Alfred Hitchcock was an amazing and groundbreaking director for Hollywood. His movies became world-renowned as he used film as a way to express himself and to introduce never before seen ideas and genres to the film world. Many of his techniques are seen in today’s movies as his influence has carried on for decades. Many movies also pay tribute to his movies in a way, referencing iconic scenes from his most popular movies. Hitchcock’s use of editing, camera shots, and sound allowed his films to flourish and become iconic staples within film history.

The films that will be discussed in this blog post are…

Rear Window (1954) – For this film I analyzed the editing.

Vertigo (1958) – For this film I analyzed camera shots.

Psycho (1960) – For this film I analyzed the use of, and the lack of sound.

Rear Window (Editing)

The movie “Rear Window” is about a handicapped man, Jeff, also a photographer who is confined to a wheelchair in his city apartment. His windows looks into a shared courtyard with his neighbors, and he resorts to peering into their lives through their windows for entertainment. One day, he notices one of his neighbor’s wives has gone missing and suspects something suspicious was done by her husband. With the help of his girlfriend, his caretaker, his friend that’s a detective, and his camera, Jeff manages to discover the truth of what happened in his neighbor’s apartment in this amazing, thought provoking movie.

Hitchcock makes some clear editing choices within this film. For example, fade-to-black effects are used throughout the film to represent a passing of time. The black intermissions also separate certain scenes and set up the audience for a progression in the story. Additionally, Hitchcock uses both third person and first person point of view to his advantage. The switch between the two shots lets the audience be fully immersed in the universe by experiencing what happens through the characters’ eyes. We often get to see what the characters see through Jeff’s camera but then we also see the characters looking into the camera. (See photo below)

Vertigo – Camera Shots

The movie “Vertigo” is about a retired detective, Scottie Ferguson, who is hired by his old college buddy, Gavin Elster, to watch over his wife, Madeleine, in secret, as he is concerned about a supernatural spirit possessing her, and causing her to harm herself. Scottie follows Madeleine throughout different areas of San Francisco until she throws herself into the San Frnacisco bay in an attempt to kill herself. He rescues her and takes her back to his house until she regains consciousness. Once she wakes up, the two of them interact face-to-face for the first time, and this scene sets the stage for their relationship for the rest of the film. They fall in love, but a major twist occurs when Madeleine commits suicide in front of Scottie, leaving him with lasting emotional PTSD. He goes to court for this case, where it is eventually ruled that he was unable to save Madeleine due to his intense agrophobia- a fear of heights. Two years pass and Scottie encounters a woman named Judy Barton who is the striking image of his love who passed away. They start dating, but Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine overcomes him as he forces Judy to change her clothes and appearance to look exactly like her. It is revealed that Judy was Madeleine all along and was hired by Gavin to pretend to be his “possessed wife” and trick Scottie into following her, when the truth was Gavin was going to kill his wife and disguise it as suicide. This sends Scottie into madness and he takes Judy to the death place of “Madeleine”. The film ends with a shocking twist, Judy then faced the same fate as the role she was playing all along, so her fiction became reality.

This film is considered to be one of Hitchcock’s most complex and thought-provoking. It involves an intense storyline filled with surprises and turns throughout the duration of the film. Hitchcock used camera shots to add another narrative to the story and add depth to the film’s messaging. One of the most impressive shots used was the dolly zoom angle during the bell tower scene. This specific shot creates a distortion effect and it was used to give the audience a first person view of what Scottie saw as he looked down the staircase with his vertigo. This emphasizes Scottie’s fear of heights, and it makes the audience feel some discomfort- the same discomfort Scottie must’ve felt when going up any heights. This addition was arguably necessary as it ties the title of the movie to a major plot point in the story, especially after Scottie talks about his vertigo and agrophobia- within the first scene of the film. Since the audience sees what he is experiencing, they have a better idea of his actions, emotions, and thoughts throughout the film. Below is a prime example of this dolly zoom shot used in “Vertigo.”

Hitchcock also used blocking as a form of storytelling. In the scene where Scottie meets with Gavin Elster in his office, Hitchcock wrote the movements of both the actors and the camera to be intentional to build the characters’ motives and provide subtle foreshadowing. For example, there are moments in the scene where either character is looming over the other, representing the power one has over the other, and how it continually shifts. This scene may go unnoticed with someone’s first viewing, but the blocking can be analyzed and reveal the story in future viewings of “Vertigo”

Psycho (Sound)

The movie “Psycho” introduces their main protagonist, Marion, and the movie starts quick as she steals $40,000 and leaves her job to go live with her lover who struggles financially. On her voyage to run away, the audience can hear her thoughts, and we can tell that she is thinking of the worst case scenarios. She swaps cars after being followed and watched by a police officer. Due to being stopped for sleeping on the side of the road, she tries to find a place to stay the next night. The Bates Motel becomes her home for a one-night stay. She meets the owner, Norman Bates, and he says she’s the first customer to come in a long time and that him and his disoriented mother live in a house behind the motel. The audience can hear Norman and his mother argue at times when they’re in their house, and this makes the audience feel somewhat bad for Norman, as we believe his mentally ill mother can be harsh on him. Once they say goodnight, they part ways and Marion decides to take a shower in the comfort of her room. A mysterious figure can be seen coming into the bathroom and then killing her. Afterwards, Norman walks into her room to discover her body on the floor, and he immediately begins to clean up the crime scene, almost as if this was normal and has happened before. He gathers all her belongings, including the $40,000 she stole, her body, and puts them in her car, then drives it into a lake and watches it sink to the bottom. Unaware of Marion’s state, her sister and her boyfriend work with a private investigator that the man who lost the $40k hired, they sister and lover ask the private investigator to track where she is. He comes across the Bates Motel and questions Norman. He grows suspicious of him and decides to investigate his house behind the motel where he gets stabbed by a woman and had the same fate as Marion. Marion’s boyfriend and sister’s concern grows and they go to the motel to know what happened. They do their own investigating and after searching, they uncover that Norman’s mother had actually passed away and her son kept her corpse in his basement. His mind has also been corrupted by her, as he has both the personality of himself and his mother. It’s said that he’s suffering from a split personality disorder in a way. When his mother’s personality takes over, her jealousy and overprotectiveness force Norman to commit murders. The film ends with Norman in a high security room, in jail, staring at the camera breaking the “fourth wall.” (See end scene below)

The sound design in “Psycho” is a crucial element in the film. There are rumors that Hitchcock purposely filmed the movie in black and white to have the audience focus more on the sound used. He makes it a point to include both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. An example of the diegetic sound is found earlier in the film, when Marion is fleeing the state with the stolen money. The audience hears her internal monologue as she reflects on her actions and it portrays her anxiety. The non-diegetic sound includes the iconic violin screeches during the stabbing scenes in the film. This sound effect clearly isn’t heard by the characters in the movie, but the audience hears it and it is a major element in the scene to create an unsettling feeling. This sound is also used as a leitmotif, as it reoccurs every time there is a stabbing scene in the film. This repetition allows “Psycho” to have its own recognizable “theme song” where people can easily identify the movie based on the sound. Leif motifs can also be found in more recent films such as Jaws, Indiana Jones, and the Star Wars.