Working hard to live out his own man "North by Northwest" Alfred Hitchcock really shined during the 11 years from 1954 to 1964. He reached the pinnacle of his career through his amazing creative power. . Taking "Telephone Murder" as the starting point, successively launched "Back Window", "Catch the Thief", "Ghost Case", "Capture the Murder", "Reunion", "Vista", "Northwest", "Fright", " Amazing works such as "The Flock of Birds" and "The Beautiful Thieves". There is no other person in the world who can shine in every movie like him, and decorate his career with 11 great masterpieces. In particular, the release of "Ecstasy", "Northwest by Northwest" and "Fright" in succession within three years, this amazing talent is simply jaw-dropping. What's even more incredible is that "North by Northwest" is still his leisure work for relaxing in the two blockbuster films, which is simply speechless. This work can be described as a great funny thriller between the hypnotic beauty of "Victorius" and the gloomy spiritual atmosphere of "Terrorist", and it is the most Hitchcock-style movie. It not only perfectly blends suspense and humor, but also implies a theme he has been pursuing all his life. He himself said that if "Thirty-Nine Steps" presents the entire British era, then "North by Northwest" is a portrayal of the American era. It would be a big mistake to treat it as an impetuous commercial film because it is not a niche movie like "Victoria" and "Cry of the Cry" produced before and after. The name of the movie has already thrown people into confusion. "North by Northwest"? Could it be that there are vehicles turning north-northwest in the movie? That's not true. Some of them can see Hitchcock's ingeniously set northwest route. Starting from New York, passing through Chicago and Indiana, and finally reaching South Dakota, this is the four-day path in the movie. In addition, from Madison Avenue in New York to 60th Street and Plaza Road, from Michigan Street in Chicago to the airport, these are all northwest, but not northwest. There is no “North by "Northwest" is the direction. If it is "North-northwest", it should be "North-northwest". In other words, the name is not a command sentence indicating the direction. However, the flight to South Dakota in the movie is "Northwest Airlines." Yes, it means taking Northwest Airlines to the north. It’s plausible, but it’s a bit of a movie name... The mystery lies in Hamlet... In the second scene of the second act, Hamlet confronts Rosencrantz and Gildenston said: "I'm crazy when the northwest wind is blowing in the sky; when the wind blows from the south, I don't think of an eagle as a heron. Although there are controversies in interpretation, most Shakespeare experts agree with this speculation. Hamlet realized that the south wind and southeast wind can give people a sense of purity, exquisiteness, and warmth. Therefore, he wanted to play some tricks to make himself feel better. The madness is attributed to the surrounding environment. "Eagle and Heron" means discrimination-able to distinguish objects of different shapes, as well as a normal state without madness. Hitchcock wants to talk about "madness", external and internal The difference between the two, as well as the difference in identity. The reason why Hamlet’s lines fully bloomed when the troupe that performed the play in the play arrived, because "North by Northwest" wanted to present a dramatic confusion. In Shakespeare’s lines Putting "by" (North by Northwest) in order to make Northwest Airlines appear on the scene is just a prank by Hitchcock. In other words, the title itself has no meaning.
＊The names and words here come from the drama "Rosencrantz and Gildens Swallowed To Death". This play is an absurd play based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet". The story of this film is the most complicated of all Hitchcock films. Otherwise, Gary Grant won’t complain: “It’s been shot for a third, and I don’t know where to go.” This film is very different from Hitchcock’s previous works. There is no original novel or drama in the script. The shadows of the original work are very naturally interspersed with Hitchcock-style ideas. Thornhill was inexplicably mistaken for a person named "George Kaplan" and was kidnapped. In the lobby of the United Nations headquarters, after seeing Townsend, he realized that the Townsend he saw was not real, and that the real Townsend had been murdered. Thornhill, regarded as a murderer, met Eve on the way to escape and fell in love. With the help of Eve, Thornhill decided to meet with Kaplan, but Thornhill was waiting for Thornhill at the agreed place to be fired by the plane's machine gun. Thornhill surrendered to the police after learning that Eve was actually the mistress of the spy leader Vidan. The head of the US intelligence agency that appeared at this time again subverted the situation. Kaplan is a fictitious character to distract Vidan, and Eve is the key hired by the government. Thornhill heard that Eve was in danger after being suspected by Vidan, so he decided to play the role of "Kaplan". Eve originally planned to pretend to shoot Sanhir Kaplan in front of Vidan, so as to regain the trust of Vidan. However, Vidan's confidant Raymond (Gay who loves Vidan, jealous of Eve) perceives this strategy, and Eve is once again in crisis. With the help of Thornhill, Eve successfully escaped, and Weidan's group was defeated. In the beginning of the movie, we saw the busy figure of New Yorkers. The designer Saul Bass, who worked with the filming of "Victoria" and "Cry," drew criss-cross lines against the sky blue background, and then made the list of people involved in the production jump up and down. This up and down vertical movement can't help but remind people of the last chase scene and the rock climbing scene of Mount Rushmore. Later, these lines became the walls of Manhattan skyscrapers. The street scene is reflected on the wall made of reflective glass. The citizens seemed to be bewildered by the square glass window. When the audience in the movie thought that the citizens in the street scene were domestic animals locked in cages, the footage of the movie moved to the street—the crowds in groups, going back and forth, seemed like sheep being driven by shepherds. group. As always, the bus closed the door in front of Hitchcock, who played the guest star, and people poured in from the ground one after another. Are those holy men and women who seem ordinary and ordinary are really so ordinary? ? The world brought into by Hitchcock is not like this. Among those uncharacterized people, there are many spies, killers, thieves and blonde witches hidden. As we have experienced in "The Sea of Desire", "Beauty" and "Victorius", the world in Hitchcock's eyes is completely different from what we imagined.
