alfred hitchcock's moviemaking master class: learning about film from the master of suspense...
TRANSCRIPT
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ALFREDHITCHCOCKSMOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS
Learning About Film
rom the Master O Suspense
TONY LEE MORAL
M I C H A E L W I E S E P R O D U C T I O N S
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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR
Write down your idea on a blank piece o paper
Pitching your idea
Write a catchy logline
Coming up with your own idea original screenplays
Adapting someone elses idea adapted screenplays
Themes in your story
The wrongully accused man
The duplicitous blonde
The psychopath
Secrets and spies
Content
The MacGun what is it? (And does it matter?)
Keep your plot moving
Suspense vs. Melodrama
Give your audience inormation
Involve your audience in the suspense
Other directors using suspense
Exercises
Chapter 2 WRITING YOUR SCREENPLAY
The three stages o the screenplay
The outline
The treatment
The screenplayBreaking your screenplay into three acts
Breaking it down into scenes
Know your audience
a e o on en s
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TAbLE OF CONTENTS
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Trust your spouse
Writing dialogue
Writing subtext
Writers blockWrite or comedy
Use counterpoint and contrast
Exposition and dialogue
Take time to build suspense
Have a surprise ending
The Ice Box Syndrome
Close your eyes and visualizeExercises
Chapter 3 PRE-PRODUCTION
Work with a production designer
Change your locations oten
Make your locations dramatically
Use your props dramaticallyInspired Hitchcock lm locations
Avoid the clich in your locations
Trains, planes, and automobiles
Use controlled locations to increase tension
Feature amous landmarks
Make your sets realistic
Use color sparingly
Costume or character
Storyboard your movie
Storyboarding beyond Hitchcock: Pre-visualization
Exercises
Chapter 4 WORKING WITH ACTORS
Casting
Avoid the clich in your characters
Audience identication
Use close-ups
Less is more
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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When stars dont shine
Kill o your main star
Solid heroes
The man Hitchcock wanted to be Cary GrantThe man Hitchcock was James Stewart
Glamorous heroines
Attractive villains
Sex scenes and censorship
Actors as cattle
Be honest with your actors
Exercises
Chapter 5 YOU HAVE A RECTANGLE TO
FILL
Subjective camera
Use lenses that mimic the human eye
Frame shots or dramatic purpose
Frame shots or emotionUse close-ups to increase suspense
Save your close-ups or dramatic eect
Use medium shots to identiy with your characters
Dont use long shots just or establishers
The high angle
The low angle
Use camera movement to keep the mood
Tracking shots
The VertigoShot
The crane shot
Use long takes or emotional intensity
Point o view
Light your lm stylistically
Exercises
Chapter 6 THE ART OF CUTTING
Cut the lm in your head
Montage
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TAbLE OF CONTENTS
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Edit montage to create ideas
Edit montage or violence and emotion
Save your cuts or when you need them
Jump cut to shockMatch cut to link ideas
Cross-cut to create suspense
Cross-cut or contrast
When not to cross-cut
Use shot length to increase suspense
Fast cutting
Graphics and opening titlesThe opening
The ending
Exercises
Chapter 7 SOUND AND MUSIC
Utilize silence or eect
Sound eectsAmbient sound
Dialogue
Use songs dramatically
Music
Music or atmosphere
Music or emotion
Use music or counterpoint
Spotting music
Exercises
Chapter 8 DONT WORRY ITS ONLY A
MOVIE
Know your audience
Promote your lm
Cultivate a persona
Have your own signature
Dont worry about being pigeon-holed
Surround yoursel with talent
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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Be the best salesman or your lms
Have a memorable movie title
Devise a witty tagline
TrailersThe cameo
Cameo appearances by other directors
Going or gimmicks
Exercises
Conclusion
Alred Hitchcock Filmography
List o Directors Inspired y Hitchcock
biliography & Reerences
Aout the Author
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INTRODUCTION
Good day. My name is Alred Hitchcock and
I will be taking you on a personal guide
through the making o a motion picture
Alred Hitchcock
was inarguablyone o the great-
est i lmmakers
o the 20th cen-
tury. He was also one
o the most inluential
directors in motion pic-
ture history, inspiringmany others through
his understanding o all
aspect o cinema and his
innovative approach to
ilmmaking. All o his
collaborators, including
screenwriters, assistant directors, actors, and produc-tion sta testiy that not only was Hitchcock a irst-rate
auteur, he was also a great teacher, regularly engaging
with his audiences and giving lectures at ilm institutes,
universities, and ilm schools across the country. He
was a great director, who inspired many others, says
Jay Presson Allen, the screenwriter o Hitchs Marnie
(1964). I couldnt learn as ast as he could teach.
In a career spanning six decades, Hitchcock directed
57 eature lms, 18 episodes o the television series
Alred Hitchcock Presentsand The Alred Hitchcock
Introduction
Portrait of Alfred Hitchcock
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
xiv
Hour (introducing 361 total episodes), and oversaw a
series o books and a mystery magazine bearing his name.
He became a director at the age o 25 and pioneered many
techniques in the suspense and thriller genre, ramingshots to maximize anxiety and ear and using innova-
tive lm editing techniques to create shock and surprise.
Although Hitchcock never won a competitive Oscar, he was
nominated ves times as Best Director or Rebecca(1940),
Lieboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), Rear Window(1954),
and Psycho(1960). He won two Golden Globes, a BAFTA
Academy Fellowship award, eight Laurel Awards, andtwo honorary Academy Awards. In 1979, a year beore he
died, Hitchcock was given a lietime achievement award
by the American Film Institute. In a 2012 poll by Sight
and Soundmagazine, his masterpiece Vertigo(1958) was
named the number one lm o all time, surpassing such
greats as Citizen Kane (1941), Tokyo Story (1953), and
2001: A Space Odyssey(1968).
This book is intended or everyone with an interest
in lm, not just or ans o Hitchcock or lm students.
Anyone who enjoys lm will enjoy this book i they want
to know what makes a lm good, because who better to
teach you about lm than Alred Hitchcock? His work is
an exemplary model or understanding the art and crat
o lm, because o his understanding o pure cinema. Not
only was Hitchcock the Master o Suspense, he was also
a master o directing, raming, editing, scoring, casting,
and marketing. By studying Hitchcock you study every-
thing lmmaking encompasses.
As a ilmmaker mysel, with a lielong interest in
Hitchcock, the more I delve into the making o his flms, the
more I appreciate his artistry as a consummate cratsman
who thoroughly understood the business o moviemak-
ing. Through my two books on the making o The Birds
and Marnie, I have extensively researched the Alred J.
