Strangers on a train part 2

Strangers on a train
- Mirium's smashed glasses are returned to Guy
- He doesn't explicitly say he killed her but it is shown
- Guy and Bruno speak to each other through a gate, it looks like jail bars
- When Bruno is standing by building guys perspective looking at Bruno is shown then back to guys reaction of what he see's.
- Camera zooms into Bruno sitting in tennis crowed, his head is the only one looking straight ahead and not following the ball
- Perspective shots between Mr Antony and Anne
- Bruno is clearly disturbed
- There is always a person who finds murder funny
- The woman at the party who jokes with Bruno about murdering a person she doesn't like

Hitchcock notes 13/6/16
Strangers on a train
- Perspective from the front of the train
- Many legs walking around sitting
- You see legs before you see people
- Perspective shifts between tennis player and bruno
- Introduced to the character Anne from the get go through the use of the lighter
- Bruno is sitting below the tennis player, shows the tennis player has more of a position in society than he does
- Bruno sits up higher than the tennis player "wanna hear my idea for a perfect murder" shows he has more power
- Hitchcocks example of a perfect crime
- Mirium is a double crosser she cons the tennis player out of money and then says that she isn't going to get a divorce.
- Mirium is also pregnant and despite the fact that it isn't guy's baby she will pretend it is if guy doesn't want a divorce
- The train in the background grows louder and louder as Guy gets more and more angry
- Bruno is mentally unstable you can see the facial expressions in the differences in perspective between guy and his mother as well as their exchanged dialogue
- The dramatic abstract painting of Bruno's father demonstrates how Bruno feels about him before the character is even revealed
- Shadows reveal that one character is annoying Marion
- Extremely dark low key lighting
- The fire is lit and Marion is killed in slow suspense
- Her death is extremely slow as she is slowly suffocated
- Shown in the mirror they weren't allowed to show real death but it technically isn't as it is reflected in the mirror

Notes I made for FTV assignment part 2

Hitchcock as an auteur
- Thriller and the human psyche
- in order to heighten tension in his scenes Hitchcock turns the focus of the actions to more on essential frivilous details
- he called this an understatement and a way of calling attention to the trivial aspects of character
- "Ive always found that, in a moment of crisis a person invariably does something trivial, like making a cup of tea or lighting a cigarette. A small detail of this sort adds considerably to the dramatic tension of the situation."
- This is shown when Norman starts cleaning up he bathroom in Psycho just after he discovers Marion has been murdered
- He was one of the first directors to portray the psychological proces

Notes I made for FTV assignment

Cinematic techniques
- Birds in films represent evil and danger
- He liked to use the dolly zoom
- Camera zooms out and dolly's in at the same time
- occurs in vertigo to give perspective
- Whirling camera around when a character feels lost

(C.Esper, (2014), Taste of Cinema, "The 10 most ingenious techniques used by Alfred Hitchcock", tasteofcinema.com, (28/5/16)

- Hitchcock once stated "Looking through camera has nothing to do with it at all. Its the rectangle where the composition arrives. I would say if I looked through a camera having asked for a certain composition of a given set up, it would be as though I distrusted the camera man and he was a liar and I'm testing him."
- The directors of photography always walked very closely with him but he ultimately trusted them.
- Hitchcock said what he wanted and would draw rough sketches
- he also had knowledge of how a camera and lighting worked
- Hitchcock took great pleasure in having "control over the light"
- It is not the lighting prescisely that makes the techniques unique and important, rather its the darkness that the lighting casts
- "Hitchcock does wonderful things with light, or rather lack of it."
- Often darkness will be used to set a mood
- Sunlight epitomises light and open ness
- He uses edge lighting to throw details into sharp relief
- "venetian blinds casting shadows over a person making them look as if they are in jail."

- An early example of Hitchcock's technical virtuosity was his creation of subjective sound

Reoccuring themes in Hitchcock films
- Innocent who are falsely accused
- ordinary people in extraordinary peril
- people who are not what they seem to be
- trust and betrayl
- hair breadth escapes
- perfect crimes
- double crosses
- As well as this just about every Hitchcock films have a central couple who are lovers who turn out to be either very bad or very good for each other
- There is usually a gorgeous blond woman who rescues a great guy from a tough spot; sometimes it's a bad guy with an idea for the perfect crime
- Often there is also a bumbling police man who is after the wrong man
- there are moments of macabre humour and lots of playful sexual tension and teasing --> Along with darker explorations of the unsettling relationship between violence and sex
- Hitchcock knew that the suspense is generated when the audience can see danger his characters cannot see, or can only suspect.
- he creased the "Hitchcock zoom"
- The foreground remains steady while the background swells closer producing the sensation that the world is closing in on a helpless subject

(Laurice Boedar, May 26 (2016), About entertainment, "Alfred Hitchcock: master of suspense", classicfilm.about.com, (27/5/16)