Although this color film made in 1959 may not have the reputation of the second year "Scary" in its title, we have already seen from this film that Hitchcock is dealing with "suspense". Redefinition of words. In the eyes of ordinary people, the development of a story always keeps the action and ending unknown is a measure of the suspense film standard, but in "North by Northwest", Hitchcock began to use multiple layers of suspense conversion and superposition to structure the same The development of a story, the use of this technique in his "Scary", there is no essential difference, but he began to subtract "Northwest by North", and completed the whole story with two suspenseful conversions. Framework, but in the latter, this suspenseful conversion is as many as ten times.
Multi-layered suspense conversion
At the beginning of the story of the film, it is placed on a noisy city street. A kind of unconscious crowd gathers animation faces, allowing the audience to quickly enter a state of "working in the city", and following a series of dialogues between the protagonist Roger and the secretary , We learned that the basic character of this person in the "advertising world" is secular, shrewd, and overconfident. This also allowed him to reduce the sympathy and compassion of many viewers in his subsequent kidnapping encounters. In short, our protagonist is An urban successful person who is biased towards the "grey nature".
But in the first six minutes of the movie, there was a staggering kidnapping incident. This method of quickly entering the suspenseful scene seems to be no surprise if it is known in advance that it is a Hitchcock movie, but the reason why it is so fast, It is still related to the subsequent multi-layer suspense transformation. After the first suspense occurred, the film began a series of suspense transformations: Suspense 1: Why was Roger kidnapped? Who was kidnapped? Suspense 2: Who is Kaplan? Suspense 3: Can Roger go out alive? Suspense 4: Why did the person who kidnapped Roger disappeared? Suspense 5: How will Roger, who is wanted by the police, end up? Suspense 6: Eve and the kidnapper of Roger are in the same group, and Roger is deeply caught up in two sides. Suspense 7: Roger knows that Eve and his kidnapper are in the same group. How will he treat Eve? Mystery 8: After knowing that Eve was originally a spy for the CIA, that is the actual "Kaplan", how would Roger face it? Mystery 9: Roger was shot by Eve? How did things develop after Roger's suspended animation? Suspense 10: Will Roger's hero save the United States succeed?
In addition to increasing the narrative strength of the story, this intensive suspense manufacturing is more to continue Hitchcock's usual movie theme-how do the characters act? Through the analysis just now, we know that many suspense creations have only changed the identity of the supporting role or the background of the incident, but the only action is always the protagonist-how Roger responded, such as for the heroine Eve At first, she was just a sexy beauty who met by the water, and then she became related to the person who kidnapped her, and then she discovered that she was originally the undercover agent of the CIA. This change in the setting of multiple identities only exists as a suspenseful background. The measures Roger took to face this situation is the focus of our attention, which means-how he takes the next step.
The transformation of human nature and commercial film "routines"
If we try to think about the ending of the story after many suspenseful changes, how does it change compared to before? It will soon be discovered that the human transformation of the protagonist Roger is the final "crystallization" of the entire movie.
When we paid attention to the conversation between Roger and the secretary at the beginning of the movie, we found that Roger had both lied to the secretary for being ill in order to fight for a temporary taxi, and defended his behavior in the car: "In the ad There is no such thing as a lie in the world." This kind of words and deeds expresses the superiority of urban middle-class office workers and the unbridled values of cynicism. This middle-aged man who has experienced two marriages is believed to be quite sophisticated and numb in his treatment of love, but After many events and great changes, he became fascinated by Eve. Not only did he risk his life to find her and the kidnappers for the first time, but he also went to the hero to save the beauty for the second time when Eve was in danger. This kind of behavior is no longer what Roger can do at the beginning. Perhaps this multi-layered suspenseful transformation itself is also a multi-layered transformation of human nature!
But this time Hitchcock did not use a sensational way to describe the very complicated couple, but used a "sexual suggestion" technique popular in the 1950s and 1960s to construct Gary Grant and The "enthusiasm" between Eva Marie Senter, especially the section in the train compartment, where the two flirt with various provocative words and expressions, but this kind of strong sexually suggestive scene style does not To make the movie’s erotic meaning too heavy, but to adjust this crisis-ridden adventure through popular love bridges, especially when we know that Eve and the kidnappers are in the same group, and we need a kind of "knife on the edge". "Rose" to reconcile this "gentle trap", it seems that the sexual temptation before death can always evoke people's endless reverie. This time Hitchcock cunningly used this popular love "routine" to let suspenseful dangers. On "The Fragrance of Night".
There is no doubt that this kind of use of human nature and sexually suggestive popular love stories has made the film suspenseful multi-layered transformation and progress just right. Of course, this is also inseparable from Hitchcock's use of formalistic scene scheduling. The geometric composition from the top of the United Nations to the presidential statue on Mount Rushmore is full of the strong "Hitchcock" flavor, which naturally gives this commercial movie with different logos and symbols. , But whether it’s "Victims" in the previous year or "Victims" in the next year, it is different from the whole tone of the film-a comedic temperament, the Jin· Novak has a melancholic temperament, and the end of the movie is quite miserable; and the deaths of the few people in "The Horror" and the last evil smile of Anthony Perkins, in any case, let the horror and horror of this movie survive. In the hearts of every audience.
But "North by Northwest" is different. Whether it's a drunken chase or a tease on a train, Gary Grant's handsome and ridiculous face shows many factors of active atmosphere, and this unique style And movie temperament may be the highlight of this film in Hitchcock's many excellent works.
Transfer from Mtime.com
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