Hitchcock collection held at the Margaret Herrick Library
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INTRODUCTION
xv
in Beverly Hills, delved into his production notes, inter-
viewed many o the key personnel who worked with Hitch,
including writers, actors, art directors, costumer designers,
storyboard artists, and illustrators. All o his co-workershave armed to me that Hitchcock was one o the most
collaborative directors that they have worked with, who not
only knew his job, but everyone elses on the movie set.
Although Hitchcock was the Master o suspense
movies, his general approach to cinema applies to all types
o genres, not only lms that are explicitly suspenseul.
Traditional lms that share elements o suspense and themanipulation o inormation to create suspense include
dramas, action adventures, and romantic comedies. This
is the very paradigm that underlies good storytelling.
Although you may not want to make a suspense lm,
its valuable to learn how Hitchcocks cinematic practices
apply to your lm, no matter what type o lm you do
want to make, because his principles are the very ounda-
tion o lmmaking.
Take, or example, a summer blockbuster like The
Amazing Spider Man (2012). On the surace it doesnt
seem to have much in common with Hitchcock, being
an adaptation o a Marvel comic book. But i you take a
closer look at the lm, many o the suspense techniques,
the withholding o inormation, the manipulation o audi-
ence identication with the central characters, the use o
point o view, etc., shows just how close to the Hitchcock
model it really is. Further clues can be seen in the posters
o Hitchcock movies prominently displayed in the back-
ground or example theres a poster oRear Window
in Peter Parkers bedroom showing that central char-
acters in both lms are photographers. Peter grieving or
Gwen also meets a redhead played by the same actress,
Emma Stone, in a scene with shades oVertigo. Theres
even an appearance by comic book legend Stan Lee as the
librarian, in the style o Hitchcocks amous cameos.
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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What do other movies like The Bourne Identity(2002),
Shutter Island (2010), The Ghost Writer (2010), and
Source Code(2011)all have in common? They too were
all inspired by Hitchcock. Martin Scorsese, a longtimeadmirer o Hitchcock, says, You can watch Hitchcocks
lms over and over throughout your lie and nd some-
thing new every time. Theres always more to learn. And
as you get older, the lms change with you. Ater a while,
you stop counting the great number o times youve seen
them. Ive looked at Hitchcocks lms in sections. Just like
the greatest music or painting, you can live with, or by,his lms. And you cant say that about every director.
You dont just have to like thrillers to appreciate
Hitchcock. He pioneered and revolutionized the way all
kinds o stories were told on screen. Not only the way he
handled suspense, but also romance and comedy. Even the
most romantic love story needs suspense. As Kim Novak,
who starred in his romantic epic Vertigosays, Hitchcock
is one o the great directors and one to be studied. He was
a perectionist. He didnt make any short cuts like some
directors do today. There wasnt a part o the movie he
wouldnt have a say in. When you are studying his work,
you are watching the total making o a movie.
This book is intended or everyone with an appreciation
o lm and or those who want to make a lm, whether
they are a screenwriter, production designer, editor, or an
aspiring director. Its also intended or ans o Hitchcock,
in the hope that they can gain a deeper understanding o
his methods and genius as a lmmaker. By understand-
ing how Hitchcock, the Master Filmmaker, conceived
his lms, both the novice and the more experienced stu-
dent will develop in the process a deeper knowledge o
how lms are made and what makes a lm good.
Now in this master class, we will take you through
the process o making o a movie, with Alred Hitchcock
as your guide. Each chapter covers a dierent aspect o
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INTRODUCTION
xvii
lmmaking, rom coming up with an initial story idea
through writing the ull screenplay; prepping sets, cos-
tumes, storyboards, and shots; casting and directing
actors; and post-production editing, scoring, and mar-keting. Well be using examples rom Hitchcocks lms,
which span the history o 20th century cinema.
Using unpublished material rom both the Alred Hitch-
cock Collection in Beverly Hills, as well as interviews with
the Master himsel and his long-standing collaborators,
including actors, writers, and technicians, this book is an
insiders guide to moviemaking. Well discover tips romHitchcock on how to tell a story visually rather than merely
through photographs o people talking, how to compose a
shot, and how to create suspense through raming, editing,
and music. As Hitchcock said, Im not interested in content,
but more in the technique o storytelling by means o flm.
The master class is designed as an ongoing tool or
making your own movies. The exercises at the end o
each chapter are laid out to stimulate the reader and give
a better appreciation o Hitchcocks cinematic techniques.
They are designed to be used by the lm student, in class,
by individuals or groups, as a starting point or urther
discussion in conjunction with a recommended viewing
list o Hitchcocks key lms.
Although in this master class we acknowledge Alred
Hitchcock as a giant o cinema, we recognize at the same
time that modern audiences are keenly aware o contem-
porary directors such as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher,
Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, and Peter Jackson.
With the advent o CGI and big budgets driven by action
sequences and special eects, both o which are routinely
planned using pre-visualization, Hitchcocks methods o
meticulous pre-planning has triumphed in the last thirty
years. There is no director whose lms are taught more
than Hitchcocks, and whole courses are built around him
at schools and universities across the country.
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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Hitchcock believed that lm schools should teach the
history o cinema as much as anything rom the begin-
ning. Im a puritan and believer in the visual, said
Hitchcock. And thats what I think schools should teach.So oten you hear o schools, which send out a student
with an 8mm camera and see what he observes. Thats
only a part o it. As director and Hitchcock an William
Friedkin says, Just watch the lms o Alred Hitchcock,
thats all you need to know on how to make lms.
As well as looking to the Master or ideas and inspi-
ration, directors have remade and reworked his lms,borrowed his themes and images, and delivered their own
homage and tributes. Just one lm, Psycho, has inspired
three sequels, a shot-by-shot remake by Gus Van Sant,
and an entire genre o slasher lms, rom Halloween
(1978) to Smiley (2012). As Halloween director John
Carpenter says, I look at Hitchcock as a valuable natu-
ral resource since I try to steal rom him as oten as I
possibly can. Emotionally, I grew up watching Hitchcock
movies and learning cinematic technique without realiz-
ing I was actually in a lmmaking classroom rather than
a movie theatre. Beyond the obvious clichs o Master o
Suspense, Hitchcock loved pure cinema. More than loving
it, he understood it in as proound a way as any great
director beore or since.
