Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (August 13, 1899 – April 29, 1980) was a British-American film director closely associated with the suspense thriller genre. He began directing in Britain before working in the United States from 1939 onwards. With more than fifty feature films to his credit, in a career spanning six decades, from silent film to talkies to the color era, Hitchcock remains one of the best known and most popular directors of all time, famous for his expert and often unrivaled control of pace and suspense throughout his movies.

His character and its effects on his films

Hitchcock was in his mid-twenties, and a professional film director, before he'd ever drunk alcohol or been on a date. His films sometimes feature male characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers. In North by Northwest (1959), Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant's character) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him (in this case, they are). In The Birds (1963), the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself of a clinging mother. The killer in Frenzy (1972) has a loathing of women but idolizes his mother. The villain Bruno in Strangers on a Train hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother. Norman Bates' troubles with his mother in Psycho are infamous.

Related Topics:
North by Northwest - 1959 - Cary Grant - The Birds - Rod Taylor - Frenzy - Strangers on a Train - Psycho

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hitchcock heroines tend to be lovely, cool blondes who seem at first to be proper but, when aroused by passion or danger, respond in a more sensual, animal, perhaps criminal way. As noted, the famous victim in The Lodger is a blonde. In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock's glamorous blonde star, Madeleine Carroll, is put in handcuffs. In Marnie (1964), glamorous blonde Tippi Hedren is a kleptomaniac. In To Catch a Thief (1955), glamorous blonde Grace Kelly offers to help someone she believes is a cat burglar. After becoming interested in Thorwald's life in Rear Window, Lisa breaks into Thorwald's apartment. And, most notoriously, in Psycho, Janet Leigh's character steals $40,000 and gets murdered by a young man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who thought he was his own mother. (Or, as Norman put it himself, "My mother is — what's the phrase? — she isn't really herself today.") His last blonde heroine was French actress Claude Jade as the secret agent's worried daughter Michele in Topaz (1969).

Related Topics:
Blond - The 39 Steps - Madeleine Carroll - Marnie - 1964 - Tippi Hedren - Kleptomania - To Catch a Thief - 1955 - Grace Kelly - Janet Leigh - Anthony Perkins - Claude Jade - 1969

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hitchcock saw that reliance on actors and actresses was a holdover from the theater tradition. He was a pioneer in using camera movement, camera set ups and montage to explore the outer reaches of cinematic art.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hitchcock's most personal films are probably Notorious (1946) and Vertigo — both about the obsessions and neuroses of men who manipulate women. Hitchcock often said that his personal favourite was Shadow of a Doubt.

Related Topics:
Notorious - 1946 - Vertigo - Shadow of a Doubt

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death. Kim Novak's character is most attractive as a blonde, and though Jimmy Stewart's character believes she is suicidal (he later discovers the truth about her), he falls in love with her and she with him. Stewart's character feels an angry need to control his lover, to dress her, to fetishise her clothes, her shoes, her hair.

Related Topics:
Kim Novak - Suicidal - Fetish

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~