What is their to say about Alfred Hitchcock and Shadow of a Doubt. I chose this Hitchcock film mainly because I think it's his most underrated work. It is rumored that this film was Hitchcock's favorite, mine would be Vertigo...maybe North by Northwest...wait Rope...Rear Window...okay I pretty much like them all. I also wanted to play something that was fairly accessible to fill the seats since The Odyssey was just opening.The film stars Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotton, who are just perfect in this film. The script has a perfect balance of dark humor and suspense. The entire cast does a wonderful job playing off each other in this well written script by Thorton Wilder. The suspense is so gradual that it kind of sneaks up on you and at some point you realize that Uncle Charlie isn't messing around and by then you are gripped. In short this is a well made thriller that should not be missed if you are a fan of Hitchcock or films from the 1940's. It was nominated for an Academy Award for it's writing.
I'm sure I will be showing more Hitchcock films in the future. While his films may be a bit more main stream then most of the other films we'll be showing that doesn't mean they aren't important, influential, or artistic (His films aren't considered classics for nothing). I hope you enjoy Shadow of a Doubt, let me know what you think.
- Loegan Magic
SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943) DIRECTED BY: Alfred Hitchcock
In trademark style, master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock directs this taut and chilling tale about Charlie (Teresa Wright), a small-town girl consumed with finding out whether her unhinged Uncle (Joseph Cotten) is a serial killer or not. The arrival of detectives and a suspicious neighbor (Hume Cronyn) only increase Charlie's paranoia. But tension builds as she draws closer to the truth, culminating in a nail-biting scene aboard a speeding train.
-From Netflix website
LENGTH: 108 minutes
LANGUAGE: English
RATING: PG (intended for mature audiences)
ABOUT ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." The magazine MovieMaker has described him as the most influential filmmaker of all-time, and he is widely regarded as one of cinema's most significant artists.
-From Wikipedia
SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943) DIRECTED BY: Alfred Hitchcock
In trademark style, master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock directs this taut and chilling tale about Charlie (Teresa Wright), a small-town girl consumed with finding out whether her unhinged Uncle (Joseph Cotten) is a serial killer or not. The arrival of detectives and a suspicious neighbor (Hume Cronyn) only increase Charlie's paranoia. But tension builds as she draws closer to the truth, culminating in a nail-biting scene aboard a speeding train.
-From Netflix website
LENGTH: 108 minutes
LANGUAGE: English
RATING: PG (intended for mature audiences)
Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." The magazine MovieMaker has described him as the most influential filmmaker of all-time, and he is widely regarded as one of cinema's most significant artists.
-From Wikipedia
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ReplyDeleteI found this quote by Trauffaut, who was a big Hitchcock fan: "There are two kinds of directors: those who have the public in mind when they conceive and make their films, and those who don't consider the public at all. For the former cinema is spectacle; for the latter, it is an individual adventure. There is nothing intrinsically better about one or the other; it's simply a matter of different approaches."
ReplyDeleteHitchcock definitely fits the former. I think for him it's all about taking the audience on a ride and manipulating their sensibilities. The shot in the video above is a great example. We already have a suspicion that something's amiss with Uncle Charlie from the outset, which is quite an audacious decision by Hitchcock to let us in on that, so we're kind of sympathetic to young Charlie's plight because we feel she's being duped. And the audience is allied with her as she comes to realise too that there is reason to suspect her Uncle, and during his mad rant at the dinner table, when he addresses her and looks straight out at us, Hitchcock draws us in so that we're involved rather than mere spectators. As if he's saying, what would you do? Creepy, but I like Hitchcock's sly sense of fun here too. I think it's a really expertly paced film and I agree with you that it has the perfect balance of suspense and humour. Probably my favourite scenes in fact are those with the father and his friend Herb discussing the perfect murder. :)