Byron once said that there are two kinds of people in this world: one who writes about his life, and one who writes about his fantasies. Obviously, this law applies to all artistic creations. Undoubtedly, Hitchcock belongs to the latter, he has no interest in the authenticity of this world, and he uses his camera to create another world of suspense for us.
Alfred Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was a director, screenwriter, producer, and actor.
Today marks the 120th anniversary of Hitchcock's birth. He is recognized as a master of suspense, and the countless fragments in his films are still nightmares in the hearts of many people. As the years passed, while countless filmmakers paid tribute to him, the works of art he created remained unmatched.
If in today's age Ingmar Bergman everyone can accept the idea that "cinema is no less than literature", then I think Hitchcock should be among the so-called "artistes inquiets" like Kafka, Dostoevsky and Ehrenburg. These anxious artists are obviously unable to help us with our lives because their tools of life are nothing more than art forms.
However, their mission is to let us share the troubles with them. In this regard, whether voluntarily or not, they can indeed help us to better understand ourselves, which is the basic purpose of all works of art.
- Hitchcock and Truffaut Dialogue
Writing + finishing | Sula Zhang Chenzhi
About Hitchcock's life sensitivity, observation, brilliance
The young Hitchcock was introverted and shy, lonely and sensitive, and he once remembered Truffaut's childhood— sitting alone in the corner of his home, without a word, carefully observing the adults talking. He enjoys walking alone on the streets of London, reading maps, train timetables and travel brochures. He always felt that there was a dark trance of life calling him in the distance.
Hitchcock had no formal film or theatre training, and if he had to find an artistically relevant part of his resume, it would have been around 1913 when he took an art course at the University of London. At the end of 1914, his father died, hitchcock enrolled in the Engineering Shipping School for short-term training, and the following year he became a technician at the Henry Telecommunications Company.
Hitchcock's wedding to Irma Revere
Hitchcock first tried writing novels, and in June 1919 he published a short story called Anesthetic in the company's corporate magazine. The following year, he volunteered to work on the design of subtitles at a studio at Lasky Star Company in Elinston, where he was soon formally hired, where he met the film editor Irma Revere, 20 years after their birth.
At the end of 1922, he first attempted to become a director in the production of films called Madame Peabody, and since then he has worked as a director or art director in films such as Woman to Woman.
Young Hitchcock on set
At the age of 39, Hitchcock left London for Los Angeles, where he met Thomas Mann and Ernest Hemingway the following year, and in the fall of that year, he directed his first hollywood film, Butterfly Dream, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture, his first step toward success. Since then, his film and television career has continued to be brilliant, and he has been nominated for the Best Director Award by Oster for films such as "Horror". He became an American citizen in 1955 and won a Golden Globe award for Berserk in 1972. In March 1979, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, but at the same time, his health deteriorated and he was eventually forced to give up film work.
Hitchcock won an Oscar in 1968
About Hitchcock's film humanity, class, era
What should a typical "Hitchcock"-esque movie look like? Screaming, the heroine's wide-eyed eyes or James Stewart? No, maybe it's clever camera movement, maybe it's the carefully arranged space and all sorts of seemingly meaningless details. Or "MacGuffin", the object of exchange and the object of imagination. I've long been told that Hitchcock is a director whose work can be rationalized from any angle.
For the average audience, Hitchcock could mean some good story that is exquisitely crafted — love, stealing, murder, Oedipus, homosexuality. For critics, Hitchcock was a pass that won both Hollywood box office and intellectual favor, representing both banknotes and honors. The academy snatched the movie of the fat uncle and cut it into 20,000 pictures with a knife, each of which had to be studied in great detail under a magnifying glass. In the eyes of psychoanalysts, these 20,000 pictures are all about sex, sex, and sex.
What exactly does Hitchcock's film mean?
Perhaps we've been bombarded with Chainsaw-style Hollywood thrillers for too long, and the advent of color photography and the rapid development of special effects technology have brought the atmosphere of suspense or horror closer and closer to visual impact. Compared to Hitchcock's seemingly pointless bathroom murders, we are clearly more frightened when we see a bloody, realistic 3D broken leg.
But the exaggerated graphics and shocking sound effects were not important to hitchcock. The runaway world, the desperate life, this dark and oppressive atmosphere is the main environment of Hitchcock's films. People are reluctant to express their innermost thoughts, always trying to find clues in each other's eyes, and communication has even become irrelevant, because Hitchcock has used his camera to guess the most sensitive and subtle emotions and desires in each character's heart.