At this writing, 32 years ater Hitchcocks death and 90
years ater his rst directed lm, public interest in Alred
Hitchcock remains enough to warrant not one, but two
eature lm biographies Hitchcock, starring Anthony
Hopkins, and The Girl, starring Toby Jones guaranteed
to bring the mischievous genius o Alred Hitchcock to
whole new generations.
So sit back, be prepared to be thrilled and entertained,
and let Alred Hitchcock be your guide as we uncover the
tips and techniques that made him one o the greatest
lm artists o the 20th century.
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1
CHAPTER ONE
TELL ME THE STORY
SO FAR
Well, or me, it all starts with the basicmaterial irstyou may have a novel, a
play, an original idea, a couple o sentences
and rom that the flm begins. AlredHitchcock
T
wo strangers meet on a train and plot to trade
murders; a wheelchair-bound photographer passes
the time by spying on his neighbors through hisrear window; an American couples son is kid-
napped while vacationing abroad and they get
caught up in an assassination plot; a young woman
is stabbed to death in a motel shower by an unknown
assailant; locks o birds inexplicably attack a seaside
town. All o these ideas have the indelible stamp o one
director Alred Hitchcock, a master o suspense andthe macabre. I think that all the ilms I make are an-
tasies, said Hitchcock. They are not slices o lie, they
are larger than lie.
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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WRITE DOWN YOUR IDEA ON A
bLANK PIECE OF PAPER
Hitchcock oten started with larger than lie ideas when
thinking about the plot o his lms and he would write
down his idea on a blank piece o paper. Imagine wanting
to lm a scene across the aces o Mount Rushmore. Or
someone addressing the general assembly o the United
Nations reusing to continue until the delegate o Peru
wakes up. When the delegate is tapped on the shoulder,
he alls over dead. Or a ght to the nish atop the Statue
o Liberty?
In nding his ideas, Hitchcock oten turned to newspa-
per articles, short stories, plays, and novels. In Hitchcocks
stories about love and romance a woman is persuaded to
go to bed with a Nazi spy or the good o her country in
Notorious(1946), and in Vertigo(1958), a retired detec-
tive attempts to reshape a shop girl into the image o his
lost love. These are just some o the many examples where
Hitchcock takes one basic idea and spins it into a movie.
The idea or Notoriousarose rom a newspaper article
about a young woman in love with the son o a prominent
New York socialite. The woman eared that a secret rom
her past that she had slept with a oreign spy to gain
valuable inormation would destroy her chance o hap-
piness. Hitchcock and his screenwriter Ben Hecht decidedto keep only the part about the young woman pressed
into sexual service or her country. From that idea arose
the plotting or one o Hitchs nest lms, which is more
o a love story than a suspense story. As he said about
Notorious, The whole lm was really designed as a love
story. I wanted to make this lm about a man who orces
a woman to go to bed with another man because its hisproessional duty. The politics o the thing didnt much
interest me.
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TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR
3
Vertigo was based on a French novella, Dentre les
morts literally translated From Among the Dead
about a detective, suering rom a ear o heights, who
is hired to ollow the troubled wie o a riend. Fromthis idea, screenwriter Samuel Taylor came up with the
San Francisco locations, the characters, and the power-
ul theme o obsessive love. As Taylor said, Hitchcock
was the master o the situation, the vignette, the small
moment, the short story; he always knew what he wanted
to do with those. These ideas were part o a mosaic, and
when you put the mosaic together, then you have thewhole story.
Torn Curtain (1966), about an American physicist who
pretends to deect across the Iron Curtain, to the dismay
Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) and Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) are chasedacross the aces o Mount Rushmore (North by Northwest, 1959).
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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o his ance, was conceived rom real-lie events. When
Hitchcock read about British spies Burgess and Mclean
deecting to Russia during World War II, he wondered,
What did Mrs. MacLean think o the whole thing?
PITCHING YOUR IDEA
Lie is a big mystery. I think people areintrigued about mystery, to ind out about
things that they dont know anything about. Alred Hitchcock
Hitchcock kept his stories simple so that the audience
could ollow them. I anything in your story is densely
plotted and convoluted, you wont get the suspense out o
it. Abstract stories tend to conuse the audience, which is
why Hitch tended to avor crime stories with spies, assas-
sinations, and people running rom the police, which was
suited to his highly visual style. Although he complained
that crime ction is second-class literature in America
compared to Britain, where it was more highly regarded,
it also gave Hitchcock some o his greatest lms, includ-
ing Rope, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and
Psycho. These sorts o plots make it easier to play on ear
and suspense. Can you pitch these stories in an elevator
in one line?
Screenwriter Ernest Lehman was originally contractedto write a screenplay rom the novel The Wreck o the
Mary Deare, but couldnt nd the inspiration to do so.
Instead he said to Hitch, I want to do the Hitchcock
picture to end all Hitchcock pictures. It has to have glam-
our, wit, sophistication, and move all over the place with
suspense. Hitchs response was, I always wanted to do
a scene on Mount Rushmore, where the hero hides inAbraham Lincolns nose. This scene got both Lehman
and Hitchcock thinking in a Northwesterly direction, but
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TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR
5
it took them almost a year to write North by Northwest
because it was an original idea.
Hitchcock liked the rst 65 pages o Lehmans script
and went to the execs at MGM, who had been expectingan adaptation oMary Deare. Hitch was a master story-
teller and adept at selling ideas to network execs, so he
pitched the story premise and rst 20 minutes oNorth
by Northwest, not knowing where the story was going
to go. The execs were thrilled they thought they were
going to get two Hitchcock movies instead o one. Then
Hitchcock looked at his wristwatch and said Well gen-tlemen, I have a meeting to attend. Ill see you at the
preview. But he did such a good pitch that the execs at
MGM were spellbound and commissioned the lm on the
spot. Typical Hitch!
The examples rom Notorious, Vertigo, North by
Northwest, and Torn Curtain all are ideas or a solid story
premise. A story premise involves a protagonist who
must be proactive with a goal. A man pulling a knie out
o another mans back in the lobby o the United Nations
while all around him everyone thinks hes just stabbed
the guy. Thats a story premise. What can he do so not
to be arrested or it? The rest o the movie sees the man
(Cary Grant) running both rom the police and rom the
actual murderers, as he seeks to prove his innocence.
WRITE A CATCHY LOGLINE
A logline or pitch is a brie explanation o your story and
is usually one to three sentences long. It contains the
basic elements o the protagonist, the confict, the antago-
nist, and the genre. The logline is a concise description o
the movie including its essential hook. Think about these
basic ideas in Hitchcocks lms, and how the titles are
mirrored in the ollowing loglines.
