In our second to last lesson before the Christmas break we were given a sheet about Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (KBE), born August 13th 1899 in Leytonstone, London and died April 29th 1980 in Bel Air, Los Angeles (aged 80years old).
He wrote an article about what suspense really is, and how to create it. His article called ‘Thrills, Suspense, the Audience’.
In this article Sir Alfred talks about how every maker of mystery movies aims at getting the audience on the edge of their seats. He says the ingredient to keep them there is suspense.
He says suspense is created when you let the audience play God and if the audience does not know whether a character is a hero or villain they will not know whether to cheer or weep. He says if the audience have been told all the secrets that the character do not know, “they’ll work like the devil for you because they know what fate is facing the poor actors”. That is what he describes as “Playing God”.
For 17 years Sir Alfred had been making pictures described alternately as thrillers, dark mysteries and chillers; he opposes puzzling the audience and does not believe that this is the essence of suspense. He demonstrates this from movies he has made such as ‘Rope’.
He believes that if he succeeds in what he tries to do (create suspense) whilst making movies he will have the audience at such a pitch that they want to shout every time something is about to happen. Sir Alfred also believes that when characters are unbelievable you never get real suspense, only surprise. He also believes that for suspense to be created you do not need things such as shadows, dull weather, stormy weather and creaky doors; he used his movie ‘Rope’ to prove this point.
As Sir Alfred became more and more interested in developing his suspense techniques he made up his mind to shoot these type of stories exclusively; this conclusion came by the time he had made ‘Secret Agent’, ‘Sabotage’, and ‘The 39 Steps’.
He wrote an article about what suspense really is, and how to create it. His article called ‘Thrills, Suspense, the Audience’.
In this article Sir Alfred talks about how every maker of mystery movies aims at getting the audience on the edge of their seats. He says the ingredient to keep them there is suspense.
He says suspense is created when you let the audience play God and if the audience does not know whether a character is a hero or villain they will not know whether to cheer or weep. He says if the audience have been told all the secrets that the character do not know, “they’ll work like the devil for you because they know what fate is facing the poor actors”. That is what he describes as “Playing God”.
For 17 years Sir Alfred had been making pictures described alternately as thrillers, dark mysteries and chillers; he opposes puzzling the audience and does not believe that this is the essence of suspense. He demonstrates this from movies he has made such as ‘Rope’.
He believes that if he succeeds in what he tries to do (create suspense) whilst making movies he will have the audience at such a pitch that they want to shout every time something is about to happen. Sir Alfred also believes that when characters are unbelievable you never get real suspense, only surprise. He also believes that for suspense to be created you do not need things such as shadows, dull weather, stormy weather and creaky doors; he used his movie ‘Rope’ to prove this point.
As Sir Alfred became more and more interested in developing his suspense techniques he made up his mind to shoot these type of stories exclusively; this conclusion came by the time he had made ‘Secret Agent’, ‘Sabotage’, and ‘The 39 Steps’.
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