Although British director Alfred Hitchcock mastered suspense and suspense movies, even earning him the nickname "Master of Suspense", he was suffering from fear and phobias.
His constant fear of the police arose from an incident that occurred to him in his childhood, when his father, known for his cruelty and severity, punished him by sending him to the local police station, at the age of four or five, with a note sent to the district officer.
"He put me in the dungeon saying, 'This is what we do to naughty kids,'" Hitchcock says.
Hitchcock also states that he was afraid of omelettes. “I am afraid of eggs, this white round thing, nothing more than disgusting, and it pours yellow liquid. I have never tasted it,” he said in an interview.
Photo narration
Perhaps the cruel events and strange fears that Hitchcock spoke about, in his dialogues, were the reason for the strange and exciting ideas that he dealt with in his films. Childhood events and their ideas in shaping the artist's life and trends can never be ignored.
Hitchcock is considered one of the most influential directors of all time, as he developed his own style, and was the reason for the emergence of whole types of films, despite his constant disregard for rules and laws, to film his films in the ways he chooses and in the locations he decides.
Critic and writer Tony Moral, who has authored 3 books on Hitchcock, says he was creating new imaging techniques to suit his ideas and the image he wanted to display, such as the techniques that showed the effect of vertigo in the movie "Vertigo."
The importance of the camera and the image to Hitchcock goes back to his beginnings as a director, in the era of silent cinema, when the image was the only way to express it. Pioneering camera technologies were not only the most important thing in the film, but the filming location in the majestic Old Fairmont San Francisco hotel lobby is still so far a chosen location. For many producers and directors.
Hitchcock style
Sometimes the director wants to please the eye with a remarkable and beautiful image, and other times he wants to have a stronger impact on the audience, and in doing so - and through dealing with all these narrative possibilities - the director reveals his style, and style is the essence of what Hitchcock thinks.
For him, style was an essential part of filmmaking, as he considered the director's main task to show what people do, say, and think about, to create an integrated mental and emotional state for the audience, meaning that the image has a direct impact on feelings.
The director's style is shown through his choice of topics and his way of directing the staff.
Hitchcock was known for his unique style, because he completely controls all elements of the film, and establishes his personal concepts in every step of the film, so that his films can be recognized as soon as they start.
He is more interested in processing content and ideas than searching for new topics, so similar themes may appear in different treatments in his films, because they are the ideas that he is busy with.
He is primarily interested in the way he tells a story, and knows how to create affection between work and the audience, starting with the face of the actor who is employed according to the dramatic purpose, to the arrangement of furniture and lighting in the setting of filming.
Scenario without boredom
Hitchcock believes in the importance of a precisely detailed scenario, which the writer should prepare in cooperation with the director, clarify the dialogue, describe the movements of the actors and their reactions, and give a detail of individual scenes, with reference to the role of the camera and sound in each scene.
He also always emphasizes in his dialogues and writings that the director must be able to anticipate the final visual form of the film in detail, and develop the plot by creating frequent situations arising from the development of the narration, and he also presents most of what he wants to say through the picture, while avoiding the use of long dialogues, to confirm who Through this technology one of his many definitions of the mechanics of suspense, which is the most important feature of his films of all time.
The audience's emotions are the defining point of Hitchcock's narrative world.
It evokes these emotions through the basic structure of the moving image, and dialogue plays a secondary role.
Of course, the dialogue cannot be completely canceled, and completely dependent on the image, so Hitchcock stands in the middle between the two methods, where he makes the dialogue strong, and at the same time makes the scene successful visually par excellence, by carefully observing all the elements.