Hitchcock is already a famous director in the world, and this year marks the 40th anniversary of his death. He has been in the film business for 60 years, leaving behind more than 50 films, and his name has become synonymous with suspense. And today, I want to talk about his film Notorious, which stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary grant.
I'm going to talk about how it uses various techniques to create a sense of suspense and horror.
A cup of Coffee
This is one of my most memorable plots. A man, Alicia, Sebastian and his mother all sit in the sitting room talk about Alicia’s illness, and Sebastian and his mother seem indifferent to this matter. S’s mother gave both Alicia and the man a cup of coffee. And when the man took Alicia’s coffee by mistake, S and his mother suddenly turned nervous. This is in sharp contrast to their previous attitude. After this, Alicia realized that her identity had been exposed and understood the cause of her illness. So she tried to stand up and go back to her room, but at this time the poison struck, and her vision began to blur and she fainted on the ground.
I must say that this film’s editor is a genius, before this scenario, there has a shot, it is wonderful. After this shot, Alicia faints in the garden, and the shot is suggesting Alicia will be illness, and also set the stage for the end of this film. Yes you may realize, that is this below shot.
Let’s back to the plot. Director use medium shot shooting everyone who was in the sitting room talk about Alicia, and use close-up shot shooting the coffee.
And the shoot of Alicia is special, director using foreground strategies to make space clear, we can see in this frame, the coffee is be setting in the foreground and Alicia is in the background. And the photographer shooting this frame with deep-focus lens to highlight the coffee and use telephoto lens to make the distance between the coffee and Alicia seems closer. By using these to show us that Alicia is be close to the dangerous.
After that, Alicia begins to suspect Sebastian, along with his mother, has poisoned her. Photographer use close shot to show her was shocked and use camera movement to create a tense and depressing atmosphere. The frame began with medium shot and zoom in to Sebastian’s mother and S’s face. As we all know, because the eyes cannot be zoomed, this camera will make people feel unnatural and uncomfortable.
When Alicia stood up, because of the poison, she was very weak. So, the filmmaker use composition, movement, sounds and lighting to create an abnormal scene. Or we can say, these are POV shots for Alicia.
In order to show the scene in Alice's eyes, first, the sounds became unusual. Secondly, the image distortion, I think here use the Cant and handheld shots, also with Dutch angle. It can let the psychological description of the character is more vivid, the tense atmosphere is built stronger.
In the end, Alicia fainted in the living room. This frame uses high angle to express the low status of Alicia.
MacGuffin
McGuffin technique is a kind of film expression, which means that someone or something does not exist, but it is an important clue to the development of the story, and it is the commonly used film expression technique of Hitchcock. According to Hitchcock's definition, "something in a suspense movie that the characters must chase after, but the audience can care nothing about."
For example, in Notorious, the uranium ore is that thing doesn’t exist but important. In order to find evidence of Sebastian's guilt, Alicia and Devlin were forced apart. But in the end, we still don’t know whether the German Nazi organization was eliminated. All these just in order to show us the unpredictable relationship between Alicia and Devlin.
Lighting: The door
You may remember the first time that Alicia walk into Sebastian’s home, but do you notice the ratio of lights to darks in the film image? Let’s see the picture below:
We can clearly find in the first picture the light is darker, and the second picture the light is lighter. Alicia walks into this house which had been closed to her for her country, also for Devlin. As a Nazi, Sebastian has always been attracted by the evil that always opened to him. The visual contrast between the images seems to convey a message to the viewer: Although it is bright visually, but it is dark in nature.
Today, there are many classic vintage films that we can enjoy, but some of them limited by the time and language, makes us difficult to enjoy them completely. But I think Hitchcock must be an exception, he is just like a skilled magician, he can easily use the various elements of the film to show the deep desires and fears of human nature.
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