Film and Theory // 23rd November 2011 Film and Theory // 23rd November 2011
- 'The Auteur'; An Auteur is a film maker, usually the director - 'the one that moulds the film'. Movies are characterised by the filmmakers unique influences (an Auteur). Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most famous Auteurs of all time. The word Auteur is french for 'author'.
- Auteurs are very similar in many ways to artists. They have original work, start new conventions - yet don't always follow them, they have their own unique language and have creative control. A key element of being a good film maker.
- Other famous Auteurs alongside Alfred Hitchcock are Kubrick, Tarantino, and Jean Luc Goddard etc.
- Auteurs have innovative technical competence and therefore all films produced by Auteurs follow these functions - Sarros 1962 (American)
- 'Cahier du Cinema' is a journal about filmmakers - (I was actually in 'Waterstones' today and personally came across these journals. I found them really useful especially the one about Hitchcock as following the lecture yesterday I know have a greater understanding of his work and why he goes about it the way he does. It was interesting the gain a different perspective to his work than the one portrayed in the lecture yesterday.)
- Hitchcock worked for over 50 years with film, beginning with silent movies, he was a master of suspense. Hitchcock specialised in controlling and manipulating his audiences. A specific genre which suits his work is 'psychological thriller'. The french new wave were the first to celebrate Hitchcock's style and his persona as an 'Auteur'.
- Hitchcock began his career in the 1920's using mainly lighting and very little dialogue in a film in order to innovate new aspects of film making, for example; the dolly zoom and montaging film scenes. His focus on expressionist lighting and visual storying telling was predominantly due to the silent era. He only brought in his use of subjective camera, dolly zoom and montaging in 1939 which continued through to 1960.
- When his career began in 1920, he first set out designing the sets of films as he was a very skilled artist. He then continued his apprenticeship alongside Graham Cutts, at Gainsborough. Five years later, in 1925, studio head Michael Balcon dispatched Hitchcock to Germany, where he saw firsthand the work of famous filmmakers like F.W Murnau.
'The lodger' 1927
- In 1927 Hitchcock produced his first fully acknowledged film 'The lodger'. It was a silent film, very avant-garde and he demonstrates his skilled use of colour, shadow and expressionism. Lot's of makeup is used throughout the movie and in the image below we see his controlled use of shadow as the crucifix lies perfectly across and face and eyes of the character.
- Within the movie music is a key element of suspense and creates a mood for each individual scene. There is a clever montage and use of overlapping creating a ghost-like effect. There os a scene where he visually creates the effect of somebody pacing up and down. He shoots the scene through a glass floor to show this whereas nowadays footsteps would be heard through sound and movement. This is an example of how Hitchcock solves problems visually through dolly zoom and montage.
- 'The lodger' is a silent film which is exaggerated through lighting and begins to be influenced by Cubism and French New Wave. His use of the glass floor to show sound visually allows Hitchcock to construe technical limitations. It's at this stage when Hitchcock begins to develop create a continuous style of film as the spy/line cut way of editing scenes.
- Hitchcock uses dolly zoon as an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to determine the abnormal.
Here is a clip from the movie;
'Champagne' 1928
- Seeing two characters kiss through the glass. This is another example of Alfred Hitchcock's unique way of working with the camera. Voyeurism is a common theme in most (if not all) of his films. The film 'Champagne' displays some interesting montage techniques.
Here is a video clip below which shows his interesting use of montage from around 1 minute 30 seconds;
Cutting and Montage
"What is drama, but life with all the dull bits cut out" - Hitchcock
Juxtaposition of imagery in different sizes.
Here is an interview with Alfred Hitchcock from 1964:
- Psycho 1966 storyboard- these numerous sketches only accounted for 46 seconds of movie clip. Here you can see his use of cutting and camera shots. Shadow on curtain, Sound, Film cuts, blood in water, hand collapsing and losing life, no actual violence shown - unseen at the time, plenty of tension and suggestion, curtains rip as all life is lost, end on a close up of eye. This is a clip from the famous shower scene.
