Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Vertigo, stars James Stewart and Kim Novak in this mystery thriller about a retired detective who has acrophobia or "vertigo". John Ferguson, or to his friends Scotty, is on a private investigation to find out if his friends wife is possessed. The story takes place in San Fransisco in the late 1950's and is about retired detective John Ferguson, who after a tragic accident has acrophobia and decides to give up on being a detective. One day, an old friend from college…

Watching someone get murdered on screen is startling, but it’s even more startling when the audience does not expect it to happen. Psycho, a film by Alfred Hitchcock is an American classic, because of one specific scene, the scene where Marion Crane is stabbed to death in the shower. Psycho starts with Crane stealing the money of a client at the bank she works at, and leaving town to give the money to her boyfriend. On the way, she stops at Bates Motel to stay the night. At the hotel, she meets…

the entertainment industry. There are many defining characteristics that describe horror and there are people who may have a question on whether a movie is truly considered a horror. Alfred Hitchcock is a director who captivates, and confuses the audience with his movies. One of the more confusing stories in the Hitchcock universe is “The Birds”. This is because the monster does not appear for the first twenty to thirty minutes of the movie, and there appears to be no underlying reason behind…

Much (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). For the sake of comparison and to support my arguments I have made references to other prominent films of Hitchcock. My study also proposes to analyze how Alfred Hitchcock positions the culture of America in the 1950s in his films, how he represents the middle-class society, ideology and culture of America. It also aims to bring out how cultural studies can be applied to…

Released in 1935, The 39 Steps is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous masterpieces. Quickly becoming an international success, it established Hitchcock’s unshaken status as the cinematic ‘master of suspense’. This classic film is particularly notable today for combining suspense and humor, and many of Hitchcock’s other trademarks as it inspired many remakes and adaptations. The thriller starring Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll and Peggy Ashcroft is loosely based on the 1915 novel of the same…

character. A goal oriented character is a character focused on reaching an achievement. Goal oriented characters can include the antagonist, protagonist or unimportant second character. An example of a goal oriented character is Alicia in Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946). Alicia is played by Ingrid Bergman and her goal is to gather intel on a group of Nazis,…

books, and short stories all create and utilize suspense in many different ways, shapes, and forms. From the tension and worry feeling shown in movies, to foreshadowing about what will happen in literature. Author Daphne du Maurier and filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock both used many ways to create suspense in their takes on the horror story, “The Birds.” However, only one author utilized suspense the best. Between du Maurier’s short story and Hitchcock's film, Hitchcock’s film did a better job of…

The film "Shadow of a Doubt" is a 1943 film by Alfred Hitchcock. The film's principle plot line concentrates on young lady, Charlie, and her Uncle Charlie who chooses to go and visit her and her gang. Little did she, or the whole family so far as that is concerned, realize that Uncle Charlie had a different motivation. Uncle Charlie went to visit the family on the grounds that he is running from the place where he grew up, where he is a serial killed of ladies widowers. Escaping the scene he…

There are few films that can boast the credit of having revolutionized a genre, and for horror, Psycho is one of those films. The 1960s horror classic directed by Alfred Hitchcock is considered one of the first movies in the slasher sub-genre, and is responsible for moving horror films away from the increasingly corny Universal Monsters of the earlier decades to a more serious threat. The film follows Marion Crane, a secretary who runs away from her home town after stealing a large sum of money…

the elements of film in his book A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films. One element he briefly examines is the utilization of the prop and how the prop becomes a motif. To further explore this concept, this essay will consider Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In this film, Hitchcock subjects Marion Crane to the voyeur through his placement of the owl in the parlor scene at the Bates Motel. When initially entering the parlor, Marion Crane’s surprise at the number of taxidermy birds mounted on the walls…