Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock, North By Northwest, And Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock was a film director from England who moved the United States in 1939. He was famously known as the “Master of Suspense”. Hitchcock’s golden years of his cinema career were from the 1950’s to the 1960’s. During this time, he made various famous films, such as Vertigo, North by the Northwest, and Psycho. When we compare these films it’s hard to find something they might have in common. Each film has different lighting effects, colors, and types of shots. Hitchcock utilizes mise en scène and cinematography to set a different tone and mood in each film. The first scene of Vertigo is a foot chase. The lighting in this scene is low key and gives the scene a mysterious feeling. The next scene we see the main character back home, but the colors of the film have changed. The scene has high key lighting and the colors are more saturated giving a happier feeling mood. The setting of being home make the audience feel more comfortable. In this film, Hitchcock was able to change mood by changing the certain parts of the setting. For example, in the scene where the main character “Scottie” climbs a chair and thinks he has nothing to fear about heights. The setting is his …show more content…
In “Calm Before the Storm: Analyzing Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” by Robin Jeffery, states that “Everything is extremely bright – so much so that the vast empty fields of brown and yellow almost hurt your eyes”. The high key lighting and the setting of the wide country fields, helps show the big problem that the main character is stuck in. The main character is seen wearing a suit in a field. The Costumes helps also show how he is out of the place. The color emphasizes on the main character also makes him stand out even more. The camera angles keep changing from a high to low angle shot. During the murder scene the camera shows the entire crowd in the area to shows how the character must have felt when all those people were looking at