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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A woman is haunted by the memory o her husbands
rst wie Rebecca.
A wheelchair-bound photographer spying on his
neighbors suspects that one o them has murdered
his wie Rear Window.
A secretary embezzles $40,000 rom her employer and
while on the run encounters a young motel owner
under the domination o his murderous mother
Psycho.
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential
boyriend to a small Northern Caliornia town that
slowly takes a turn or the bizarre when birds o all
kind suddenly begin to attack people with increasing
viciousness The Birds.
COMING UP WITH YOUR OWN IDEA ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYS
Although Hitchcock developed only six o his movies
rom original screenplays The Ring (1927), Foreign
Correspondent (1940), Saboteur(1942), Notorious(1946),
North by Northwest(1959), and Torn Curtain (1966) he
loved spinning ideas rom his own imagination, and rom
the imaginations o his screenwriting collaborators.Like Hitch, Steven Spielberg says that he dreams or
a living and has the audience in mind when he makes a
lm. Quentin Tarantino sees himsel as more o a writer/
director rather than a director. The glory in what I do is
that it starts with a blank piece o paper, says Tarantino.
I you look at something like Inglourious Basterds
(2009), and i my mother had never met my ather, thatwould never have existed in any way shape or ormit
started with a pen and paper.
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TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR
7
Tarantino admits that its hard work to start rom
scratch. Even though you may have made many movies
beore, it doesnt necessarily help you. He believes that
while it may be easier to direct other peoples scripts andwork with the screenwriter, six years down the line you
may have lost your original writers voice. Even though
he loved ilming the novel adaptation Jackie Brown
(1997), Tarantino says that he doesnt want to adapt other
peoples work in the uture, but instead wants to continue
coming up with his own original ideas.
Alred Hitchcock wasnt short o original ideas, buthe most oten preerred to build those ideas around solid
source material.
ADAPTING SOMEONE ELSES IDEA
ADAPTED SCREENPLAYS
A best-seller in literature is one thing itdoesnt necessarily mean its going to be a best-
seller in flm. Alred HitchcockI you dont have your own original idea you can adapt
someone elses, which is what Hitchcock most oten did.
One o his biggest challenges or Hitch was to nd excit-
ing and original source material to adapt, so he turned
to short stories, novels, plays, and newspaper articles
or inspiration. Some o his lms rom novels include
Rebecca(1940), Psycho(1960), Marnie(1964), and Frenzy
(1972); rom plays, Rope(1948), I Coness(1953), Dial M
or Murder (1954); rom short stories or novellas, Rear
Window(1954), Vertigo (1958), and The Birds(1963).
Hitchcock was reluctant to adapt major and popu-
lar literature, such as Fyodor Dostoevskys Crime and
Punishment, whose theme o guilt, murder, and redemp-tion would seem perect or him. In act he oten made
successul lms rom extremely mediocre material and
pulp ction. As he said, I have always maintained that
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
8
it is supreme oolishness to take any book and lm the
whole o it, just because one angle o it is really worth
screening. Most oten in Hitchcocks adaptations he ran
with the ideas rom the source material that interestedhim most, while ignoring the source material as a whole.
When he was developing The 39 Steps (1935),
Hitchcock saw the promise o John Buchans original
story, but couldnt see it in its entirety as good lm mate-
rial. So he took some o the novels characters, part o the
plot and the locations, and created the story o an inno-
cent man on the run, accused o a crime he didnt commitand caught up in a web o international intrigue. Very
oten Hitchcock didnt read the entire novel or story, but
just took the basic premise. For example, The Birdsbears
little resemblance to Daphne du Mauriers short story
set in Cornwall, apart rom the idea o birds attacking
humans. As Hitch said, It isnt because I want to change
the storyI just take the basic idea. I only read the story
once, and never look at it again.
Sometimes Hitchcock would write a scenario without
even completing the original book, knowing only the bare
plot, the characters, and the rough outline. The basic idea
may be in any o these elements or in certain o the situa-
tions. But i you plan to adapt a book, be careul, because
a good book doesnt necessarily mean it will make a good
lm. Hitchcocks Topaz (1969) was adapted rom Leon
Uris novel, a best-seller at the time, but the result wasnt
a successul movie.
THEMES IN YOUR STORY
You now have the idea or your movie, but what are the
major themes and what kind o story do you want to tell?
The theme is the main subject o the lm, the central
characteristic, concern, or moti, and it should arise rom
your basic idea. For Hitchcock, the themes must blend
two important elements.
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Firstly, your theme should hang on one single central
idea that the audience must always be thinking about.
Hitch believed the ormula or making an exciting lm
is to nd a single problem, which is suciently enthrall-ing to hold the attention o the audience while the story
unolds. A good movie ormula states in the rst ten min-
utes the single central theme what the lm is about, and
it must state what the problem is. It could be as simple
and tried and tested as boy meets girl, boy alls or girl,
boy loses girl, and nally boy and girl get back together.
Secondly, your theme must have scope to introduce anumber o other elements or sub-themes in the movie. For
Hitchcock, such themes included love (Vertigo), guilt and
innocence (The Wrong Man), psychology (Marnie), moral-
ity (Rope), and duty (Notorious). As Hitch understood,
deep underlying themes add essential emotional reso-
nance to the surace plot.
THE WRONGFULLY ACCUSED MAN
Im not against the police, Im just araid othem. Alred Hitchcock
The wrongully accused man was a subject Hitchcock
returned to repeatedly throughout his career in stories
oten eaturing innocent men orced to dodge both the
real villains and the police until they can unmask the true
criminal and prove their innocence. Think o Robert Donat
being chased by police in The 39 Steps (1935), Robert
Cummings being ramed in Saboteur(1942), Henry Fonda
arrested or crimes he didnt commit in The Wrong Man
(1956), Cary Grant being mistaken or a spy in North by
Northwest(1959), and Jon Finch being set-up or murder
by his best riend in Frenzy(1972).Another reason behind Hitchcocks ondness or the
wrongully accused man story is a structural one. The
audience must have sympathy or the man on the run. But
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they will wonder, Why doesnt he go to the police? Well,
the police are ater him, so he cant go to them. Otherwise
there will be no chase story. The important thing is that
he cannot and must not go to the police. Hitchcock stated
that his greatest ear was o the police, and he oten toldthe story o when he was ve years old his ather sent
him to the local police station, with a note to the chie o
police, who read the note and promptly put me into a cell
and locked the door or ve minutes; and then let me out,
saying, Thats what we do to naughty little boys.