Classic stills from the movie "Horror Story"
Hitchcock's film magnifies the gaze to the extreme, so that the audience has to stare at both the eyes of reality and imagination, and observe every move in the picture intently, which allows the most subtle psychological changes of the characters in the film to be detected, and in the process achieves the audience's successful voyeurism in the cinema.
In the 110 years since the birth of the film, the essence of its voyeuristic art has not changed. The days of storytelling around campfires are long gone, and the development of video technology has allowed us to better and more privately observe and even participate in the lives of others, we may be Norman in "Horror" who observes the tenant from the hole, and we are also the woman who was murdered by Norman in the bathroom.
Poster for the movie "Soul Reaper"
In his early years of writing and shooting in Britain, and then going to Hollywood, Hitchcock, as a director, presented not only the gossip in a room, but also human nature, class, and era. As shown in the previous film Soul Reaper, he describes the daily life of the bourgeoisie, but absolutely forbids the mediocre ways. Hitchcock's quest grew deeper, more bizarre and more fascinating. Hidden under this frame is Hitchcock's inexhaustible creative dream. While delivering a fatal blow to this ruthless and boring society, he does not forget to return to us an even more incredible fantasy world.
So, what are the commonly used fixed suspense elements of Hitchcock, who is known as the "master of thriller suspense"? What signs can help you recognize a Greek masterpiece at a glance from the vast sea?
Suspense Element 1: Stairs
The staircase is a suspenseful element often used in Hitchcock's films, and it is said to be related to Hitchcock's childhood experiences. When he was a child, he was particularly sensitive to the dark and was very afraid to go up the stairs, and he always thought that there must be something terrible hidden in the darkness at the corner of the stairs in his home.
Both Ecstasy and Berserk use staircase elements, where Hitchcock draws on expressionist methods, with oppressive light and shadows and a dim tone that render the atmosphere of horror well. In "Ecstasy", the staircase shows the hero's vertigo and fear of heights, so that the audience also has a sense of disorientation in it. The staircase in "Berserk" uses more empty shots, allowing the audience to imagine the unknown space before the tense moment comes, creating the greatest suspense.
Stills from Ecstasy
Suspense Element 2: Shadows
Shadows in Hitchcock's films are ubiquitous and rendered well. Shadows are generally used to set off a dark, oppressive, and terrifying atmosphere, and have been represented in films such as "Horrors", "North by Northwest" and "Birds".
In particular, the film "Flock of Birds", which is an atypical suspense film, and its storyline alone is not even enough to be a true suspense thriller. Under Hitchcock's camera, every bird is a dark creature in a horror movie. Before the birds began to attack humans, the whole color tone of the film did not use shadows much, it presented a scene of everyday life that could be seen everywhere; but when the hidden disaster broke out, the shadow component increased significantly, the birds came to humans with black pressure, the frightened faces were printed with shadows, and all the horrors became reality, and there was no light.
Stills from "Flock of Birds"
Suspense Element 3: Blonde Beauty
Hitchcock's love for blonde beauties was evident to all, and he himself did not hide his enthusiasm for blonde beauties: "Blonde beauties are the most suitable for murder, and how beautiful it is when red blood flows from their snow-white skin!" ”
In almost all of Hitchcock's films, the heroines are blonde standard beauties, they are beautiful and moving, but they also hide a crisis, and almost every blonde beauty can not escape the tragedy of being murdered in the film.
Stills from "Horror Story"
Stills from "Rear Window"
Suspense Element 4: Telephone
Telephone settings are very common in Hitchcock's films, and can be seen in movies such as Rear Window, Horror, and Train Freak. The telephone is no longer simply a simple prop of life in the film, it also plays a role in contacting insiders, discovering major information clues, and promoting the development of the plot throughout the story narrative. In the film "Telephone Murder", this element is used to the extreme, and the telephone even appears in the most critical murder moment.
Stills from Murder on the Phone
Suspense Element 5: The murderer is around
"Soul Reaper" is a bold experiment in the filming of Hitchcock's film, and the film also most significantly summarizes the suspenseful element of Hitchcock's "murderer is around".
In Reaper of Souls, Hitchcock used the long lens to the extreme, almost to the end. This shows Hitchcock's powerful scene scheduling ability, which completely breaks the narrative rules of montage, and the performances of the film actors are comparable to stage plays. Because the suspense of this film is thrown out very early, the audience already knows who the murderer is at the beginning of the film, and the long film narrative in the second half makes the audience feel as if they are in it, and the pressure and challenge to the audience's psychology are extreme.
Stills from Soul Reaper
This article is exclusive original content, originally published in the Beijing News Book Review Weekly on April 29, 2015. Author: Sula Zhang Chenzhi; Editor: Fang Ge Xixi.