Towards the end of our lesson before we broke up for the Christmas holidays, we were taught about Alfred Hitchcockwho pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, 13 August 1899 was a British filmmaker and producer. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. After directing more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades, Hitchcock passed away on 29 April 1980, aged 80.
Alfred Hitchcock had written an article on how to get the audience at the edge of their seats, the crucial element to do this was suspense. Hitchcock stated that the best way to create suspension within the audience is by letting them play God. By this he means; “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.” At first Hitchcock’s theory of creating suspension was slightly confusing to me as I did not fully understand what he meant by ‘Let ‘Em Play God’, however, after looking further into this I can see that he is correct.
Another statement that Hitchcock has made is that mise en scene plays an absolutely huge role in creating suspense within the film. He does not believe using creaky doors, dull and stormy weather and shadows create the essential suspension needed in a thriller. I also agree with this statement as using those techniques would not make the thriller any different from other thrillers, as all these techniques have been used in nearly every thriller. This also states that there is no creativity between directors and that they all use the same techniques believing that it would create the most suspense, whereas Hitchcock believes those type of thrillers fail to create the essential suspense.
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