The man on the run in these wrongully accused lms
is the average man. Hes not a proessional, detective,or criminal, but the everyman. As Hitchcock said, That
helps involve the audience much more easily than i he
The innocent Manny balestrero (Henry Fonda) lines up in The Wrong Man(1956).
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was unique. I have never been interested in making lms
about proessional criminals or detectives. I much preer
to take average men, because I think the audience can get
involved more easily. So or Hitchcock, the theme o theinnocent, wrongully accused man taps into the audiences
own ear that it could easily be them in the same position.
In Hitchcocks lms, the best example o the wrong-
ully accused man is The Wrong Man, the true story o
musician Manny Balestrero (played by Henry Fonda)
who was alsely accused o armed robbery. As Hitchcock
says, Well it happens so oten, and I think it creates arooting interest within an audience, because nobody
likes to be accused o something that he wasnt respon-
sible or. The Wrong Man being a true story added to the
audience ascination.
Martin Scorsese, when making his New York-based
movie Taxi Driver (1976), was inspired by Hitchcocks
lm. The Wrong Man is a picture I oten used repeatedly
or mood, paranoid style, beautiul New York location pho-
tography, says Scorsese. And I think ultimately its the
reason I asked [Hitchcock composer] Bernard Herrmann
to do the score. I think about the paranoid camera moves,
the eelings o threat when Henry Fonda goes to pay his
insurance in Queens. Hes standing behind the counter
and the womans looking over and you see Henry Fonda
rom this point o view. And the way the camera moves,
her perception, excellent bit part players, the ear, the
anxiety and the paranoia, is all done through the camera
and the perormers ace.
This theme o the wrongully accused man is a popu-
lar one in todays movies, rom The Fugitive(1993), The
Shawshank Redemption (1994), and Minority Report
(2002), to Eagle Eye(2008) and The Adjustment Bureau
(2011).
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THE DUPLICITOUS bLONDE
Blondes make the best victims theyre likevirgin snow that shows up the bloody oot-
prints. Alred HitchcockHitchcock is amous or casting blonde leading ladies
who are cool, mysterious, and elegant. Throughout his
career he gave us some o the screens most ascinating,
complex, and duplicitous emale characters. Memorable
Hitchcock blondes include Madeleine Carroll in The 39
Stepsand Secret Agent, Joan Fontaine in Rebeccaand
Suspicion, Ingrid Bergman in Spellboundand Notorious,
Grace Kelly in Dial M or Murder, Rear Window, and To
Catch A Thie, Kim Novak in Vertigo, Eva Marie Saint
in North by Northwest, and Tippi Hedren in The Birds
and Marnie.
The morally
conicted Alicia
Huerman (Ingrid
bergman) in
Notorious(1946).
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These women are oten punished or a crime that they
have committed, such as the characters played by Janet
Leigh in Psycho, Kim Novak in Vertigo, and Tippi Hedren
in Marnie. Ever since his early lm The Lodger (1926),where the serial killer, a Jack the Ripper type, murders
blonde women, Hitchcock maintained that blondes make
the best victims. He loved contrast, so he presented women
who were very ladylike on the surace. As Tippi Hedren
said, He liked to take women who are cool and in con-
trol, jumble them about and see i they survive and how
they survive. In The 39 Steps, the public sees MadeleineCarroll have no time to be her usual sophisticated sel
she is ar too busy racing over moors, rushing up and
down embankments, and scrambling over rocks.
Todays blonde emme atales have been inspired
by Hitchcock heroines. Think o Glenn Close in Fatal
Attraction (1987), Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct(1992),
Kim Basinger in L.A. Confdential (1997), and Naomi
Watts in Mulholland Dr. (2001).
THE PSYCHOPATH
Id like to discuss a subject very dear to me homicide. Alred Hitchcock
The serial killer or psychopath has long ascinated
Hitchcock ever since The Lodger (1929). His lms ea-
ture a roster o crazy psychopaths. In Hitchs avorite o
his lms, Shadow o a Doubt (1943), a beloved uncle is
really the Merry Widow Murderer. In Rope(1948), two
buttoned-down students are actually thrill killers. Two
men swap murders in Strangers on a Train (1951). In
Psycho (1960), motel manager Norman Bates has guest
(and mommy) issues, and in Frenzy (1972), a rapist andmurderer leaves a necktie around the neck o each o
his victims.
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What do these crazy guys have in common? They are
all attractive and seductive. As Hitchcock knew too well,
evil is attractive, otherwise the murderers would never be
able to get near to their victims. Well be getting up close
to these villains too in more detail in Chapter 4 to show
how Hitchcock cast and directed actors, oten against
type, to play these sympathetic murderers.
The attractive psychopath is a tradition that continues
in recent movies. The characters played by Robert De Niro
in Cape Fear(1991), Anthony Hopkins in The Silence o
the Lambs(1991), Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley
(1999), and Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones (2009)
all owe a debt to Hitchcock. All o these murderers arecharming, devious, sympathetic, and deadly.
Anthony Perkins as the psychopathic oy next door, Norman bates, in Psycho
(1960).
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SECRETS AND SPIES
The spy genre is one o the oldest in lm history and
Hitchcock was ascinated with spies and secrets. Many
o his lms deal in espionage, such as Secret Agent, The
39 Steps, Sabotage, Saboteur, Foreign Correspondent,
The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest,
Torn Curtain, and Topaz. Hitchcock spies are either ordi-
nary men plunged into the world o espionage, such as
James Stewarts American doctor abroad in The Man Who
Knew Too Much (1956) or Cary Grants advertising exec
in North by Northwest (1959).Or they are real spies, as
in Secret Agent (1936) and Topaz (1969). As Hitchcock
remarked, spies are really two dierent people heroes
in their own country and villains in the oreign country.
This contrast ascinated him.
These early spy lms rom Hitchcock heralded the way
or todays iconic spy characters, as North by Northwest
(1959) triggered the cycle o James Bond lms. Indeedthe attack on Bond by the helicopter in From Russia with
Love(1963) bears many similarities to Cary Grant being
pursued by the crop-duster plane, as do chase sequences
in The Prize(1963) and Arabesque(1966). But by the mid
1960s, Hitchcock had tired o that character, eeling that
the Bond lms had become a comic book version o his
original idea, so he set out to make more realistic spythrillers such as Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969).
In recent years, Hitchcocks spy lms have heavily infu-
enced both the Bourneand Mission: Impossibleseries.
