Hitchcock

Michael Silverman begins...


 * Wants to bring up the word 'Hitchcock' and by extension 'Hitchcockian' --> What is meant by this name? What do journalists and critics mean by this?


 * Hitchcock/Truffaut Interviews


 * Which Hitchcocks do we have? -->


 * 1) "The Master of Suspense" --> Hitchcockian. But this of course blocks a great deal of analysis.
 * 2) The grocer's boy
 * 3) The poor boy from London's East End
 * 4) The man who could weigh between 220 - 350 pounds
 * 5) Always wore a black suit --> 'A Dandy?'
 * 6) The father of Patricia --> Who became an actress
 * 7) Who ate twice a week at Chaisens in Hollywood
 * 8) Never learned how to drive
 * 9) Never tired of playing Practical jokes --> Uncle Hitch
 * 10) Hitchcock who emerges as a would-be actor, making cameos


 * Only Orson Welles is perhaps as instantly recognizable as Hitchcock


 * Mothers --> Are important figures in Hitchcock


 * INSTRUCTION: Create a series of annotations for important symbols in the film


 * What are we to do with these symbols? Should we bring them together or analyze them seperately.


 * These motifs can be very simple things:


 * 1) Small spaces (phone booths, cars)
 * 2) Shape of screens
 * 3) Spaces/Organizations of spaces
 * 4) Overhead shots


 * A PROBLEM: Hitchcock talks about himself extensively. He talks about himself anecdotally.


 * 1) One example is the story that Hitchcock tells about himself relating his fifth birthday, where his father had him put in a cell by a local constable as a joke.

THE MacGUFFIN

 * A Crucial Symbol of Power
 * Connected to Story --> A Plot Device
 * All the time, All the space of a film: Create the Story
 * Which includes all discussions, All mentions, All Elements introduced into a ecoloy of the film's experience

h1. Story vs. Discourse


 * All Space, All Time of the Story
 * Production/Execution

North by Northwest

 * Contains a classic MacGuffin
 * Lot of tension


 * Silverman wants to have a penalty for using "Hitchcock" or "Hitchcockian"


 * Hitchcock is there at the Advent of the Sound Era --> But he doesn't do much in Silent Era


 * He never loses sight of the value of Story nor Discourse


 * Lap dissolve --> Dissolve two images together such that for a moment the two images co-exist


 * Discourse is the technique of presenting the story

Genre

 * Lets talk about the category of suspense


 * A Past Life that You didn't know you had


 * CHASE MOTIF in Hitchcock


 * Politics in North by Northwest --> Political Cold War Film vs. The Pre-War stuff.


 * The McGuffin --?


 * The McGuffin Collapses