Editing Alfred Hitchcock (section)

==Filmmaking==
===Style and themes===
{{Main|Themes and plot devices in Hitchcock films|List of cameo appearances by Alfred Hitchcock}}
The "[[Hitchcockian]]" style includes the use of editing and camera movement to mimic a person's gaze, thereby turning viewers into [[voyeurs]], and framing [[Shot (filmmaking)|shots]] to maximise anxiety and fear. The film critic [[Robin Wood (critic)|Robin Wood]] wrote that the meaning of a Hitchcock film "is there in the method, in the progression from shot to shot. A Hitchcock film is an organism, with the whole implied in every detail and every detail related to the whole."{{sfn|Wood|2002|p=62}}

Hitchcock's film production career evolved from small-scale silent films to financially significant sound films. Hitchcock remarked that he was influenced by early filmmakers George Méliès, D. W. Griffith and Alice Guy-Blaché.<ref>{{cite book|last=Chandler|first=Charlotte|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62897583|title=It's only a movie : Alfred Hitchcock : a personal biography|date=2006|publisher=Applause Theatre & Cinema Books|isbn=1-55783-692-2|location=New York|oclc=62897583|access-date=19 May 2021|archive-date=7 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211107064522/https://www.worldcat.org/title/its-only-a-movie-alfred-hitchcock-a-personal-biography/oclc/62897583|url-status=live}}</ref> His silent films between 1925 and 1929 were in the crime and suspense genres, but also included melodramas and comedies. Whilst [[visual storytelling]] was pertinent during the silent era, even after the arrival of sound, Hitchcock still relied on visuals in cinema; he referred to this emphasis on visual storytelling as "pure cinema".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://nofilmschool.com/alfred-hitchcock-advice-quotes|title=Get Alfred Hitchcock's Advice, In His Own Words|website=No Film School|last=Edelman|first=George|date=13 August 2020|accessdate=17 December 2021|quote=Cinema is form. I see many good films that contain very fine dialogue. I don't deprecate these films, but to me, they're not pure cinema. Trying to make them cinema some directors find odd angles to shoot from, but they still only produce what I call 'photographs of people talking.'}}</ref> In Britain, he honed his craft so that by the time he moved to Hollywood, the director had perfected his style and camera techniques. Hitchcock later said that his British work was the "sensation of cinema", whereas the American phase was when his "ideas were fertilised".{{Sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=123}} Scholar [[Robin Wood (critic)|Robin Wood]] writes that the director's first two films, ''The Pleasure Garden'' and ''The Mountain Eagle'', were influenced by [[German expressionist cinema|German Expressionism]]. Afterward, he discovered [[Soviet cinema]], and [[Sergei Eisenstein]]'s and [[Vsevolod Pudovkin]]'s theories of [[Soviet montage theory|montage]].{{Sfn|McGilligan|2003|p=75}} 1926's ''The Lodger'' was inspired by both German and Soviet aesthetics, styles which solidified the rest of his career.{{Sfn|Wood|2002|p=207}} Although Hitchcock's work in the 1920s found some success, several British reviewers criticised Hitchcock's films for being unoriginal and conceited.{{Sfn|Sloan|1995|p=17}} [[Raymond Durgnat]] opined that Hitchcock's films were carefully and intelligently constructed, but thought they can be shallow and rarely present a "coherent worldview".{{Sfn|Sloan|1995|p=400}}

