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Hitchcock

Specialty Definition: Alfred Hitchcock

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (August 13, 1899 - April 29, 1980) was a British movie director who began his career as an engineering student interested in design. Hitchcock's films frequently portray innocent people caught up in circumstances beyond their control or even understanding; a common theme of his movies is that these characters are guilty, but only of minor, unrelated failings. The films draw heavily on both fear and fantasy, and are known for their droll humor. They are also known for featuring Alfred Hitchhock in minor parts in the film-a technique used by other directors and writers including Colin Dexter in the ITV Inspector Morse series.

Born in London into a mostly Irish Catholic family, Hitchcock was sent to Jesuit schools. He grew intrigued by photography and got his start in film in London in 1920 designing the titles for silent movies. In 1925, he became a director, almost by accident.

Pre-war British Career

As a major talent in a new industry with plenty of opportunity, he rose quickly. His first important film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog was released in 1927. In it, an attractive blonde is murdered, and the new lodger in a nearby apartment falls under heavy suspicion. He is, in fact, innocent of the crime.

Downhill (1927) portrayed another innocent man accused, this time a young man accused of a theft at his school and thrown out of his house as a result. The man later has an affair with an older woman, and in the morning, as she wakes in their bed of passion, he sees her aged face, while people carry a coffin by outside their window. Hitchcock would repeatedly return in his films to the notion that sex and death are linked.

Hitchcock developed his unique style of storytelling during the 1930s, reaching the peak of his British filmmaking career with The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). By this time, he had caught the attention of Hollywood, and was invited to make films in America.

Hollywood

David O. Selznick pursued Hitchcock to make some Hollywood films. With Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American film, and he worked in America for the rest of his career. Rebecca evokes the fears of a naive young bride who enters a great English country home and must grapple with the legacy of the dead woman who was her husband's first wife. The droll touches of humor are still there in his American work, but suspense became his trademark.

From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host and producer of a long-running television series entitled Alfred Hitchcock Presents. While his films had made Hitchcock's name synonymous with "suspense," the TV series made Hitchcock a celebrity himself. His voice, image, and mannerisms became instantly recognizable, and were often the subject of parody. He directed a few episodes of the TV series himself, and he upset a number of movie production companies when he insisted on using his TV production crew to produce his motion picture Psycho.

Themes and Devices

Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense over surprise in his films. In surprise, the director assaults the viewer with frightening things. In suspense, the director tells or shows things to the audience which the characters in the film do not know, and then artfully builds tension around what will happen when the characters finally learn the truth.

Hitchcock took pride in his ability to sustain suspense. Once at a French airport, a dubious customs official looked at Hitchcock's passport, which was marked simply PRODUCER. The official frowned and asked, "And what do you produce?" "Gooseflesh," replied Hitchcock.

Further blurring the moral distinction between the innocent and the guilty, occasionally making this indictment clear, Hitchcock also makes voyeurs of his "respectable" audience. In Rear Window, after L. B. Jeffries (played by James Stewart) has been staring across the courtyard at him for most of the film, Lars Thorwald (played by Raymond Burr) confronts Jeffries by saying "What do you want of me?" Burr might as well have been addressing the audience; and in fact, shortly before that Thorwald turns to face the camera directly for the first time--at this point, audiences invariably gasp.

One of Hitchcock's favorite devices for driving the plots of his stories and creating suspense was described as a "MacGuffin" by the director himself. Hitchcock described the "MacGuffin" as a red herring: a meaningless, unimportant detail that solely existed to serve as a reason for the story to exist. (See MacGuffin for more details about this plot device.)

Rope was another technical challenge that Hitchcock set for himself: a film shot entirely on a single set with limited camera movement that nevertheless succeeds in compelling our attention. The film is commonly thought to have been shot in one take, or to have been assembled without cuts, or with only a few, but this is not the case. The film was shot in 10-minute takes; a few of the edits are apparent, and the rest are hidden by having an object fill the entire screen. Hitchcock uses that point to cut, and begins the next take from the same point, from which the object or the camera moves.

His 1958 film Vertigo contains a camera trick that has been imitated and re-used so many times by filmmakers, it has become known as the Hitchcock zoom.

His Character and its Effects on his Films

Hitchcock was a lonely, imaginative, obese child, raised Catholic and trained to give his mother the day's confession every night.

As an adult, driving in Switzerland one day, Hitchcock pointed out the window and told a friend, "That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen." The friend looked out with alarm and saw only a priest with his arm around a young boy. But Hitchcock leaned out of the car: "Run, little boy! Run for your life!"

