HITCHCOCK

Alfred Hitchcock is both my father and sister's all-time favorite director, and I never really understood why until now. Each of his three films we viewed in class brought out a different aspect of directing that I came to learn was unique to his style. He is known for his use of suspense, camera angles, and infatuation with lead blondes.

In 39 Steps, the combination of low key lighting and mysterious music made for a perfectly suspenseful film. One specific scene was when the man and woman were at the hotel and the spies came looking for them. During the entire scene, the audience is kept on the edge of their seats, anticipating the doom of the two in hiding, and this is all done with the scary lighting on the staircase, and the 'freaky' music.

In Rear Window, Hitchcock's interesting use of camera angles is really exemplified. In one scene he uses clever angles from John's perspective. This is when John is looking into the neighbors apartment watching Lisa (Grace Kelley) rummage through a purse and when she pulls out a ring the camera zooms in on to an extreme close-up, showing the importance of the ring. This is something I have seen in no other film. His camera angles help to determine the perspective and give an extra boost to the importance of some key scenes.

Lastly, in Vertigo, Hitchcock 100% unviels his love for female blondes. Most critics beleive that this is the movie that really went overboard in his fantasy, and gave the audience alot more information about his personal life than they needed to know. Here is a link to an article that talks about blondes in all of Hitchcock's Film. I found it fairly interesting.

All in all, I think I really enjoyed these movies and might continue to watch some of his other films.