Sheriff And Hannay example essay topic

What is an auteur? Answer this question with detailed reference to one film director: Alfred Hitchcock Studies of the Auteur Theory in film have often looked toward Alfred Hitchcock as an ideal auteur: an artist with a signature style who leaves his own mark on every work he creates. According to the theory, it does not matter whether or not the director writes his own films, because the film will reflect the vision and the mind of the director through the choices he makes in his film. In the case of Hitchcock's earliest films when he was still under the control of his producers, there is still a distinct stamp upon these images. Hitchcock has said that he was influenced by the German Expressionists, and admired their ability "to express ideas in purely visual terms". It is this expression of thought and psychology that Hitchcock achieves throughout his films, even early on.

Even the psychology that is in the films can be particularly a signature of Hitchcock - critics have found throughout his films a fascination with wrongful accusation and imprisonment. They are present in even his earliest films. A particular sequence of Hitchcock's 1935 film The 39 Steps bears the mark of Hitchcock through the visual expression of the fear of wrongful accusation and confinement. In the shot before the sequence, we see the crofter asking his wife what has happened to his coat, as it had his hymnbook in the pocket. She, offscreen, tells him that she gave the coat to Hannay. The crofter angrily walks offscreen toward her, and we hear her terrified scream - this scream suddenly becomes the sheriff's offscreen laughter, as the next shot is of the hymnbook with the bullet hole in it.

From the beginning of the sequence, Hitchcock transmits the feeling that there is something not quite right about the sheriff. As the scene in the police station begins, Hannay has just finished telling the sheriff that he is the one that the papers have been describing as a murderer, but that he is innocent of the crime. The sheriff laughs along with Hannay and seems to believe him, but as soon as the sheriff's colleagues come in to the room, we learn that the sheriff has been just humoring him and thinks Hannay is a murderer. Hannay is forced to escape. The entire scene, through the lighting, angles, and framing, convey a feeling of sentiment for Hannay, the wrongfully accused, a feeling of distrust for the accusers, and a sense of confinement.

Throughout the scene, there is a differential lighting treatment for the different characters. Hannay always has a bright light shining upon him, while the sheriff and the other policemen have shadows across their faces. Even in the shots in which Hannay shares the frame with the sheriff, the lighting is focused only upon Hannay. Hannay even wears a light-colored suit, while the sheriff wears a dark suit. As the sheriff gets up to walk toward the window near the end of shot 2, the frame is split into two halves - the left side is dark, filled by the sheriff's back, and the right side is light, with Hanna's light suit and illuminated face. Even before we know that the sheriff is a "bad guy", there is already this contrast between light and dark, innocent and shady.

Through the lighting and color on Hannay, Hitchcock expresses visually Hannay's innocence, as opposed to the shadowy corruption of the dark policemen. Much less subtle and more powerful are the images in the sequence that result from the symbolic manipulations of light and shadows. When the sheriff refers to Hannay as a murderer, the camera spins around to show Hannay, who shouts, "Murderer?" The camera then backs away from Hannay, revealing behind his left shoulder at the top-right of the frame, the diagonal shadowing of the window, which blatantly resembles a kind of web. He is clearly entangled in the sheriff's deception, and the web on the wall behind him helps to show Hannay's emotional state. Later, when from outside we see Hannay jump out the window, the windows fly open and cast the distinct web-like shadow again, now on the outer walls of the police station. Hannay is breaking free of the trap of the web, jumping and breaking through it.

In a later shot of the police station it reveals the web, but with the hole of light left in it by Hannay, in the form of the open window. Through this web, Hitchcock enhances the feeling of confinement by the power of the police. Hannay escapes from the police by breaking through this web. Hitchcock also strategically uses camera angles in order to present the correct psychology. The sheriff, throughout the sequence, is associated with diagonal lines. Throughout films diagonal lines have been used to create the sense of instability and corruption.

An example is a close-up of the sheriff, again in profile, looking out the window. Behind him is a blank wall, except for a shadow in the form of a diagonal line on the wall. The next shot is a point-of-view shot of the sheriff's view out the window. From the sheriff's point of view, the horizontal bars of the window actually appear to run diagonally.

These lines demonstrate an altered view. In the reaction shot, there are now two diagonal lines on the wall behind the sheriff - one running diagonally from the sheriff's nose, and one up above that one, parallel to it. When Hannay enters the frame, he is closer to us, creating a diagonal line from Hannay's head to the sheriff's head. The two men are not framed as equals; there is an inequality in their framing that adds to the feeling of uncertainty. Later on in the sequence, when we see the police station from outside, we are looking from an angle so that all of the lines in the building - the window frames, the door etc. - Become diagonal lines rather than horizontal ones.

The entire sequence portrays the sheriff as well as the entire police station as skewed, through Hitchcock's use of diagonal lines and angles. In perhaps the most psychologically powerful shot of the film, in the same shot that introduced the web-like shadow - Hitchcock used the framing of the shot to convey the claustrophobic feeling of confinement. After Hannay is shown with the web behind him, he begins to walk forward, and the camera follows him. Yet as the camera pans to the left, it keeps Hannay constantly in the right side of the frame, not allowing him to enter center screen.

When he stops, the sheriff is on the left side of the frame. Behind the sheriff, there are two pictures on the wall. Both pictures are hung so that they are leaning out of the wall, in toward the room. The shoulder of one man in black can be seen at the left side of the frame. Another policeman in black comes out from behind the sheriff, towards Hannay, and stops, with another man following behind him. With the three policemen, the sheriff, and Hannay all in shot, combined with the pictures on the wall behind them leaning in towards them, the frame is incredibly crowded.

As Hannay tries to reason with the sheriff, he is tightly confined to this overstuffed frame. The sense of claustrophobia is even further signified as the policeman places the handcuffs on Hannay's hand at the end of the shot. Manipulating the light and dark, angles and framing, Hitchcock expresses the horror of wrongful imprisonment through visual devices. Hitchcock allows Hannay to escape the snare of the police into the open world, as Hannay finds himself outside in a parade. Hannay, now free from the confines of the sheriff's office and walking amidst the people, is now vindicated, living momentarily in the comfort of anonymity.

But Hitchcock re-plays his fears, so of course Hannay will soon be back in the binding spotlight in the next sequence. Yet it is more than the fear of police and confinement that is a mark of the Hitchcock film - it is the visual expression of these psychological states that are examples of the artistry of Hitchcock as an auteur. And as seen through the first shot of the chosen sequence in which the sheriff's laugh is merged with the crofter's wife's screams, Hitchcock went beyond the German Expressionists that he admired, manipulating sound to express ideas in their purest, most subtle forms.

Bibliography

" The 39 steps" by Mark Glance " Hitchcock on hitchcock" by Sidney Gottlieb " The Alfred Hitchcock story" by Ken M ogg.