Hitchcock was in his mid-twenties, and a professional film director, before he'd ever drunk alcohol or been on a date. His films sometimes feature male characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers. In North by Northwest Roger O. Thornhill, Cary Grant's character, is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him (in this case, they are). In The Birds the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself of a grasping mother. The killer in Frenzy is also living in the same house with his mother. Norman Bates' troubles with his mother in Psycho are infamous.

Hitchcock heroines tend to be lovely, cool blondes who seem at first to be proper but, when aroused by passion or danger, respond in a more sensual, animal, perhaps criminal way. As noted, the famous victim in The Lodger is a blonde. In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock's glamorous blonde star, Madeleine Carroll, is put in handcuffs. In Marnie, glamorous blonde Tippi Hedren is a kleptomaniac. In To Catch a Thief, glamorous blonde Grace Kelly is a cat burglar. After becoming interested in Thorwald's life in Rear Window, Lisa breaks into Thorwald's apartment. And, most notoriously, in Psycho, Janet Leigh's character steals $40,000 and gets murdered by a young man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who thought he was his own mother. Or, as Norman put it himself, "My mother is -- what's the phrase? -- she isn't really herself today." His last blonde heroine was 20 years young french actress Claude Jade as the secret agent's worried daughter Michèle in Topaz.

Hitchcock saw that a reliance on actors and actresses was a holdover from the theater tradition. He was a pioneer in using camera movement, camera set ups and montage to explore the outer reaches of cinematic art.

Hitchcock loved to eat. One unrealized film idea was to show 24 hours in the life of a city, with the frame being the food: how it was imported and prepared and eaten and then at the end of the day thrown away into the sewers. Hitchcock did set his film Frenzy in the part of London where food arrived, was processed and distributed. The killer found himself and one of his corpses in a truck with sacks of potatoes.

Once, toward the end of a small private dinner party with meager portions, Hitchcock heard his hostess say, "I do hope you'll dine again with us soon." Hitchcock replied, "By all means. Let's start now."

Hitchcock's most personal films are probably Notorious and Vertigo -- both about the obsessions and neuroses of men who manipulate women.

Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death. Kim Novak's character is most attractive as a blonde, and though Jimmy Stewart's character knows she is an accessory to murder, he falls in love with her and she with him. Stewart's character feels an angry need to control his lover, to dress her, to fetishize her clothes, her shoes, her hair.

His Workstyle

Hitchcock had trouble giving proper credit to the screenwriters who did so much to make his visions come to life on the screen. Gifted writers worked with him, including Raymond Chandler, but rarely felt they had been treated as equals.

Hitchcock once commented, "The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we're finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. Actually, it's only when one enters the studio that one enters the area of compromise. Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest." Hitchcock was often critical of his actors and actresses as well, dismissing, for example, Kim Novak's performance in Vertigo, and once famously remarking that actors were to be treated like cattle.

Most of his films contain a short appearance of Hitchcock himself: the director was sometimes boarding a bus, or crossing in front of a business, or across the courtyard in an apartment, or in a newspaper advertisement. It is a widely popular game to find Hitchcock's appearance in his films. There are books and websites dedicated to this particular hobby.

The probably most intriguing insight of Hitchcock's understanding of his own work can be found in a book simply named Hitchcock. It is a document of a one-week interview by Francois Truffaut in 1967, showing how Hitchcock's mind worked, picking the films apart piece by piece. (ISBN 0671604295).

Hitchcock did not rank highly with film critics of his own day. Except for Rebecca, none of his films won an Academy Award for Best Picture. As a producer, Hitchcock received one Best Picture nomination for Suspicion. He was nominated Best Director for five of his films: Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, and Psycho. Still, the only Academy Award that he ever received was the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1968. Hitchcock would be knighted in January 1980 by Queen Elizabeth II just four months before his death in Los Angeles. Alfred Hitchcock was cremated.