CONTENT
So many people are interested in the content,that i you painted a still lie o some apples ona plate, youd be worrying whether the apples
are sweet or sour. Who cares? I dont care
mysel. Alred Hitchcock
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Youve decided on the theme or your movie, now you need
to inject a heavy dose o content and bring your movie
to lie. Hitchcock amously declared that he didnt care
about content in his movies, and that he was more inter-ested in lm technique. As long as the audience reacted
in a certain way, the idea or the lm could be about any-
thing you like. I you begin to worry about the details,
about the papers. I dont care what the spies are ater,
Hitchcock said. First and oremost he put cinematic style
beore content; I dont even know who was in that air-
plane attacking Cary Grant. I dont care. So long as thataudience goes through that emotion.
What did Hitch mean by these quotes? Does that mean
that you shouldnt care about the content o your movies
too? Maybe some o what Hitchcock said in public was
intended to shock or otherwise create reaction and con-
troversy, and he may have not meant it literally. When he
says he doesnt care about the content o the lm, he may
have meant he cares about keeping the audience emotion-
ally involved more than he does in the logic o a mystery
story. Suspense was oremost to him, but there cant be
thrills without mystery or some other dramatic context to
make us care.
Although Hitchcock may have said he doesnt care
about content, its only content that creates suspense.
There can be no suspense unless you crat the combina-
tion o your story and character that makes the viewer
care about whats going to happen. All o that is content.
It may not matter who the pilot o that gun-rigged crop-
duster is, but it doesmatter that someone with a motive
(content) has hired them to kill our hero. They were hired
or a reason. There must be motivation to keep us emo-
tionally involved, and what Hitchcock is the master at
is keeping the audience emotionally involved. Thats the
denition o suspense content.
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This all leads naturally into what Hitchcock called the
MacGun a key plot device in his lms that drives
the story.
THE MACGUFFIN WHAT IS IT?
(AND DOES IT MATTER?)
Its the device, the gimmick. Alred Hitchcock
Hitchcock oten talked about the MacGuin in his
lm, but what exactly is it? Lets hear it in Hitchs ownwords: It might be a Scottish name, taken rom a story
about two men in a train. One man says, Whats that
package up there in the baggage rack? and the other
answers, Oh, thats a MacGuin. The irst one asks,
Whats a MacGun? Well, the other man says, Its an
Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Alred Hitchcock and James Mason ponder the
MacGufn, in this case microflm hidden inside a ceramic statue, during the
flming oNorth by Northwest(1959).
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apparatus or trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.
The rst man says But there are no lions in the Scottish
Highlands, and the other one answers, Well, then thats
no MacGun! So you see, a MacGun is nothing at all.Does it make any sense? Or are you still in the dark?
Well thats hal the point. The MacGun is the engine
o the story and was coined by Hitchcock scenario editor
Angus McPhail. It is the object around which the plot
revolves, and motivates the actions o the characters. It
could be stealing the secret papers, the plans to a ort, an
airplane engine, or an atomic bomb, and is the thing thateveryone in the lm wants, but the audience doesnt really
care about.
Oten a MacGun is central to thrillers, spy stories,
and adventures, and becomes very important in a Hitchcock
movie. Most o the characters in the story will base their
actions on the MacGun, although the nal result will
usually be o greater signicance than actually getting,
controlling, or destroying the MacGun. So a MacGuns
purpose is to motivate the characters into action.
Examples o the MacGuin in Hitchcocks ilms.
The 39 Steps Top secret plans or a revolutionary
aircrat engine.
Notorious Radioactive uranium ore.
North by Northwest Government secrets hidden
on microlm inside a pre-Colombian ceramic statue.
Hitchcock called it my best MacGun the empti-
est, the most nonexistent, and the most absurd.
Psycho $40,000 in stolen cash.
The Birds The reason why the birds attack.
Torn Curtain The secret ormula or an anti-
missile device.
Family Plot Valuable diamonds.
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Hitchcock was joking when he told his story about
the lions in the Scottish highlands. But i the MacGun
is important to your characters, it has to be important
to your audience. Theyve got to know and understandenough to become emotionally involved. When Hitch and
his screenwriter Ben Hecht were writing Notorious, the
MacGun o the uranium ore became so involved it actu-
ally got in the way o the real plot, which was about a
woman, played by Ingrid Bergman, who has to go to bed
with a Nazi sympathizer. She chooses duty over love, as
does her real lover, played by Cary Grant. (When research-ing Notorious, Hitchcock quite coincidentally asked a
Caltech scientist how big an atomic bomb was, and he
later heard that the FBI kept him under surveillance or
three months!)
In North by Northwest, the MacGun is the narra-
tive device that propels the plot, but who in the audience
really cares about the roll o microlm in the pre-Colom-
bian statue? Theyre having too much un watching Cary
Grant run all over the map and all in love with Eva Marie
Saint. As Hitchcock said, A true MacGun will get you
where you need to go, but never overshadow what is ulti-
mately there.
For the irst 40 minutes o Psycho, the audience
becomes invested in the character o Marion Crane (Janet
Leigh), who fees town ater having stolen $40,000 o
cash rom her boss. But then she is suddenly killed in a
motel room shower, and the cash is casually tossed along
with her body into the trunk o her car, which itsel ends
up in a swamp. The lms real story then begins, which is
about who killed Marion and why. The MacGun the
money got Marion to that shower, and thats all that
really matters.
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Examples o the MacGuin in other directors
ilms.
During an interview or Star Wars(1977), George Lucas
described R2D2 as The MacGunthe main driving
orce o the movie, or the central object o every characters
search. Thats because both the Rebels and the Empire
were ater the plans o the Death Star inside R2D2, and
the search or R2D2 drove the plot o that lm.
In Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Fiction (1994), the viewer
never nds out whats inside the briecase, which book-
ends the movie. All that matters is that this MacGun is
wanted by a crime boss, who sends his two thugs, played
by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, to retrieve it.
In Avatar (2009), the MacGun is the Unobtanium,
the sought-ater mineral that sets the plot in motion
(much like the uranium in Hitchcocks Notorious) ulti-
mately inconsequential to the actual story being told.
KEEP YOUR PLOT MOVING
When making a picture, my ambition isto present a story that never stands still. Alred Hitchcock
The length o the ilm should be directlyrelated to the endurance o the human blad-
der. Alred HitchcockYou have your MacGun and all o your characters are
ater it, and now its on to the chase. Hitchcock used to say
that there should be a slogan, Keep them awake at the
movies! As he well knew, lms usually play rom 90 to
130 minutes, and an audience starts to tire ater an hour,
and so they need an injection o what he called dope.The dope to keep them awake is action, movement, and
excitement. But there is more to it than that, because
movies need careul pacing, ast action, and quick edit-
ing. A well-paced lm should keep the audiences mind
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occupied and this is achieved not necessarily by acting or
quick editing, but by a very ull story and the changing
o one situation to another.
