Alfred Hitchcock's films show an interesting tendency towards recurring themes
and devices, such that one can almost feel that he was in some way making the
same movie, or at least telling the same story, over and over again throughout
his life as a director,
Here are some of the themes that show up repeatedly in his films:
Birds
There are countless images of birds in nearly all of Hitchcock's films. Some of the
most prominent are listed below.
Psycho - The film begins in Phoenix, Arizona and a Phoenix is also a
mythological bird. Marion's last name is "Crane". Norman practices taxidermy as
a hobby and his favorites are birds. Norman describes Marion's eating behavior
as “eats like a bird".
Vertigo - Gavin's last name is Elster, which is German for Mockingbird.
The Birds-The film's plot revolves around birds attacking a small town called
Bodega Bay.Suspense
Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense over the use of surprise in his films. In
surprise, the director assaults the viewer with frightening things. In suspense, the
director tells or shows things to the audience which the characters in the film do
not know, and then artfully builds tension around what will happen when the
characters finally lear the truth. Hitchcock was fond of illustrating this point with
a short aphorism - “There's two people having breakfast and there's a bomb
under the table. If it explodes, that's a surprise. But if it doesn't..."
Audience as voyeur
Further blurring the moral distinction between the innocent and the guilty,
occasionally making this indictment inescapably clear to viewers one and alll,
Hitchcock also makes voyeurs of his "respectable" audience. In Rear Window
(1954), after L. B. Jeffries (played by James Stewart) has been staring across the
courtyard at him for most of the film, Lars Thorwald (played by Raymand Burr)
confronts Jeffries by saying, "What do you want of me?” Burr might as well have
been addressing the audience. In fact, shortly before asking this, Thorwald turns
to face the camera directly for the first time.Similarly, Psycho begins with the camera moving toward a hotel-room window,
‘through which the audience is introduced to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and her
divorced boyfriend Sam Loomis, played by John Gavin. They are partially
undressed, having apparently had sex though they are not married and Marion is
on her lunch "hour". Later, along with Norman Bates (portrayed by Anthony
Perkins), the audience watches Marion undress through a peephole.
MacGuttin
One of Hitchcock's favorite devices for driving the plots of his stories and creating
suspense was what he called the “MacGutffin". The Oxford English Dictionary,
however, credits Hitchcock's friend, the Scottish screenwriter Angus MacPhail, as
being the true inventor of the term. Hitchcock defined this term in a 1964
interview conducted by Frangois Truffaut, published as Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon
and Schuster, 1967). Hitchcock would use this plot device extensively. Many of
his suspense films revolve around this device: a detail which, by inciting curiosity
and desire, drives the plot and motivates the actions of characters within the
story, but whose specific identity and nature is unimportant to the spectator of the
film. In Vertigo, for instance, "Carlotta Valdes" is a MacGuffin; she never appears
and the details of her death are unimportant to the viewer, but the story about her
ghost’s haunting of Madeleine Elster is the spur for Scottie’s investigation of her,and hence the film's entire plot. In Notorious, the uranium that the main
characters must recover before it reaches Nazi hands serves as a similarly
arbitrary motivation: any dangerous object would suffice, And state secrets of
vafious kinds serve as MacGuffins in several of the spy films, especially hisVanishes. Hitchcock has stated that the best MacGuffin "the emptiest" was the”
one used in North By Northwest, which was referred to as "Government secrets".
‘The ordinary person
Placing an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances is a common element
of Hitchcock's films. In The 39 Steps, the protagonist Richard Hannay is drawn
into a web of espionage, after a female spy he meets in a theatre is killed in his
apartment. In The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), James Stewart plays an
ordinary man from Indianapolis vacationing in Morocco when his sonis
kidnapped. in The Wrong Man, Manny Balestraro (Henry Fonda) is arrested for a
crime he didn't commit. In Psycho, Janet Leigh plays an unremarkable secretary
whose personal story is violently interrupted by a furious psychopath. Other clear
examples are Strangers ona Train, | Confess, Vertigo, and North By Northwest.
‘The focus on an ordinary character enables the audience to relate to the action in
the movie.
‘The wrong man or wrong woman
Mistaken identity is a common plot device in his films.
North By Northwest - Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for George
Kaplan, a non-existent CIA agent.The Wrong Man - Henry Fonda is mistaken for a criminal.
Vertigo- the film revolves around Scottie Ferguson's investigation of the false
Madeleine Elster's real identity.
The 39 Steps - The main character is mistaken for a government spy
Frenzy - The protagonist is thought to be the notorious Necktie Killer due the
circumstances he finds himself in.
The likeable criminal, aka the charming sociopath
The villain in many of Hitchcock's films appears charming and refined rather than
oafish and vulgar. Especially clear examples of this tendency are Claude Rains:
in Notorious, Barry Foster in Frenzy, Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt,
Rober Walker in Strangers on a Train and James Mason in North by Northwest.
In Psycho, Marian Crane (Janet Leigh) steals from her employer and runs away
to be with her boyfriend, thus making her a criminal for her theft, and immoral for
having pre-marital sex. However, the filmgoers are sympathetic to her; she has
just decided to return the money when she is then brutally murdered. In Marnie,
the title character (Tippi Hedren) is a cunning serial thiet,STAIRCASES
Images of staircases often play a central role in Hitchcock's films. The Lodger
tracks a suspected serial killer's movement on a staircase. Years later, a similar
shot appears in the final sequence of Notorious. In Vertigo, the staircase in the
chureh bell tower plays a crucial role in the plat. In Psycho, several staircases are
featured prominently: as part of the path up to the Bates mansion, as the
entrance to the fruit cellar, and as the site of Detective Arbogast's murder. In
Rear Window, an entirely nonfunctional staircase adoms James Stewart's
apartment, in addition to the numerous fire escape staircases seen each time we
follow Stawart's gaze out of his window. In Shadow of a Doubt, Charlie Oaklay
(Joseph Cotten) attempts to murder his niece by rigging a staircase to collapse.