Quotations

• "Like Freud, Hitchcock diagnosed the discontents that chafe and rankle beneath the decorum of civilization. Like Picasso or Dali, he registered the phenomenological threat of an abruptly modernized world." -- Peter Conrad

• "I'd like to know more about his relationships with women. No, on second thought, I wouldn't." -- Ingmar Bergman

• "I'm a philanthropist: I give people what they want. People love being horrified, terrified." -- Alfred Hitchcock

Filmography

Silent Films (all dates are for release)

• The Pleasure Garden (1927)
• The Mountain Eagle (1927)
• The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
• Downhill (1927)
• Easy Virtue (1927), based on a Noel Coward play)
• The Ring (1927), often seen as Hitchcock's best silent film
• The Farmer's Wife (1928)
• Champagne (1928)
• The Manxman (1928)

Sound Films

• Blackmail (1929), Hitchcock's first talkie
• Juno and the Peacock (1930)
• Murder (1930)
• Elstree Calling (1930), made jointly with Adrian Brunel, Andre Charlot, Jack Hulbert and Paul Murray
• The Skin Game (1931)
• Number Seventeen (1932)
• Rich and Strange (1932)
• Waltzes from Vienna (1933)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
• The 39 Steps (1935)
• Secret Agent (1936), loosly based on some Somerset Maugham stories
• Sabotage (1936), adapted from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent
• Young and Innocent (1938)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938)
• Jamaica Inn (1939), starring Charles Laughton
• Rebecca (1940), his only film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture
• Foreign Correspondent (1940)
• Mr and Mrs Smith (1941), written by Norman Krasna
• Suspicion (1941)
• Saboteur (1942), often seen as a dry run for North by Northwest
• Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
• Lifeboat (1944), Tallulah Bankhead's most famous film role
• Aventure Malgache (1944), a French language short made for the British Ministry of Information
• Bon Yoyage (1944), another French language propaganda short
• Spellbound (1945), includes dream sequences designed by Salvador Dali
• Notorious (1946)
• The Paradine Case (1947)
• Rope (1948)
• Under Capricorn (1949)
• Stage Fright (1950)
• Strangers on a Train (1951)
• I Confess (1953)
• Dial M for Murder (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• To Catch a Thief (1955)
• The Trouble With Harry (1955)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), remake of 1934 film
• The Wrong Man (1956)
• Vertigo (1958)
• North by Northwest (1959)
• Psycho (1960)
• The Birds (1963)
• Marnie (1964)
• Torn Curtain (1966)
• Topaz (1969)
• Frenzy (1972)
• Family Plot (1976)

Further Reading

• Truffaut, Francois: Hitchcock. Simon and Schuster, 1985. A series of interviews of Hitchcock given by the influential French director. This is an important source, but some have criticized Truffaut for taking an uncritical stance.
• Leitch, Thomas: The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock. Checkmark Books, 2002. An excellent single-volume encyclopedia of all things Hitchcock.
• Deutelbaum, Marshall; Poague, Leland (ed.): A Hitchcock Reader. Iowa State University Press, 1986. A wide-ranging collection of scholarly essays on Hitchcock.
• Spoto, Donald: The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. Anchor Books, 1992. The first detailed critical survey of Hitchcock's work by an American.
• Spoto, Donald: The Dark Side of Genius. Ballantine Books, 1983. A biography of Hitchcock, featuring a controversial exploration of Hitchcock's psychology.
• Gottlieb, Sidney: Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2003. A collection of Hitchcock interviews.
• Conrad, Peter: The Hitchcock Murders. Faber and Faber, 2000. A highly personal and idiosyncratic discussion of Hitchcock's oeuvre.
• Rebello, Stephen: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. St. Martin's, 1990. Intimately researched and detailed history of the making of Psycho, praised as one of the best books on moviemaking ever.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Alfred Hitchcock."

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Hitchcock

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

• Alfred Hitchcock
• Patricia Hitchcock

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hitchcock."

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Hitchcock, Oklahoma

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Hitchcock is a town located in Blaine County, Oklahoma. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 141.

Geography

Hitchcock is located at 35°58'3" North, 98°20'57" West (35.967527, -98.349279)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.4 km² (0.2 mi²). 0.4 km² (0.2 mi²) of it is land and none of the area is covered with water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 141 people, 51 households, and 39 families residing in the town. The population density is 362.9/km² (929.8/mi²). There are 63 housing units at an average density of 162.2/km² (415.4/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 90.78% White, 0.00% African American, 6.38% Native American, 0.00% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 0.71% from other races, and 2.13% from two or more races. 0.71% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 51 households out of which 41.2% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.8% are married couples living together, 7.8% have a female householder with no husband present, and 23.5% are non-families. 23.5% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.8% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.76 and the average family size is 3.26. In the town the population is spread out with 33.3% under the age of 18, 7.8% from 18 to 24, 23.4% from 25 to 44, 22.0% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 36 years. For every 100 females there are 107.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 91.8 males. The median income for a household in the town is $28,750, and the median income for a family is $36,250. Males have a median income of $26,875 versus $19,750 for females. The per capita income for the town is $10,015. 31.3% of the population and 25.7% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 35.5% are under the age of 18 and 7.7% are 65 or older.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hitchcock, Oklahoma."

