King of Suspense !

For a long long time, I thought Alfred Hitchcock was a writer !! In fact, I almost made a fool of myself when I was in class 8 by going to a library in Hyderabad and wanting to show off in front of my cousins, asked the librarian if he had any books by Hitchcock. The only reason I was saved that day was the librarian was ignorant either and thought I was a child prodigy or something, who read books by unknown authors !! Once again fate saved me from disgrace!

I started watching some of Hitchcock’s movies, without knowing they were his. ‘Suspicion’, ‘I Confess’, ‘The 39 steps’ and ‘Vertigo’ were some of the first few movies that I watched. My casual interest turned to admiration and later to a sort of obsession, thanks to the roadside DVD vendor in front of the Wipro office in Chennai. For a mere 50 bucks, this guy was selling DVDs that had 5-6 movies! I jumped with joy when I found some movies that I had already watched and bought 3-4 of them. The more I watched them, the more I loved them and my respect for Hitchcoke grew exponentially.

For some reason, in our country, at least in the past, ‘good cinema’ was usually a bad thing. I talk from my personal experience of watching almost every single movie screened on Sunday afternoons in DD, in the regional cinema section. If the movie was touted as a National Award winner, it was bound to be very very boring. Today when I get appreciated on my patience and tolerance level, I remember these movies with gratitude. I remember a Malayalam award winning movie, where the director spent about 15 minutes of screen time on showing the hero’s morning activities. Hero wakes up, brushes his teeth, takes a bowl of oil, applies it to his hair, and later body.. you get the drift.

Why am I talking about this? Its because I realized after watching some of Hitchcock’s movies, that good cinema can also mean interesting cinema. Hitchcock or Hitch as he was fondly called made movies that were critically acclaimed and were commercial successes. Although his favourite genre was suspense and thrillers, his movies had a lot of humour, mostly the gallows variety.

Hitchcock usually adapted his screenplays from short stories. It is also said that he usually roped in the original writer to collaborate on writing the screenplay. His movies had razor-sharp dialogues and a brilliant background score. Many of the techniques that he introduced in film-making are still used today and some of his movie sequences like the shower sequence in ‘Psycho’ have achieved cult status today. Movies like ‘Rear Window’ have been referenced in many subsequent movies and modern day remakes like Disturbia have been attempted.

One thing I discovered while watching (or re-watching, if there is such a term) many of his movies, was how well he used the celluloid as a visual medium. I was amazed and still am on watching quite a few sequences that are more than 2-3 minutes long where there is absolutely no dialogue and yet the viewer hardly realizes that. The script is taut and there are no unnecessary sequences. Most refreshingly the climax is usually very crisp and to many of us used to a grand finale for every movie, almost abrupt. That does not mean that they aren’t grand. For instance, the climax of ‘North By Northwest’ was shot at Mount Rushmore (and a set of it); in ‘The Man who knew too much’, there is a brilliant nail-bite inducing sequence of a concert where an assasination attempt happens and so on.

Having said all that, the fact remains that almost all his movies entertain! As a viewer, you don’t have to understand the nuances of film appreciation to appreciate movies by Hitchcock. His movies are first and foremost entertainers. With every watch, you will realize a little more of what has gone into making the movie what it is. I am now watching many of these movies for the 3rd or4th time (and this time the excuse is my mother!!) and I find them getting better with each watch.

Here are some of my personal favourites not necessarily in sequence:

a. Rope - Story of 2 psychopathic homosexual (subtly indicated) people who commit a murder at the beginning of the movie and invite people over for a party to prove a point.

b. Birds - Strange things start happening with a woman. Birds keep attacking her all the time.

c. Psycho - I dont have to talk about this one.

d. Dial M for murder - A husband plots to kill his wife to get her wealth.

e. North By Northwest - An advertising company executive is mistaken for an intelligence agent and abducted.

Coming to think of it, I think the success of his movies were because of the scripts which usually involved ordinary people getting into extra-ordinary situations and most people could relate to it. The actors and their popularity are secondary to the script and Hitchcock made sure that in all his movies, the script ruled !!