Earning the title "Master of Suspense", the director experimented with ways to generate tension in his work.{{Sfn|Sloan|1995|p=17}} He said, "My suspense work comes out of creating nightmares for the audience. And I ''play'' with an audience. I make them gasp and surprise them and shock them. When you have a nightmare, it's awfully vivid if you're dreaming that you're being led to the electric chair. Then you're as happy as can be when you wake up because you're relieved."<ref name=":0">{{cite web|last=Lightman|first=Herb A.|date=12 June 2017|title=Hitchcock Talks About Lights, Camera, Action – The American Society of Cinematographers|url=https://ascmag.com/articles/flashback-hitchcock-talks-about-lights-camera-action|access-date=25 November 2020|website=ascmag.com|archive-date=26 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126091813/https://ascmag.com/articles/flashback-hitchcock-talks-about-lights-camera-action|url-status=live}}</ref> During filming of ''North by Northwest'', Hitchcock explained his reasons for recreating the set of [[Mount Rushmore]]: "The audience responds in proportion to how realistic you make it. One of the dramatic reasons for this type of photography is to get it looking so natural that the audience gets involved and believes, for the time being, what's going on up there on the screen."<ref name=":0" /> In a 1963 interview with Italian journalist [[Oriana Fallaci]], Hitchcock was asked how in spite of appearing to be a pleasant, innocuous man, he seemed to enjoy making films involving suspense and terrifying crime. He responded:{{blockquote|I'm English. The English use a lot of imagination with their crimes. I don't get such a kick out of anything as much as out of imagining a crime. When I'm writing a story and I come to a crime, I think happily: now wouldn't it be nice to have him die like this? And then, even more happily, I think: at this point people will start yelling. It must be because I spent three years studying with the Jesuits. They used to terrify me to death, with everything, and now I'm getting my own back by terrifying other people.{{sfn|Gottlieb|2003|p=56}}}}

[[File:Leytonstone tube station - Hitchcock Gallery- Hitchcock The Director (geograph 4081878).jpg|thumb|''Hitchcock The Director'' mosaic in the [[London Underground]]]]

Hitchcock's films, from the silent to the sound era, contained a number of recurring themes that he is famous for. His films explored audience as a [[voyeur]], notably in ''Rear Window'', ''Marnie'' and ''Psycho''. He understood that human beings enjoy voyeuristic activities and made the audience participate in it through the character's actions.{{Sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=216}} Of his fifty-three films, eleven revolved around stories of [[mistaken identity]], where an innocent protagonist is accused of a crime and is pursued by police. In most cases, it is an ordinary, everyday person who finds themselves in a dangerous situation.{{Sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=48}} Hitchcock told Truffaut: "That's because the theme of the innocent man being accused, I feel, provides the audience with a greater sense of danger. It's easier for them to identify with him than with a guilty man on the run."{{Sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=48}} One of his constant themes was the struggle of a personality torn between "order and chaos";{{Sfn|Wood|2002|p=98}} known as the notion of "double", which is a comparison or contrast between two characters or objects: the double representing a dark or evil side.{{Sfn|Evans|2004|p=}}

According to Robin Wood, Hitchcock retained a feeling of ambivalence towards homosexuality, despite working with gay actors throughout his career.{{Sfn|Wood|2002|p=342}} Donald Spoto suggests that Hitchcock's [[sexually repressive]] childhood may have contributed to his exploration of [[deviancy]].{{Sfn|Wood|2002|p=342}} During the 1950s, the [[Motion Picture Production Code]] prohibited direct references to homosexuality but the director was known for his subtle references,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hosier|first1=Connie Russell|last2=Badman|first2=Scott|date=7 February 2017|title=Gay Coding in Hitchcock Films|url=https://www.us.mensa.org/read/bulletin/features/gay-coding-in-hitchcock-films/|access-date=25 November 2020|website=American Mensa|archive-date=7 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107230929/https://www.us.mensa.org/read/bulletin/features/gay-coding-in-hitchcock-films/|url-status=live}}</ref> and pushing the boundaries of the censors. Moreover, ''Shadow of a Doubt'' has a double [[incest]] theme through the storyline, expressed implicitly through images.{{Sfn|Wood|2002|p=300}} Author Jane Sloan argues that Hitchcock was drawn to both conventional and unconventional sexual expression in his work,{{Sfn|Sloan|1995|p=16}} and the theme of marriage was usually presented in a "bleak and skeptical" manner.{{Sfn|Wood|2002|p=246}} It was also not until after his mother's death in 1942, that Hitchcock portrayed motherly figures as "notorious monster-mothers".{{Sfn|McGilligan|2003|p=321}} The [[espionage]] backdrop, and murders committed by characters with [[psychopathic]] tendencies were common themes too.{{Sfn|McGilligan|2003|p=128}} In Hitchcock's depiction of villains and murderers, they were usually charming and friendly, forcing viewers to identify with them.{{Sfn|Taylor|1996|p=293}} The director's strict childhood and Jesuit education may have led to his distrust of authority figures such as policemen and politicians; a theme which he has explored.{{Sfn|Evans|2004|p=}} Also, he used the "[[MacGuffin]]"—the use of an object, person or event to keep the plot moving along even if it was non-essential to the story.{{Sfn|Taylor|1996|p=120}}

