Auteur Thoery

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema, in both silent films and early talkies, he was billed as England’s best director. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker.

Examples of His Films:

Psycho (1960)	Vertigo (1958)	Rear Window (1954)	Strangers On A Train (1951)
Stage Fright (1950)	To Catch A Thief (1955)	The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Now he is still high recognised and praised, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in 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.”

Hitchcock fashioned himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style. He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person’s gaze. He framed his shots in a way to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy and used innovative film editing. Many of his films feature fugitives on the run from the law alongside “icy blonde” female characters.

Many of his films have twist endings and thrilling plots which feature depictions of violence, murder and crime. Although many of the mysteries function as decoys or “MacGuffins” meant only to severe thematic elements in the film and the psychological examinations of the characters.

MacGuffin is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist and sometimes antagonist, is willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to pursue, protect or control. However a MacGuffin can sometimes take a more abstract form, such as money, victory, glory, survival, power, or love. An example would be the mineral unobtainium in Avatar.

Hitchcock's films were strongly believed to have been extensively storyboarded to the upmost finest detail. He was reported to have never looked through the viewfinder, but in publicity photos he was shown doing do.

Even though storyboards had been made, there were certain scenes were the shot had differed from it significantly.  Even though Hitchcock had a great deal of preparation for all of his movies, he was aware that the actual film-making would often differ from the best plans and was flexible to adapt changes and needs of production, and still had normal hassles faced during film production.