North By Northwest.Alfred Hitchcock, 1959

Hamlet: "I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly, I can tell a hawk from a handsaw...@

Expediency -- self-serving action that disregards the consequences to the person being used.

Look for:

Characterize:

evil/villains -- van Damm and Leonard

Roger as hero

Eve as heroine

"girl scout" or "treacherous little tramp"?

ethics/morals

How do events transpire? Through action or chance?

Genre?

Look at mise-en-scene

scene on highway

high angle shot fleeing U.N.

train station scenes -- crowds 

forest scene with two lovers united in long shot, gazing at each 

other from opposite extremities of screen.

montage

symbolism

angles

use of scenery/landscape

Mt. Rushmore; U.N. ; Indiana highway

        use of POV shots and construction of knowledge (what does the audience know, what does Thornhill know, and when does each group get its knowledge?  What does this do for the progression of the narrative?  For example, does it matter that Thornhill know (or not) about Kaplan?  About Eve?)

Hitchcock has been calledthe master of suspense and The Artist of Anxiety, although by definition he is actually an auteur: while working within the Hollywood system, he managed to impress his own personal style upon films.Hitchcock once stated that he made the same film over and over again.

Appears in all films

Themes and Symbols/Gestures:

-Evil in broad daylight-- lighting -- several scenes of mayhem shot in broad 

daylight --> evil is no less likely to strike in daylight than in dark.

-world turned upside down -- title -- compass direction NbyNW -- 

-Ethical flaw of hero/ Roger as hero

Beginning sets up scene and character

Right at beginning learn that he is brash, fast-talking, over-confident on surface, entirely irresponsible and inconsiderate of others, drinker, twice divorced.Man who lives purely on the surface, refusing commitment and responsibility, immature.Relies on exterior trappings of modern civilization. Rest of film strips superficial armor of modern man.

-advertising man -- 

"In the world of advertising, Maggie, there's no such thing as a lie -- only expedient exaggeration"

Eve: "can make women fall in love with you, sell people things they don't need"

-dishonest

scene with cab at beginning: "We made him feel like a good Samaritan"

train -- dining car --ROT:"Honest women put me at a disadvantage."

Eve: "Why? Because you're not honest?"

ROT: "Yes."

-empty

R.O.T. -- Eve: "what's the "O" stand for?""Nothing"

-connection to VanDamm

-scene in field -- incongruity.ROT in polished business suit on dusty Indiana road.Before this, he was always inside.Modern man deprived of artificial resources.Hero -- isolated and vulnerable, pursued across parched, desolate prairie by evil force that at first seemed unthreatening and harmless.

-Death at any minute

-Symbols of order thrown into disorder:

Mt. Rushmore -- symbol of culture and stability against which hero undergoes death-defying confrontation with hostile forces plaguing him.

United Nations--symbol of potential world order

Government agents: cavalier about situation (Mr. Townsend dead, Thornhill likely to die -- "So sad ... then why do I feel like laughing?")

-Chaos/Chance:"In a world of chaos, one wins by chance, loses by chance"In a world of chance, the usual evasions -- love, orderliness, understanding, science, religion -- are satirized and useless; they are poor defenses against madness.Appearances are deceptive.Even identity is lost or uncertain.

-The indifferent crowd, easy to manipulate

-The pursuer pursued, mistaken identity, wrong place at the wrong time, falsely accused

-Connection between hero and villain

-ABrutality with a smile@ in world today.The villain must be attractive and charming, otherwise he would never get near his victims.

Other:

-Evolution of hero -- from scene at auction house -- "You have no feelings to hurt"; "That treacherous little tramp"Reversal -- final movement of movie -- head of CIA (The Professor) tells ROT truth about Eve.In agreeeing to help her, finally accepts responsibility.As accepts playing Kaplan, face lit by light of plane.Cut to Mt. Rushmore and heads of presidents.Shows evolution of hero.Suggests order and stability toward which ROT is progressing.

-Tunnel at end:Hitchcock -- "there's only one symbol -- the tunnel at the end -- it=s phallic, but don't tell anyone"

-Names -- Eve; Van Damm; Thornhill -- Christ figure -- 3 days and nights lost identity

R.O.T. -- "what's the "O" stand for?""Nothing"

Van Damm -- response to information about Eve is to punch Leonard

"that was hardly sporting -- you used real bullets"Spy -- representative of all that is sterile and destructive.Leonard: "call it my woman's intuition" ; jealous over Eve

-The MacGuffin -- a device to get the plot going; important to the characters but not to us.In N by NW, this would be the microfilm.

-Good ultimately does overcome evil and the nightmare goes away -- is this contradictory to the chaos of the film/Hitch's theory?

Visual: 

need to pay attention to style as well as content.

Subjective emphasis -- will often get the point of view of the individual and what s/he is seeing, then cut back to seeing the whole scene including that individual.

Hitchcock=s Theory of Suspense:

Suspense is created through information.For example, if 2 men are hit by a bomb out of the blue, this might produce 10 seconds of shock.If the audience is told that there is a bomb under a table at which the 2 men sit, however, suspense can be lengthened.If the audience is told that the bomb is there, though, it must never go off.The audience would be angry if it did.