Hitchcock appears briefly in most of his own films. For example, he is seen struggling to get a double bass onto a train (''[[Strangers on a Train (film)|Strangers on a Train]]''), walking dogs out of a pet shop (''[[The Birds (film)|The Birds]]''), fixing a neighbour's clock (''[[Rear Window]]''), as a shadow (''[[Family Plot]]''), sitting at a table in a photograph (''[[Dial M for Murder]]''), and riding a bus (''[[North by Northwest]]'','' [[To Catch a Thief]]'').{{sfn|Walker|2005|p=88}}

===Representation of women===
<!--add White, Susan (2015). "Alfred Hitchcock and Feminist Film Theory (Yet Again)". In Freedman, Jonathan. The Cambridge Companion to Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 109–126. And Modleski, Tania (2016) [1988]. The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock And Feminist Theory. New York and Abingdon: Routledge.-->Hitchcock's portrayal of women has been the subject of much scholarly debate. [[Bidisha]] wrote in ''The Guardian'' in 2010: "There's the vamp, the tramp, the snitch, the witch, the slink, the double-crosser and, best of all, the demon mommy. Don't worry, they all get punished in the end."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bidisha |author-link1=Bidisha |title=What's wrong with Hitchcock's women |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/alfred-hitchcock-women-psycho-the-birds-bidisha |work=The Guardian |date=21 October 2010|access-date=26 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171227061912/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/alfred-hitchcock-women-psycho-the-birds-bidisha|archive-date=27 December 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In a widely cited essay in 1975, [[Laura Mulvey]] introduced the idea of the [[male gaze]]; the view of the spectator in Hitchcock's films, she argued, is that of the heterosexual male protagonist.{{sfn|Mulvey|1989}} "The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again", [[Roger Ebert]] wrote in 1996: "They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerised the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps. Sooner or later, every Hitchcock woman was humiliated."<ref>{{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-vertigo-1958 |title=Vertigo |date=13 October 1996 |work=Chicago Sun-Times|access-date=26 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171223043656/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-vertigo-1958|archive-date=23 December 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>{{efn|In 1967, Hitchcock told Truffaut: "I think the most interesting women, sexually, are the English women. I feel that the English women, the Swedes, the northern Germans, and Scandinavians are a great deal more exciting than the Latin, the Italian, and the French women. Sex should not be advertised. An English girl, looking like a schoolteacher, is apt to get into a cab with you and, to your surprise, she'll probably pull a man's pants open.&nbsp;... [W]ithout the element of ''surprise'' the scenes become meaningless. There's no possibility to ''discover'' sex.{{sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=224}}}}

[[File:Vertigo 1958 trailer embrace.jpg|thumb|left|[[Kim Novak]] and [[James Stewart]] in ''[[Vertigo (film)|Vertigo]]'' (1958)]]

Hitchcock's films often feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers, such as Norman Bates in ''Psycho''. In ''North by Northwest'', Roger Thornhill ([[Cary Grant]]) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In ''The Birds'', the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself from a clinging mother ([[Jessica Tandy]]). The killer in ''Frenzy'' has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in ''Strangers on a Train'' hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by [[Marion Lorne]]). Sebastian ([[Claude Rains]]) in ''Notorious'' has a clearly conflicting relationship with his mother, who is (rightly) suspicious of his new bride, Alicia Huberman ([[Ingrid Bergman]]).<ref>{{harvnb|Kaganski|1997|pp=1–9}}</ref><!--replace source-->