- Hitchcock pioneers his cutting and montage techniques by using small sections of film bites to show the drama, speed and emotion of the moment in a film. He uses this technique to dispute the restrictions of showing violence and brutality. Cutting the scene creates tension as it shows the most vital parts of the action, e.g walking to the death scene.
- In the shower scene above Hitchcock uses impressionistic elements by portraying a nude woman being murdered - Hitchcock never actually shows the naked flesh through cutting and montaging. This is where his technique becomes very intricate only allowing the audience to see certain elements of the scene.
- Orchastration is also used where Hitchcock includes loud and soft notes to create tension in a dramatic scene.
- Size of image; different sized images are put together to show distance shots and close ups creating shock for the audience.
- Pure cinematics - the assembly of film; developed a style or characteristic within each of his films.
- Suspense is generated when an audience see's danger and the characters are unaware. Hitchcock is not concerned with realism yet he wants to evoke emotional responses. "There is no terror in the bang of a gun, only the anticipation of it" - Hitchcock.
- Hitchcock has cameo appearances in each of his films. In many ways this is like his own signature on his work like an artist signs their own painting on canvas.
Vertigo
- In 'Vertigo', Hitchcock uses colour, filters and shapes effectively throughout his expressionistic dream sequence. Throughout the film 'Vertigo' Hitchcock constantly uses references to the colour 'Meridian Green' which is there to represent 'the ever living'. He states that "colour is used in an expressionistic way".
- His hallucinating scene; music, mad colours, new technology, modern, graphic, abstract, clever.
- Expression through colour usage and dolly zoom innovated in this film. Dream sequence of the reliving of a situation is made dramatic with his use of filters.
- Hitchcock obsesses over the psychological thoughts of the audience
- He takes influences from surrealism and his collaboration with Salvador Dali to understand the minds of the people and what scares them.
- Voyeurism again comes into play in the majority of films.
Hitchcock's themes in cinema
Throughout Hitchcock's films he constantly refers back to blondes. Here are some examples of actresses he has worked with over the years - Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Doris Day etc. Here is a photograph to example this, here we also see how he uses cameo's of himself throughout his work;
- Hitchcock aims the majority of his work at a female audience, and tries to provoke fear in women. He says this is the medium of pure cinema. He states in his interview that 80% of the audience in a cinema are women. His opinion of cinema today is very different - he voices that today's cinema is photographs of people talking with no meaning and no emotion.
Interior Meaning
- In 1938 Hitchcock leaves Gainsborough England to work in America, where he worked on films playing with Surrealism: 'Rebecca', 'Spellbound' and 'Notorious'.
- He then worked on his collaboration with Salvador Dali - eyes - how we view things - perception.
- The art of Alfred Hitchcock - Donald Spoto; continually works with birds, harvering creatures of doom
- Eyes everywhere, overlapping images, first person camera, variety of shots, zooms into head for dream sequence. Birds eye view, birds symbolised throughout, some symbolism even in psycho.
Trauma
- Sets up his reason for his fear of Trauma at the start
- Descent into madness
- Becomes obsessed
- Voyeurism
- Reflection on colour: meridian Green
- Madeline hosts the same looks and hairstyles as calotta - the ghost that haunts her
- Scotti: "Their true name is Sequoia Sempervirans - always green and ever living".
- Judy bring meridian green back.
Film Posters
Here are some examples of Hitchcock film's poster's that I find really aesthetically pleasing:
Themes
- Ordinary people, extraordinary situations
- Suspense
- Voyeurism
- Idea's from Freudian psychology
- Sexual themes
- Blonde females - represent fear and danger
Critiques of Auteur's
- It presents canon films made by 'elites' (male auteurs)
- Disguises the work of others
- Universal view of quality
- Capitalising device: selling a film because of the director fame
Quotes
Louis B. Mayer - "The sign of a clever auteur is to achieve the illusion that there is a sole individual responsible for a magnificent creation that requires thousands of people to accomplish"
- I really like this quote as I feel I can relate to it with modern artists today.
