Alfred Hitchcock

The following research was conducted by Laurel. The research was taken from www.wikipedia.org

Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899, in Leytonstone, London, the second son and youngest of three children of William Hitchcock and Emma Jane Hitchcock. It is widely known that as a child, Hitchcock was once sent by his father to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for ten minutes as punishment for behaving badly. This idea of being harshly treated or wrongfully accused is frequently reflected in Hitchcock's films.
Alfred Hitchcock was a British film maker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. Hitchcock began his directing career in the United Kingdom in 1922. From 1939 onward, he worked primarily in the United States.
Hitchcock directed over more than fifty feature films, in a career spanning more than six decades. He remains one of the best known and most popular film makers of all time.
He became famous for this expert and largely unrivalled control of pace and suspense, and his films draw heavily on both fear and fantasy. The films are known for their droll humour and witticisms, and these cinematic works often portray innocent people caught up in circumstances that are often beyond their control or understanding.

Themes, plots, deviances and motifs
Hitchcock seemed to delight in the technical challenges of film making. An example of this is in the film Lifeboat, where he stages the entire action of the film in a small boat.

Characters
Hitchcock’s films sometimes feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers, examples of this include, North by Northwest, The Birds and Psycho. His heroines tend to be lovely, cool blondes who seem proper at first but, when aroused by passion or danger, respond in a more sensual, animal or even criminal way, such as in the films The 39 steps, Marnie, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window and Psycho.
Hitchcock saw that the reliance on actors and actresses was a holdover from the theatre tradition. He was a pioneer in using camera movement, camera setups and montage to explore the outer reaches of cinematic arts.

Style of working
Writing
Hitchcock once commented, "The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we're finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. Actually, it's only when one enters the studio that one enters the area of compromise. Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest." In an interview with Roger Ebert in 1969, Hitchcock further elaborates,
"Once the screenplay is finished, I'd just as soon not make the film at all...I have a strongly visual mind. I visualize a picture right down to the final cuts. I write all this out in the greatest detail in the script, and then I don't look at the script while I'm shooting. I know it off by heart, just as an orchestra conductor needs not look at the score...When you finish the script, the film is perfect. But in shooting it you lose perhaps 40 per cent of your original conception."

Storyboards and production
Hitchcock's films were strongly believed to have been extensively storyboarded to the finest detail by the majority of commentators over the years. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the viewfinder, since he didn't need to do so, though in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternate takes to consider. This view of Hitchcock was from a director who relied more on pre-production than the actual production its self and has been challenged by the book Hitchcock at work.
Even on the occasions when story boards were made, the scene which was shot did differ from it significantly. Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a films conception during its making. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his movie’s, he was fully cognizant that the actual film making process often deviated from the best laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs as in his films weren’t free from the normal hassles and routines that face many other film productions. Hitchcock also generally shot in chronological order, which often sent many of his films over budget and over schedule. He also had a tendency of shooting alternate takes of scene, they represented Hitchcock’s tendency of giving himself options in the editing room.

Approach to actors
Hitchcock simply did not tolerate the method approach as he believed actors should only concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screen writers. Hitchcock quotes, “The method actor is OK in the theatre because he has a free space to move about. But when it comes to cutting the face and what he sees and so forth, there must be some discipline.” For Hitchcock, the actors, like the props were part of the films setting.

Hitchcock is considered the best film director of all time and was knighted in 1980. Sixteen films directed by Hitchcock earned Oscar nominations, though only six of those films earned Hitchcock himself a nomination. The total number of Oscar nominations (including winners) earned by films he directed is fifty. Four of those films earned Best Picture nominations.

Some films by Hitchcock include, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Psycho, Rebecca, Life Boat, Mr and Mrs Smith, Spellbound, Strangers on a Train, Frenzy and The Lodger.