===Relationship with actors===
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 |quote = I told her that my idea of a good actor or good actress is someone who can do nothing very well.&nbsp;... I said, "That's one of the things you've got to learn to have&nbsp;... authority." Out of authority comes control and out of control you get the range&nbsp;... Whether you do little acting, a lot of acting in a given scene. You know exactly where you're going. And these were the first things that she had to know. Emotion comes later and the control of the voice comes later. But, within herself, she had to learn authority first and foremost because out of authority comes timing.
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Hitchcock became known for having remarked that "actors should be treated like cattle".{{sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=140}}{{efn|Hitchcock told Fallaci in 1963: "When they [actors] aren't cows, they're children: that's something else I've often said. And everyone knows that there are good children, bad children, and stupid children. The majority of actors, though, are stupid children. They're always quarreling, and they give themselves a lot of airs. The less I see of them, the happier I am. I had much less trouble directing fifteen hundred crows than one single actor. I've always said that Walt Disney has the right idea. His actors are made of paper; when he doesn't like them, he can tear them up."{{sfn|Fallaci|1963}}}} During the filming of ''[[Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941 film)|Mr. & Mrs. Smith]]'' (1941), [[Carole Lombard]] brought three cows onto the set wearing the name tags of Lombard, [[Robert Montgomery (actor)|Robert Montgomery]], and [[Gene Raymond]], the stars of the film, to surprise him.{{sfn|Truffaut|1983|p=140}} In an episode of ''[[The Dick Cavett Show]]'', originally broadcast on 8 June 1972,  [[Dick Cavett]] stated as fact that Hitchcock had once called actors cattle. Hitchcock responded by saying that, at one time, he had been accused of calling actors cattle. "I said that I would never say such an unfeeling, rude thing about actors at all. What I probably said, was that all actors should be treated like cattle...In a nice way of course." He then described Carole Lombard's joke, with a smile.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alfred Hitchcock Talks About His Relationship With Actors {{pipe}} The Dick Cavett Show|website=[[YouTube]] |date=11 May 2019 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuD1yloq5pY|access-date=11 February 2023}}</ref>

Hitchcock believed that actors should concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. He told [[Bryan Forbes]] in 1967: "I remember discussing with a method actor how he was taught and so forth. He said, 'We're taught using improvisation. We are given an idea and then we are turned loose to develop in any way we want to.' I said, 'That's not acting. That's writing.'"<ref name=HitchcockForbes>{{cite web |title=Alfred Hitchcock |publisher=British Film Institute |url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/hitchcock.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080210051052/http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/hitchcock.html#actors |archive-date=10 February 2008}}</ref>

Recalling their experiences on ''Lifeboat'' for Charles Chandler, author of ''It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock A Personal Biography,'' [[Walter Slezak]] said that Hitchcock "knew more about how to help an actor than any director I ever worked with", and [[Hume Cronyn]] dismissed the idea that Hitchcock was not concerned with his actors as "utterly fallacious", describing at length the process of rehearsing and filming ''Lifeboat''.<ref>{{cite book |title=It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock A Personal Biography |publisher=Simon and Schuster |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKRhkdxsFs8C&pg=PT133 |isbn=978-1-84739-709-6 |year= 2008 |access-date=14 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222214437/https://books.google.com/books?id=oKRhkdxsFs8C&pg=PT133 |archive-date=22 December 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Critics observed that, despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, actors who worked with him often gave brilliant performances. He used the same actors in many of his films; Cary Grant and James Stewart both worked with Hitchcock four times,<ref>{{harvnb|White|2011|p=184}}</ref> and Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly three. [[James Mason]] said that Hitchcock regarded actors as "animated props".<ref>{{harvnb|Whitty|2016|p=263}}</ref> For Hitchcock, the actors were part of the film's setting. He told François Truffaut: "The chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be used and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights."<ref>{{harvnb|Truffaut|1983|p=111}}</ref>

