Chrissie Peters CGA&A year 1 UNIT 4 - STORYTELLING

CONTENTS
Introduction page 2 Main Body page 3 Whos Who Guide page 4 Conclusion - page 8 List of Illustrations page 9 References page 10

INTRODUCTION This essay examines the techniques directors use to create tension and suspense within a film, focussing particularly on editing and camera use. It explores Alfred Hitchcocks use of these techniques in the film Psycho (1960) and investigates the ways in which Hitchcock uses editing to create tension within the narrative. Key sources for definition of techniques are Marilyn Fabes Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique (2004) and K. Dancygers book The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice (2004). Further reference will come from Christopher Morris The hanging figure: on suspense and the films of Alfred Hitchcock (2002), Raymond Durgnats A Long Hard Look at Psycho(2002), and Robert Kolkers Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho A Casebook (2004).

Fig 1 Psycho - early scene in a hotel

Main Body Film editing can be defined as part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. Montage (from the French for assembly) is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. In classical Hollywood cinema a "montage sequence is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is condensed. Early camera film came in short lengths, which could then be joined up to create a longer piece of footage. This created a very jerky continuation. Fabe (2004p2) suggests that it was the film director D.W. Griffiths who wanted spectators to maintain the illusion of watching a seamless flow of reality and not become distracted or disoriented by jerky edits that called attention to the film medium. Griffiths devised a way to reconnect the shots so that the transition was smoothed. Matching movements or directions meant, Viewers do not notice the cut or lose their orientation in relation to the screen space(2004p5). However, this necessitated better planning of the cinematography.

fig 2 4, montage shots from Eisensteins Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Griffiths narrative techniques heavily influenced Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein. 1920s Soviet film pioneers had seen a use for film in creating political propaganda: they were deeply impressed by the emotional effects generated by D. W. Griffith's narrative techniqueshis use of the close-up, his innovative camera movements, and the way he changed camera angles says Fabe (2004p20), They were especially excited by his crosscutting and editing rhythms. Eisenstein developed montage so extensively that Fabe, notes that he even composed his individual shots with intraframe contrasts in mind. That is, he created conflicts not just between juxtaposed shots but within each individual shot as well.

Whos Who of Editing David Lleweln War Griffith (January 22, 1875 July 23, 1948) was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the Ku Klux Klan epic 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance (1916). Griffiths film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its immense popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._W._Griffith

Fig 5 Sergei Mikhailovich Eizenshtein1898 1948), was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage". He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike(1924), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1927). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Eisenstein

Fig 6 Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899 1980) was a British film director, producer and cameo appearance actor. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. Over a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style. He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. He framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing. Fig 7 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock 4

Like Eisenstein, director Alfred Hitchcock was careful to plan his camera work with the end composition in mind. Researching Hitchcocks film Psycho (1960), author R. Kolker discovered that scriptwriter James Cavanagh had eight pages of handwritten notes by Hitchcock in which the director laid out precise camera movements and sound cues for certain key sequences. (2004p39) This carefully planned footage makes Psycho a particularly interesting study of camera use and editing. Psycho was an instant hit at the box office No one could have predicted how powerfully psycho tapped into the American subconscious. Faintings. Walkouts. Repeat visits. Boycotts, angry letters, talk of banning! claims author R.aymond Durgnat (2002). The story in itself was alarming, but the novel hadnt caused such a reaction. Psycho was culturally and socially shocking because of its strong visual intensity and impact on the senses. Hitchcock achieved this through his use of camera shots and editing, lighting and audio. Ken Dancyger (2002), writing about editing techniques, claims the infamous shower scene alone features 77 different camera angles and 50 cuts..mostly close up. Fabe (2004p259) draws attention to shot duration: The length (duration) of the shot can determine the rhythm or pace of the film, short shots traditionally being used in scenes of violence, and long shots being associated with more lyrical moments. Shots that end slightly before the viewer has had a chance to take in all they contain can instill an atmosphere of nervous, anxious excitement. Dancyger applies this theory directly to the Shower scene: The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than it would have been if the images were presented alone or in a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience". Hitchcock explains his use of montage: You gradually build up the psychological situation, piece by piece, using the camera to emphasize first one detail, then another. The point is to draw the audience right inside the situation instead of leaving them to watch it from outside, from a distance. And you can do this only by breaking the action up into details and cutting from one to the other, so that each detail is forced in turn on the attention of the audience and reveals its psychological meaning. If you played the whole scene straight through, and simply made a photographic record of it with the camera always in one position, you would lose your power over the audience. Alfred Hitchcock, cited in Fabe (2004p144) 5

Fig 5 Montage from the Shower Scene in Psycho (1960)

The shower scene makes full use of all the techniques available to Hitchcock. The audience appears to be closely behind the camera (and therefore the knife), and sees the action from the killers point of view. But the close-up shots of the victims terror forces the viewer to identify with her fear in a push/pull situation exaggerated by the camera moving in and out. Fabe (2004p137) describes this: Here the camera. does not shoot, but stabs to kill. It rhythmically moves in and out on the body [of the victim]. Kolker reads more into the horror, each stab at Marion's body is matched with a cut of the film and camera angle. In other terms, the film editor and director are the ones that are cutting up the female body by breaking down her image into separate angles and views (2004p154). Kolker suggests that from this point on, the audience cannot comfortably settle into a conventional narrative trajectory. What it will do instead is begin to anticipate "Mother's" next attack and to register the rhythms of its anticipation, shock, and release (2004p171). The audience is now disorientated, and tries following the camera as it wanders about, but as it follows the clean-up attempt they audience feels voyeuristic and complicit in the crime. Kolker says this had a destabilizing effect on audiences. 6

