style</h1>
The "Hitchcockian" style included the use of camera movements to mimic the human gaze, thus turning the viewer into voyeurism, and framing to maximize anxiety and fear. Film critic Robin Wood writes that the significance of Hitchcock's films "lies in the method, in the progress from shot to shot." Hitchcock films are an organism in which the whole is implicit in every detail, and every detail is related to the whole. ”
Hitchcock's filmmaking career grew from small-scale silent films to economically significant sound films. Hitchc said he was influenced by early filmmakers George Mérière, DW Griffith and Alice Guy-Brache. His silent films between 1925 and 1929 belonged to the crime and suspense genres, but also included melodrama and comedy. While visual storytelling was important in the age of silence, even after the advent of sound, Hitchcock relied on visual effects in the film.
Earning the title of "Master of Suspense", the director tried ways to generate tension in his work. He said, "My suspense work comes from creating nightmares for the audience. I play with the audience. I let them gasp, surprised them, shocked them. When you have nightmares, if you are dreaming of being taken to an electric chair. Then wake up as happy as you can because you're relieved. ”
Hitchcock worked with his writers to plan his script in detail. In Writing with Hitchcock (2001), Steven De Rosa notes that Hitchcock oversees each of their drafts and asks them to tell stories visually. Hitchcock told Roger Albert in 1969 that I wouldn't make the film again once the script was complete. All the fun is over. I have a strong visual mind. I visualize the picture to the final clip. I wrote all of this in the most detail in the script, and then I didn't read the script when shooting. I know this just as an orchestra conductor doesn't need to look at the sheet music. It was melancholy to take pictures. When you finish the script, the movie is perfect. But when you shoot it, you may lose 40% of your original idea.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Hitchcock's great film</h1>
Hitchcock's films are widely divided into the finest details. He reportedly never even bothered to look through the viewfinder because he didn't need to, although in promotional photos he did. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his film from his original vision. If the studio asked him to change the film, he would claim that it had been shot in a single way and that there was no other option to consider.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Hitchcock, who won the Oscar for the first time</h1>
Butterfly dreams
Butterfly Dream is a film starring Lawrence Olivier as Maxime Derwent, a melancholy aristocratic widower, Joan Fonden as the young woman who becomes his second wife, and supporting roles by Judith Anderson, George Sanders, and Gladys Cooper. The film is a Gothic story shot in black and white. Maxim Derwent's first wife, Rebecca, died before the film's events, and she never appeared. However, her fame and memories of her have always been present in the lives of Maxim, his new wife and housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers.
Butterfly Dream was released in theaters on April 12, 1940, with critical and commercial success. It received 11 nominations at the 13th Academy Awards, more than any other film of the year. It won two awards; Best Picture and Best Cinematography, becoming the only film directed by Hitchcock to win the previous award. In 2018, it was selected as a film for preservation in the U.S. National Film Register by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > four great films directed by Hitchcock</h1>
Rear window
Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which can be written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Must Be Murder." Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film starred James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Selma Ritter and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.
The film is considered by many fans, critics and academics to be one of Hitchcock's best and one of the greatest films of all time. It was nominated for four Academy Awards and joined the National Film Register in 1997 as "of cultural, historical or aesthetic significance" in the Library of Congress.
Vertigo This poster has won several awards
Vertigo is a 1958 American noir psychological thriller directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock.
The film is played by James Stewart as former detective John" Scotty"Ferguson. Scotty was forced to retire early because he developed a fear of heights (extreme fear of heights) and vertigo (a false feeling of spinning motion) while performing his official duties.
Film locations were filmed in cities like San Francisco, California, as well as San Juan Bautista, Great Basin Sequoia National Park, Cypress on 17 Miles Road, and Paramount Films in Hollywood. It was the first film to use cart zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts the perspective to cause disorientation, conveying Scotty's fear of heights. Due to its use in this film, this effect is often referred to as the "vertigo effect".
Vertigo received mixed reviews when it was first released, but is now often cited as one of the classic Hitchcock films and one of the defining works of his career. It attracted important academic criticism, and in the 2012 British Film Institute's Voting for Sight and Hearing Critics, it replaced Citizen Kane (1941) as the greatest film of all time. The film is often considered one of the greatest films of all time. It has appeared several times in the Motion Picture Institute's Best Film Polls, including being named the ninth largest American film of all time in 2007. In 1996, the film underwent major restorations to create a new 70mm print and DTS soundtrack.
In 1989, Vertigo was one of the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress to be kept in the National Film Registry for "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance."
North-northwest
North by Northwest is a 1959 American spy thriller produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Gary Grant, Eva Marie Sant, and James Mason. [3] The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "Hitchcock's Films Ending All Hitchcock's Films".
North by Northwest is a misidentified story of an innocent man being hunted down across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to stop him from blocking their plans to smuggle microfilm containing government secrets.
North by Northwest is listed as one of the classic Hitchcock films of the 1950s and is often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. It was selected by the Library of Congress in 1995 for preservation in the National Film Register because of its "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance."
Horror Notes
Horror Is an American psychological horror thriller produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960. The screenplay for the film, written by Joseph Stefano, is based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Martin Ballsam. The plot revolves around the encounter between the fugitive Marion Crane and the shy motel owner Norman Bates (Perkins) and its aftermath, with a private detective (Balsam), Marion's lover Sam Lumis (Gavin) and her sister Lila (Miles) investigating the reason for her disappearance.
The film was initially considered controversial and received mixed reviews, but audience interest and excellent box office returns sparked a major critical reappraisal. Psycho has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including Janet Leigh for Best Supporting Actress and Hitchcock for Best Director.
Horrors is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and arguably his most famous. Due to its fluid direction, tense atmosphere, impressive cinematography, memorable soundtrack and iconic performances, it has been hailed by international film critics and scholars as an important work of cinematic art. Often listed as one of the greatest films of all time, it set a new acceptable level of violence, deviance, and sexuality in American cinema, and is widely regarded as the earliest example of the gore film genre.
After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal produced follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a TV spin-off series, and a prequel series set in the 2010s. In 1992, the Library of Congress considered the film to have "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance" and chose to keep it in the National Film Register.
Hitchcock directed more than 50 feature films in his 60-year career. He received the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1979. A year later, on April 29, 1980, Hitchcock died peacefully in his sleep in Bel Air, California. Survived by his lifelong partner, assistant director and closest collaborator, Alma Reville, also known as "Mrs. Hitchcock," who died in 1982.