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Hitchcock, South Dakota

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Hitchcock is a town located in Beadle County, South Dakota. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 108.

Geography

Hitchcock is located at 44°37'48" North, 98°24'37" West (44.630123, -98.410259)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.7 km² (0.3 mi²). 0.7 km² (0.3 mi²) of it is land and none of the area is covered with water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 108 people, 52 households, and 31 families residing in the town. The population density is 154.4/km² (404.3/mi²). There are 61 housing units at an average density of 87.2/km² (228.3/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 99.07% White, 0.00% African American, 0.00% Native American, 0.00% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 0.00% from other races, and 0.93% from two or more races. 0.00% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 52 households out of which 17.3% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.8% are married couples living together, 3.8% have a female householder with no husband present, and 38.5% are non-families. 34.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 15.4% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.08 and the average family size is 2.69. In the town the population is spread out with 18.5% under the age of 18, 7.4% from 18 to 24, 19.4% from 25 to 44, 33.3% from 45 to 64, and 21.3% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 47 years. For every 100 females there are 116.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 109.5 males. The median income for a household in the town is $30,000, and the median income for a family is $44,167. Males have a median income of $21,667 versus $13,750 for females. The per capita income for the town is $17,640. 12.7% of the population and 9.4% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 26.7% are under the age of 18 and 24.0% are 65 or older.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hitchcock, South Dakota."

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Hitchcock, Texas

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Hitchcock is a city located in Galveston County, Texas. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 6,386.

Geography

Hitchcock is located at 29°20'19" North, 95°0'39" West (29.338715, -95.010861)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 238.3 km² (92.0 mi²). 172.1 km² (66.5 mi²) of it is land and 66.2 km² (25.5 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 27.77% water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 6,386 people, 2,434 households, and 1,737 families residing in the city. The population density is 37.1/km² (96.1/mi²). There are 2,754 housing units at an average density of 16.0/km² (41.4/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 59.96% White, 32.81% African American, 0.28% Native American, 0.16% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 4.76% from other races, and 2.00% from two or more races. 13.73% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 2,434 households out of which 32.1% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.7% are married couples living together, 17.3% have a female householder with no husband present, and 28.6% are non-families. 25.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 10.8% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.62 and the average family size is 3.14. In the city the population is spread out with 27.7% under the age of 18, 8.4% from 18 to 24, 27.2% from 25 to 44, 22.2% from 45 to 64, and 14.4% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 36 years. For every 100 females there are 92.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 87.3 males. The median income for a household in the city is $29,848, and the median income for a family is $35,013. Males have a median income of $31,098 versus $22,340 for females. The per capita income for the city is $14,964. 19.0% of the population and 16.3% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 27.3% are under the age of 18 and 15.8% are 65 or older.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hitchcock, Texas."

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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Photo Album: Hitchcock

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Caption: Lucius Hitchcock Painting a Portrait of Edison at Glenmont; West Orange, NJ; June 30, 1931; {14.225/301} (jpg).		Caption: Hulbert Hitchcock, the Artist, and Mina Edison Looking at Hitchcock's Painting of Edison at Glenmont; West Orange, NJ; 1932; {14.352/33} (jpg).
	Jane Elizabeth Hitchcock. Credit: National Library of Medicine.		The President shaking hands from rear platform; Sec. Wilson, Sec. Hitchcock and Sec. Cortelyou with him--Alliance, Ohio. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Alfred Hitchcock and his wife standing in front of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Credit: Library of Congress.		Ethan Allen Hitchcock, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, Dartmouth College. Credit: Library of Congress.		Zina Hitchcock Benjamin, Frances Benjamin Johnston's maternal grandfather, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly right. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Mr. Zina Hitchcock Benjamin family, posed left to right: Cornelia, Zina Hitchcock, Frances Antoinette, Samuel Clark, and Joanette Clark. Credit: Library of Congress.		Burlington Railroad tracks. Hitchcock County, Nebraska. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Familiar Quotations: Hitchcock

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Usage Frequency: Hitchcock

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Name Usage Frequency: Hitchcock

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Cities: Hitchcock

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Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.