Hitchcock never lmed a physical chase just or thesake o it. For every lm, your central character should
have a goal, an aim, and the audience should be rooting
or that character. A chase is essentially someone running
toward a goal, or feeing rom a pursuer (which is actu-
ally the pursuer running toward a goal). Hitchcock said,
Probably the ox hunt would be the simplest orm o the
chase. But put in place a girl instead o the ox, and sub-stitute the boy or the hunters, then you have a chase o
boy ater girl, or the police chasing a criminal. So long as
a plot has either fight or pursuit, it may be considered
a orm o the chase. In many ways the chase whether
in low or high gear makes up 60% o the construction
o all movie plots. Well or one thing, the chase seems
to be the nal expression o the motion picture medium.
Where but on screen can automobiles be shown careening
around corners ater each other? Then too, the movie is
the natural vessel or the chase story because the basic
lm shape is continuous. Once a movie starts it goes on.
The 39 Stepsis one o Hitchcocks avorite lms because
o the rapid and sudden switches in location. Once the
train leaves the station the lm never stops moving. Such
movement takes time to plan out, especially to blend the
characterization with the action. Halway through the
movie, lead character Hannay (Robert Donat) leaps out
o a police station window with hal a handcu on, and
immediately walks into a marching Salvation Army band.
To escape the police, he marches with the band, then slips
into a public hall, where hes immediately mistaken or
a guest speaker and ends up on an oratory platorm. Its
the rapid movement rom one scene to another, and using
one idea ater another, that keeps the audience hooked.
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SUSPENSE VS. MELODRAMA
Its been my good ortune to have somethingo a monopoly on the genre. Nobody else seems
to have taken much interest in the rules or
suspense. Alred HitchcockHitchcock was dubbed the Master o Suspense and
rightly so. But what is suspense? It could be described as
the stretching out o anticipation. And what is the dier-
ence between mystery and suspense? The two terms oten
get conused. So lets hear it rom the Master himsel:
Mystery is an intellectual process, as in [solving] a who-
dunitbut suspense is essentially an emotional process.
With suspense its necessary to involve emotion.
One example o mystery occurs in Vertigowhen Scottie
(James Stewart) ollows Madeleine (Kim Novak) to the
McKittrick Hotel. He sees her in the bedroom window, but
when he goes up to her room, she has disappeared, as has
her car parked outside. Kim Novak remembers, I asked
Hitchcock how did Madeleine leave the hotel, because we
never see her leave. His answer was Thats why its a mys-
tery, my dear. In a mystery, you dont need the answer to
every question. And that was very important to Hitchcock,
to leave some questions unresolved so that the audience
will be thinking about them at the end o the movie.
Suspense, however, is dierent rom mystery. Nearly
all stories can do with suspense, not matter the genre.
Even a love story can have suspense. Its much more than
saving someone rom the path o an oncoming train;
theres also the suspense o whether the man will get the
girl. Suspense has largely to do with the audiences own
desires or wishes. So getting the suspense right in your
movie is a very important part o the process. Hitchcockcreated dierent ways o generating suspense, rom build-
ing story tension to editing techniques, to using sound
and music to evoke terror and anticipation.
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GIVE YOUR AUDIENCE
INFORMATION
There is no terror in the bang, only in the
anticipation o it. Alred HitchcockAll suspense comes out o giving the audience inormation.
I you tell the audience that theres a bomb in the room and
that its going to go o in ve minutes thats suspense.
Hitchcock knew how to mix the ingredients o suspense
so that emotional tension became almost unbearable.
Were sitting here talking, said Hitch in an interview,and we dont know that theres a bomb hidden inside your
tape recorder. The public doesnt know either, and sud-
denly the bomb explodes. Were blown to bits. Surprise.
But how long does it last, the surprise and the horror?
Five seconds, no more. The secret, Hitch maintained,
was to let the audience in on the secret the ticking
bomb. In that way, instead o ve seconds o surprise,youve created ve minutes o suspense. The bomb need
not even go o or the audience to have had a thrilling
emotional experience.
The number one rule with suspense, then, is that
you must give the audience inormation. For example,
i something is about to harm the characters, show it
at beginning o the scene and let it play out. Constant
reminders o this looming danger will build suspense and
keep the audience on the edge. But remember that sus-
pense is not in the mind o the character. They must be
completely unaware o it.
A good example o this type o suspense building,
where the audience knows more than the characters,
occurs in The Birds. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) sits
in ront o a jungle gym outside Bodega Bay School and
starts to smoke a cigarette. Unbeknownst to her, one
crow lands on the bars o the jungle gym behind her. As
she continues smoking obliviously, two, three, our more
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crows gather on the jungle gym. Finally Melanie notices a
single crow in the sky and ollows its movement down to
the jungle gym. It is now covered in a mass o menacing
crows, all awaiting Melanies next move. The suspense inthis scene is so exciting because it comes rom the audi-
ence knowing more than the character. There will be more
about this celebrated sequence in Chapter 6 on editing.
In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock lets the
audience know the moment an assassination attempt is
to be made at an Albert Hall diplomatic concert at the
strike o an orchestras cymbals. By pre-amiliarizingthe lms audience with the piece o music, and cutting
repeatedly to the percussionist holding the cymbals, the
build-up to the possible moment o murder becomes lled
with suspense.
INVOLVE YOUR AUDIENCE IN THE
SUSPENSEHitchcock made the bold decision in Vertigo to reveal to
the audience 40 minutes beore the end o the movie
that Madeleine Elster and her mysterious doppelgnger
Judy Barton (both played by Kim Novak) are in act the
same woman. Hitch said to his screenwriter Samuel Taylor,
This is the time or us to blow the whole truth. Taylor
was shocked, saying, Good God, why? The Paramountstudio executives were also against this, because they
wanted the ending to be a surprise, but Hitch knew that
it would be more powerul i he let the audience in on
the secret.
One o the atal things in suspense is to conuse the
audience. Without knowing that Madeleine and Judy are
the same person, audiences would be as conused and rus-trated as Jimmy Stewarts character, Scottie. So Hitchcock
decided to tell all in a fashback, and, in doing so, the
audience then sits through the remaining 40 minutes o
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the lm thinking, What will Scottie do when he nds
out that its the same woman? What will Judy do when
he nds out? I the reveal were let to the very end, all
the audience gets is ve minutes o surprise. Good sus-pense should actively involve the audience in the telling
o the story.