===Writing, storyboards and production===
Hitchcock planned his scripts in detail with his writers. In ''Writing with Hitchcock'' (2001), Steven DeRosa noted that Hitchcock supervised them through every draft, asking that they tell the story visually.<ref>{{harvnb|DeRosa|2001|p=xi}}</ref> Hitchcock told Roger Ebert in 1969:

{{blockquote|Once the screenplay is finished, I'd just as soon not make the film at all. All the fun is over. I have a strongly visual mind. I visualize a picture right down to the final cuts. I write all this out in the greatest detail in the script, and then I don't look at the script while I'm shooting. I know it off by heart, just as an orchestra conductor needs not look at the score. It's melancholy to shoot a picture. When you finish the script, the film is perfect. But in shooting it you lose perhaps 40 per cent of your original conception.<ref>{{cite news |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hitchcock-never-mess-about-with-a-dead-body-you-may-be-one |title=Hitchcock: "Never mess about with a dead body—you may be one&nbsp;.... |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=14 December 1969|access-date=11 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171212084523/https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hitchcock-never-mess-about-with-a-dead-body-you-may-be-one|archive-date=12 December 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Hitchcock's films were extensively [[storyboard]]ed to the finest detail. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the [[viewfinder]], since he did not need to, although in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternative takes to consider.<ref>Krohn, Bill, ''Hitchcock at Work'' (London: Phaidon, 2000), p. 9. cited in {{cite book |last1=Pallant |first1=Chris |title=Hitchcock and Storyboarding |year=2015  |pages=112|editor-last=Pallant|editor-first=Chris |series=Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |doi=10.1057/9781137027603_6 |isbn=978-1-137-02760-3 |last2=Price |first2=Steven|editor2-last=Price|editor2-first=Steven}}</ref>

[[File:Alfred Hitchcock on the set of North By Northwest.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt= Image of Hitchcock pictured under Mount Rushmore during the filming of North by Northwest|Hitchcock at [[Mount Rushmore]] filming ''[[North by Northwest]]'' (1959)]]
This view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of French film magazine ''[[Cahiers du Cinéma]]'', in his book ''Hitchcock at Work''. After investigating script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock, and other production material, Krohn observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned.<ref name= "krohn1–7">{{harvnb|Krohn|2000|pp=1–7}}</ref> He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his films, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. For example, the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of ''North by Northwest'' was not storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film, and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.<ref name="Raymond Bellour 2000 p. 217">{{harvnb|Bellour|Penley|2000|p=217}}</ref>{{verify source|date=December 2017}}

Even when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like ''Notorious'' reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of ''The Man Who Knew Too Much,'' whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including ''[[Strangers on a Train (film)|Strangers on a Train]]'' and ''[[Topaz (1969 film)|Topaz]]''. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his films, he was fully cognisant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best-laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines used during many other film productions.<ref name="Raymond Bellour 2000 p. 217"/>{{verify source|date=December 2017}}

[[File:Alfred Hitchcock Extended Interview.ogv|thumb|alt= Close-up of Hitchcock for a media clip of a 1966 interview|Hitchcock interview, {{circa|1966}}]]
Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternative takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how they chose (often under the producer's aegis).<ref name="Heritage02-28-07">{{cite web |last=Lehman |first=David |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2007/2/2007_2_28.shtml |title=Alfred Hitchcock's America |work=American Heritage |date=April–May 2007|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711184905/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2007/2/2007_2_28.shtml |archive-date=11 July 2007}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=December 2017}} Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency to give himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work.

According to Krohn, this and a great deal of other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock. Both his fastidiousness and attention to detail also found their way into each [[film poster]] for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as [[Bill Gold]]<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Poster Master With a Cool Hand |first=Mekado |last=Murphy |date=3 December 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/movies/05posters.html|access-date=5 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161223132525/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/movies/05posters.html|archive-date=23 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Saul Bass]]—who would produce posters that accurately represented his films.<ref name="Raymond Bellour 2000 p. 217"/>