Breakdown’s narrative structure and arguments are very characteristic of Poe, possessing Poe’s beloved classical tradition of "buried alive" and retribution. And such themes of incapacity, closed horror, and sudden punishment can be seen in his subsequent works "The Reunion", "Victorian" and "Cry of the Soul". Another idea that Hitchcock conveyed was that dead bodies have no dignity, which was expanded in his later filming of "The Strange Case."
The protagonist played by Joseph Cotton keeps his lips slightly open, and his indifferent and empty eyes, as if wearing a death mask, stares straight ahead and directly touches the audience. Hitchcock seems to have been obsessed with such images. He seems to use this to express the fear deep in his soul. I am afraid that this fear has also been traced back to his childhood experience of being held in a cell for a short time.
Don't ignore the first five minutes. The merciless Cotton fired an old employee on the phone and accused him of weeping and weeping. ("I hate the performance of weakness... can you imagine? He is crying. I hate such a weak person. People should learn to control their emotions." Rescued from the worse situation"). At the end, Cotton stared forward blankly, but his tears became the only sign of survival that he was still alive.
In the middle of the plot, those who stole auto parts and clothes disregarded his life and death, just as he mercilessly dismissed the old man under his carelessness in the first place. When I encounter difficulties, I also hope that someone can help him, but the people around him are as ruthless as he was at the beginning.
Finally, I have to praise Joseph Cotton for his wronged performance. In many cases, his mouth and eyes must be opened and kept still, just like close-up photos. Many shots of the film are still images like photos, and they also reflect subjective shots and peculiar shooting angles based on the perspective of a dead body. The story is already very unique. Such stories and shooting methods also influenced later movies such as "Johnny on the Battlefield" and "Diving Bell and Butterflies".
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