I said i we dont let them know, they will speculate,
some o them will even say, maybe its the same girl,
Hitchcock said. Now they will get a blurred impression
o what is going on.
In Psychothe audience also knows more than the char-acters know when detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam)
enters the Bates house to investigate, one o the most
suspenseul scenes in Hitchcocks lms. We cant help but
eel anxious or Arbogast as we know that the murderous
Mrs. Bates is waiting or him at the top o the stairs. (And
yet, unlike Vertigos big reveal, Psychos secret the true
identity o Mrs. Bates is let as a nal shock or both
the characters and the audience. An interesting and
successul choice on Hitchcocks part.)
Another good example o suspense building occurs in
Marnie. The audience knows that a cleaning woman is
around the corner while Marnie is robbing the Rutland
oce sae. Marnie doesnt know which is more sus-
penseul or us, because although shes a thie, we dont
want her to be caught. The irony here is that through
this suspense technique the audience builds a sympathetic
attachment to the wrong-doer a Hitchcock specialty.
We know that stealing is wrong, but our desire to warn
Marnie about that cleaning lady ends up overwhelming
our logic.
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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OTHER DIRECTORS USING
SUSPENSE
Suspense is like a woman. The more let to
the imagination, the more the excitement. Alred Hitchcock
Although many people think o Hitchcocks lms as vio-
lent, Hitchcock actually rarely used graphic violence.
Suggestion was enough in his masterul hands. In
Psycho, ater the shower scene and Arbogasts murder
(themselves suggested more than graphically shown),there is less and less violence as the movie goes on. Hitch
elt that he had already worked the audience into enough
o an emotional state that just the expectation o possible
violence was now all that was needed. Nearly all suspense
movie directors draw upon the techniques used by and
usually rst developed by Hitchcock. One that comes to
mind more than any other is Steven Spielberg. During
the lming oJaws(1975), Spielberg had a great deal o
trouble with making the mechanical shark look authen-
tic and rightening. Suddenly Spielberg was let with
having to tell a story like Hitchcock, which is that you
dont show the shark or most o the movie. So he used
suspense techniques to tell the story. You see the reac-
tions o people to the shark, you see the shark towing
things through the water, you see spurting blood, you
see people being yanked underwater, but you never see
the shark itsel, and thats something Hitchcock would
have done and indeed did do during the bird attack on
the Brenner house towards the end oThe Birds. Its all
lmed with suggestion.
The whole technique which we used on The Blair
Witch Project, says director Daniel Myrick, and what I
continue to use to this day because its like Horror 101,
and it comes rom the Hitchcock Book you give clues
to whats happening or you hear whats happening or you
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TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR
27
catch glimpses o whats happening, but you dont actu-
ally see it.
Hitchcocks infuence on suspense can also be clearly
seen in Jonathan Demmes The Silence o the Lambs(1991).Demmes editor Craig McKay says, Suspense is really an
expression o ear. We can build that in our storytelling
by withholding inormation. Frankly, its manipulation,
but in using that manipulation it also empowers the
story. Not knowing where were going to go next is the
thing that human beings hate the most. We would all like
to know where were going, i its all going to be alright.McKay and Demme always attempted to keep the audi-
ence rom getting ahead o the story in The Silence o the
Lambs, to keep it suspenseul.
Alejandro Amenbar, director o The Others (2001),
says, Steven Spielberg, Alred Hitchcock, and Stanley
Kubrick are the three directors that, when I was a teen-
ager, I used to analyze their movies and watch them over
and over. Their perspective I identied with them. In
the case o Hitchcock, his use o suspense is something
mathematical, and my rst three lms Tesis, Open Your
Eyes, and The Others have something to do with that.
The Bourne Identity(2002) has more action than most
Hitchcock movies and also has lots o suspense and sur-
prise together with an active chase sequence. Watch how
the story is told visually, through the editing, and how
the main characters point o view is used to make the
audience eel like a participant in the movie. Notice how
the audience oten knows more about the dangers than
the characters, and listen to how the tempo and type
o music raises the suspense. There will be more about
all o these techniques or developing suspense in the
ollowing chapters.
Many o todays movies take little time to build sus-
pense and are oten just one big explosion or CGI eect
ater another. Youve got to give your audience time to
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ALFRED HITCHCOCKS MOVIEMAKING MASTER CLASS TONY LEE MORAL
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get into the scene, and to build up suspense gradually, as
evidenced in the crop-duster scene oNorth by Northwest.
Today, youd have the guy get o the bus, and immedi-
ately the plane would show up and chase him into theeld. There would be dozens o special eects shots, and
the sequence wouldnt play nearly as well emotionally
with an audience. Its to Hitchs credit that he builds sus-
pense over eight minutes o silence.
E X E R C I S E S
1. Write down some ideas or a thriller or suspense movie
and see where it leads you. What are your themes and
how do they relate to the plot? Can you say what your
movie is about in one sentence?
2. Lay down your story in its barest orm and start to
write down your idea on one piece o paper. You dont
have to write very much, maybe just a man is asked tomeet someone at Grand Central Station and then some-
thing eventul happens. Where does the story lead?
3. Once youve written down your idea on one sheet o
paper, pitch to your riends what the lm is about.
Are you excited telling your story? Are your riends
excited about it and want to know where your
story leads?
4. Think about the protagonist or your lm. Is he or
she a hero or a heroine, a wrongully accused man, a
spy or a villain? Give your character attributes so that
they come alive on paper.
5. Come up with an idea or a MacGuin and how
it might drive the plot in your lm. Why do your
characters want it so badly? Watch the ollowing
lms: Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and Mission:
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TELL ME THE STORY SO FAR
Impossible III. Can you spot what the MacGun is in
these movies? How does it drive the plot?
6. Write a suspenseul scene. Make sure that the audi-
ence knows more than your characters. How does that
make the scene more suspenseul?
7. Examine the ways inormation was manipulated in
the last lm you watched or in your avorite lm.
Focus on the rst 15 minutes o the lm. How are
Hitchcocks cinematic practices applied to these lms?
Key Hitchcock ilms to watch
North by Northwest(1959)
Psycho(1960)
The Birds(1963)
Other directors ilms to watch
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The Usual Suspects(1995)
Se7en (1995)
Inglourious Basterds(2009)
The Tourist(2010)
Further reading
Save the Cat!(2005) by Blake Snyder
Writing with Hitchcock(2011) by Steven De Rosa