The camera can only look at the bloody water washing down the drain. Tracking "down the drain" graphically enacts what has just happened to all narrative expectation with the murder of the film's main character and star (2004p171). It was this shot that was one of the most striking features of watching psycho says Kolker, From the darkness of the drain, and echoing the counterclockwise spiral of the swirling water, vision re-emerges in a reverse pull-back out of the dead, staring eye of Marion(2004 p272). The tension continues. A series of small incidents build up some empathy with the remaining characters but the viewer is aware that they may be killed off at any moment and does not want to attach any emotional importance to them. Kolker notes Psycho contains no point of release for the viewer (2004p120). The twist at the end complicates the narrative, and adds some opportunity to debate mental illness, which could be argued helps calms the feeling of shock as the viewer leaves the film. The idea of suspense was not new to Hitchcock - theatregoers have experienced the feeling for centuries. Kolker suggests, Psychos shower scene is all the more horrifying because it is so sudden and unexpected (2004p272). (Hitchcock himself was worried about the audience knowing the story before they saw it). However it is possible to watch the film repeatedly and still be surprised and horrified at the attack. Author Christopher Morris, investigating Hitchcocks use of suspense, terms this as Recidivist Suspense and points out that Recidivist Suspense is intuitively apparent to theatregoers who at numerous performances have watched Othello prepare to kill Desdemona. Morris defines Recidivist Suspense as suspense that persists even after multiple readings or viewings of a narrative. Suspense is deemed to exist independently of what will happen next (2002p2-3). Hitchcock achieved this through building up tension.

Kolker suggests that Psycho marks the important beginning of an era in which viewers began going to the movies to be thrilled and moved in quite visceral ways, and without much concern tor coherent characters or motives. (2004p172). One comparable contemporary film is the psychological thriller Peeping Tom (1960), directed by Michael Powell. Both these plots involve psychopathic killers who murder women; both protagonists have deep-rooted 7

Freudian issues with their parents. However Peeping Tom was blasted for being perverse while Psycho was popular and enjoyed positive reviews. The reasons for this are based in the use of suspense within the narrative. By the time the viewer of Psycho realises that that the nice motel owner who looks after his mother is actually a sexually confused psychopath, they have already identified with his rather endearing shy nature. They have grown to like him. In Peeping Tom, however, this information is given straight away. The viewer knows about the abuse the protagonist suffered at the hands of his father, but that pity is not enough to attach any positive emotional feeling to him. Kolker s derogatory description of Peeping Tom is a psycho killer who murders women while filming them and then projects what amounts to a snuff film for his private pleasure(2004p200).

Fig 6 Psychos protagonist Norman Bates & Fig 7 Peeping Toms protagonist Mark Lewis

Kolker describes Psychos legacy: anyone who has gone to the movies in the past twenty years cannot help but notice how elements of this "roller-coaster" sensibilitya sensibility that is grounded in the pleasurable anticipation of the next gut-spilling, gut-wrenching momenthas gained ascendance in popular moving-image culture (2004p172)

CONCLUSION The use of editing techniques was sparked by US film-making pioneer D.W. Griffiths who wanted to smooth the transition between shots of film. These early methods were developed into striking Montage techniques by Soviet film-makers who wanted to heighten the anxiety and panic felt by the viewer when watching political propaganda films. These film-makers, notably Sergei Eisenstein, heavily influenced Alfred Hitchcocks use of camera shots and editing, and through these he was able to make his audience feel immense tension, suspense and conflicting emotions when watching his films. 8

ILLUSTRATIONS Fig 1 Marion Crane (Psycho 1960) online at http://malcolmarmstrong.com/fil2000notes2.html [accessed on 29/02/2012] Fig 2-4, From Battleship Potemkin (1925) online at http://madamepickwickartblog.com/2010/02/a-salty-dog-on-the-port-side/ [accessed on 29/02/2012] Fig 5 - D.W. Griffith - online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._W._Griffith [accessed on 29/02/2012] Fig 6 - Sergei Eistenstein online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Eisenstein [accessed on 29/02/2012] Fig 7 - Alfred Hitchcock online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock [accessed on 29/02/2012] Fig 8 - The Shower Scene Montage (Psycho) online at http://malcolmarmstrong.com/fil2000notes2.html [accessed on 29/02/2012] Fig 9 - Norman Bates (Psycho) online at http://hitchcock.tv/mov/psycho/psycho.html [accessed on 29/02/2012] Fig 10 Mark Lewis (Peeping Tom) online at http://www.moviemail-online.co.uk/film/dvd/PeepingTom/ [accessed on 29/02/2012]

REFERENCES Dancyger, K (2002). The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice. New York: Focal Press. Durgnat, R (2002) A Long, Hard Look at Psycho London: British Film Institute Eisner, W (2008) Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative London: W. W. Norton Fabe, M (2004) closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique University of California Press Kolker, R, E (2004) Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho A Casebook Oxford Books (online) Morris, C D (2002) The hanging figure: on suspense and the films of Alfred Hitchcock Westport: Praeger

FILMS Battleship Potemkin (1925) Dir Sergei Eisenstein Peeping Tom (1960) Dir Michael Powell Psycho (1960) Dir Alfred Hitchcock

FURTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY Caputo, T. C. (2002) Visual Storytelling: The Art and Technique New York: Watson Guptill Smith, S (2000) Hitchcock: suspense, humour and tone London: British Film Institute Video recording: Paul Merton looks at Alfred Hitchcock [28.02.09] BBC1

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