Alfred Hitchcock was an extraordinary genius with his own unique style in the creation of films, and in his creative career of more than 60 years, he shot more than 50 films, not only in terms of production, but also in terms of artistic achievements, with high artistic achievements. As the world's premier "master of thriller suspense films", he created the film genre of "thriller literary films", shooting many thrillers with special personal meanings such as "Birds", "Psychopaths", "Berserk", etc. In addition, for McGuffin, the use of psychoanalysis and special audiovisual language and special props in the film has made his films deeply branded and formed his own film style.
Alfred Hitchcock
Thriller as a genre of film, psychologically satisfies the audience's pursuit of excitement and curiosity, by bringing the audience thrilling, nervous, exciting, anxious experience, so as to have a certain fan audience. Hitchcock usually uses the setting and atmosphere of the characters to achieve a gripping effect. First of all, in the setting of characters and plots, the protagonists of its thrillers usually choose ordinary people around you and me, and such a role setting can give the audience a strong sense of substitution. Imagine if the protagonist of a thriller were a superhero or an FBI cop, the audience would only feel that the character's background was too far away from them, thus greatly reducing the sense of crisis. Therefore, the beginning of "Flock of Birds" greatly lays out the love drama between the heroine and the male protagonist, as if entering the theme is too slow, but in fact, the bird shop meets and talks, and the scenes of the male and female protagonists pursuing love are closer to the distance between the audience and the protagonist, once the distance is narrowed, the next thrilling effect will be icing on the cake, more immersive. Secondly, in terms of plot, the appearance of the horror source "Bird" is also very interesting. The special scene that appears at the beginning of the film, a group of birds flying in the square raises questions from the audience, next, the seagull attacks Melanie at sea, one even crashes into the door of Annie's house, and then later Cathy's birthday party and the attack of the school birds, the director for the bird, the element that causes people to fear, step by step, layer by layer, from one to a group, from the chickens do not eat, the birds behave unconventionally to the birds attack, this kind of knowing the abnormality, but the abnormality has never come to the fear, It is like a knife hanging from the neck, bringing the audience a stronger suspense experience.
The atmosphere is the internal narrative logic that sets the tone of the film. The rendering of suspense and fear in a successful thriller is an indispensable element. Among them, the most common in the use of audiovisual language is the use of subjective lenses, which breaks the objective narrative of the lens and enables the audience to continuously advance with the plot from the perspective of the protagonist. For example, in "Flock of Birds", the mother of the male protagonist enters the farm Dan's room and uses the subjective lens, step by step into and around the entire room, here, the director also adopts the combination of sound-deadening auditory treatment and visual lens, this technique is usually used in war films, the disappearance of ambient sounds such as sound effects will allow the audience to concentrate all their energy on the visual elements displayed on the screen, here, the messy abnormality of Dan's room will be better noticed by the audience, and also enhance the audience's inner tension. Another well-used subjective shot is the scene at the end of the film where Melanie holds up a kerosene lamp to the second floor, and the use of this shot makes the audience feel that time has been extended, like Pandora's box, and the audience's attention is not on what is in the door, but on the process of opening the door. The scheduling of montage scenes, the combined use of lighting and sound techniques make suspense and fear irreproachable. In "Rear Window", the continuous switching of perspective shots and the large use of subjective shots mean that the audience can see less, so that the audience and the protagonist are in the same cognition, no longer have the perspective of God, and add a little tension and immersion. Similar presentation methods include "last minute rescue", smooth editing constantly switches back and forth between the criminal, the heroine and the hero, so that the audience's nervousness about whether the heroine can successfully avoid the criminal and come out of the home reaches its peak, and it is this psychology of exploration that makes director Hitchcock silently control the audience's emotions.
The use of the MacGuffin technique is an important thing that grasps the audience's psychology and mobilizes their desire to look down, which is well verified in most of Hitchcock's films. In a narrow sense, it refers to an opportunity, plot, or something that the characters are desperately chasing that may not exist, and the audience may not care, and it appears to guide the audience to immerse themselves in the film experience. The earliest use of MacGuffin's technique was the rose skateboard in the 1941 orson Wells film Citizen Kane, but Hitchcock was the one who used McGuffin to the extreme, like the shadow of Lady Rebecca in Mandley Manor in "Butterfly Dream", this non-existent character image is tightly shrouded in the hearts of the audience and the characters, as a clue throughout the film, promoting the development of the plot and arousing the audience's desire to explore. The 50,000 yuan taken away by the heroine in "Psychopath" is also McGuffin, which is an important factor in the development of the story, but with the further fermentation of the plot, it is no longer important. In Hitchcock's view, the one that uses best is the one in North by Northwest, a spy film in which the only question asked is, "What are these spies looking for?" In that scene at the Chicago airport, the CIA explained everything to Sohill, saying, "He's a guy who does import trade," "What did he sell," "Oh, that's the secret of the government," where McGuffin was reduced to the purest mode of expression: nothing.
The use of psychoanalysis is also a unique expression pioneered by Hitchcock. In "Psychopath", the male protagonist is stimulated by witnessing his mother and lover's secret affair, kills his mother and lover, and produces the personality of a mother because of the torture of inner pain, on the one hand, he plays the image of a obedient son of a filial mother in his life, on the other hand, he digs out the mother's long-dried body from the grave, showing a rough and brutal mother image. This was the unexpected and reasonable effect of the split personality in the film as a truth disclosure in the era at that time, which really surprised and satisfied the audience. Later, Hitchcock's series of films, such as "Doctor Edward", "Rear Window", "Rope", etc., all used psychoanalysis. This creative method also gave many inspirations to later directors, such as "Fatal ID", which is an upgraded version of "Psychopath", and the film starts the story with the protagonist's 12 personalities fighting each other.
As Nietzsche said, "The artist is a creature that has ceased, because he is stuck in the games of his youth and childhood." The movie master Hitchcock is the same, in addition to the special golden age of Hollywood brought about by the times to create heroes, the harm brought to it by his childhood parents, so that he formed an inferior, fearful, dark personality, it is these achievements of his "suspense master" title.
Text/Zhou Rui
Editor/Xiao Yang
The pictures in this article are from the internet