Editing Alfred Hitchcock (section)

===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}}