In Dial M for Murder, a key kept under the stair carpet plays a pivotal role in
booking the murderer. Frenzy features an unusual shot which tracks the killer
and his victim first up the stairs, then retreats backwards down the stairs alone
while the audience is left to imagine the killing which is taking place. One other
iconic stairwell shot comes from the movie Suspicion as Cary Grant slowly walks
up the stairs to deliver what would have been the poisonous warmed milk to his
wile. Hitchcock, the studios and Cary Grant decided his character could not andThis stylistic interest in staircases is attributed to the influence of German
Expressionism, which often featured heavily stylized and menacing staircases,
for example in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Trains
In Hitchcock's films, trains are often used as a sexual euphemism. Extended
sequences on trains feature in a number of Hitchcock films, including Number
Seventeen, Shadow of a Doubt, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on
a Train, and North by Northwest. In The 39 Steps and North by Northwest, the
limitations imposed by train travel on characters’ movements enhances the
suspense as the lead character is pursued for a crime he did not commit.
Hitchcock's most-extended train sequence is in The Lady Vanishes, where the
inability to exit the train except at stations forces the two lead characters to
accept that the lady for whom they are searching must still be aboard. The
vertiginous excitement of moving around the outside of a moving train is
exploited in Number Seventeen and The Lady Vanishes.Mothers
Mothers are frequently depicted as intrusive and domineering, or at the very
least, batty, as saen in Rope, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, North by
Northwest, Psycho and The Birds
BrandyHitchcock includes the consumption of brandy in many of his films. "I'll get you
some brandy. Drink this down. Just like medicine ..." says Scottie Ferguson to
“Madeleine Elster” in Vertigo. In a real-life incident, Hitchcock dared Montgomery
Clift at a dinner party around the filming of | Confess (1953) to swallow a carafe
of brandy, which caused the actor to pass out almast immediately. In Tom
Curtain and Topaz, brandy is defined more closely as cognac. This element is
also present in Dial M for Murder where the main characters of the film consume
brandy throughout the entire film. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is offered a
brandy by Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), and after being attacked by the
birds, drinks the brandy offered by Mitch (Rod Taylor). In Rear Window, Lisa
Fremont (Grace Kelly) is "just warming some brandy". In Frenzy, Richard Blaney
is sacked for supposedly stealing brandy, and can be seen in several sequences
to be drinking brandy.
Sexuality
For their time, Hitchcock's films were regarded as rather sexualized, often
dealing with perverse and taboo behaviors. Sometimes, the prudish conventions
of his era caused him to convey sexuality in an emblematic fashion, such as in
North by Ni film from vichaste lovers 10 a Tain entering a tunnel.
Hitchcock found a number of ways to convey sexuality without depicting graphic
behaviors, such as the substitution of explicit sexual passion with the passionate
consumption af food. In a particularly amusing scene in Psycho, Norman Bates
(Anthony Perkins) carries on a conversation with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh)
while one of his hands strokes a dead animal and the other hand lingers on his
crotch. Sexual feelings are often strongly associated with violent behavior. In The
Lodger and Psycho, this association is the whole basis of the film. Biographers
have nated how Hitchcock continued to challenge film censorship throughout his
Career, until he was allowed to show nudity in Frenzy.
Blonde women
Hitchcock had a dramatic preference for blonde women, stating that the audience
would be more suspicious of a brunette. Many of these blondes were of the
Grace Kelly variety: perfect, aloof ice goddesses, who also have a hidden red-hot
inner fire
In Vertigo James Stewart forces a woman to dye her hair blonde. The Ladger,
one of Hitchcock's earliest films, features a serial killer who stalks blonde women.
Hitchcock said he used blonde actresses in his films, not because of an attraction
to them, but because of a tradition that began with Mary Pickford. The directorsaid that blondes were “a symbol of the heroine”. He also thought they
photographed better in black and white, which was the predominant film for mast
dramas for many years.
Silent scenesAs a former silent film director, Hitchcock strongly preferred to convey narrative
with images rather than dialogue. Hitchcock viewed film as a primarily visual
medium in which the director's assemblage of images must convey the narrative.
Examples of imagery over dialogue are in the lengthy sequence in Vertigo in
which Scottie silently follows Madeleine, or the Albert Hall sequence in the 1956
version of The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Number 13
Hitchoock has many scenes which exploit people's superstitious response to the
number 13. The number shows up several times in his movies as an apartment
number, room number or house number. For example, in Psycho, when Marion
checks into the Bates Motel, Norman reaches first for room 3, then room 1, In
addition, the number on the license plate that she drives adds up to 13. Another
example is at the car dealership when Marion trades cars the number on the
dealership adds up to 13, Each Incidence of the number 13 provides an
opportunity for her fate to change in this film.
Tennis.
Tennis is often mentioned in Hitchcock films. In Strangers On A Train, the main
character is a tennis player. In Dial M for Murder, Ray Milland's character is anFalling from high places
Most notable in Vertigo, North By Northwest. Saboteur and Rear Window and
among other Hitchcock films the protagonist or villain or even the supporting
good character is falling from a height
The Perfect Murder
Saveral of Alfred Hitchcock's movies feature characters who are deeply
fascinated with the craft of murder. Murder is often treated as an intellectual
puzzle, and several Hitchcock characters seek to establish a definitive “perfect”
murder (i.e. an undefeatable scientific method of murdering another person
without leaving any evidence of the act.) This notion is a core concept in Rope,
Dial M for Murder, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo and to a lesser extent, Shadow
of a Doubt.