Thornhill hunts down Kaplan, Kaplan hunts down Vidan, and Vidan hunts down Kaplan that is Thornhill, and the target of the professor and Eve is Vidan. In this mess, the first thing we discovered is the confusion of self-consciousness of the characters in the play. As Andrew Britton said, the whole movie presents Hitchcock's favorite "double pursuit plot structure." The director expresses his intention to look for someone in a double chase by the police and the villain, and in this way depicts the fear of a man when he is misidentified. The protagonist is mistaken for someone else. In order to find his identity, he constantly embarks on a journey and takes risks. In the play, Thornhill has been trying to find Kaplan, but in fact Kaplan is not an actual character. This is similar to Stoke who chases after the non-existent Madeleine in the movie "Victorius". The split between Thornhill and Kaplan is actually Thornhill's own split. In this movie, everyone is in a state of detachment. After Thornhill was mistaken for Kaplan, he was unable to prove his existence from beginning to end. Until the end of the film, the gangster believed that he was Kaplan. At first, Eve was a designer who happened to meet on the train, then became Weidan's mistress, and later became a double agent for the government. Vidan pretended to be a United Nations diplomat at first, and later he pretended to be an art collector at the auction floor. Weidan's men are the gardener, family nanny and secretary, all of whom are pretending to be. The minister of the CIA is called a professor, and his colleagues are called cartoonists, stockbrokers, housewives, and news reporters. Although it seems that they are all good men and believers, the hidden truth in them is beyond imagination.
The same is true for the protagonist Thornhill. At first glance, he is an innocent and simple handsome gentleman, but if you observe this character carefully, you can really feel the three-dimensional and vivid feeling Hitchcock has injected into this character. First of all, he is the top of an advertising company. The advertisements in the film symbolize the hypocrisy and deception of modern people. He believes that there are no so-called lies in the world, only "inevitable exaggerations" like advertisements. So Eve believed him this way: "He can fool people to buy things that they don't like... and make women who don't know his details fall in love with him." Because of this identity, he has been married twice. , But later divorced. The only exception is the mother, because Thornhill relies on her mother beyond imagination. He never dared to act rashly in front of his mother. The villains mistakenly believed him to be Kaplan, but he was actually related to his mother. At that time, the villains saw the hotel waiter shouting "Mr. Kaplan, please answer the phone" from a distance, and then saw Thornhill talking to the waiter, so the villains took it for granted that Thornhill was Kaplan. In fact, Thornhill just wanted to send a telegram to his mother. Establishing a sincere interpersonal relationship with such a typical Mabao male and alcoholic was a luxury from the beginning. When Thornhill met Eve for the first time on the train, Eve used a blatant temptation on him, and he was panicked at the time. Thornhill: Direct women are terrible. Eve: Why? Thornhill: Because my situation will become disadvantaged. Eve: Is it because you have never been sincere to girls? Thornhill: Exactly. After such a conversation, what is the use of sharing names? Thornhill confided all his secrets in his own name. His full name is "Roger O. Thornhill", the English word "RO" on the matchbox and handkerchief "T" means corruption. When she asked what the middle name "O" meant, he replied: "It means nothing, nothing. "In fact, this is a little joke using the English "O" as the Arabic numeral "0", but this joke is really a bit chilling. He once suffered a lot because he took the hostage as a child's play. His mother persuaded him to take a plane. When he ran away, he actually made a joke like this: "If someone recognizes me on the plane, I don't have a place to hide. I can't jump off the plane, right? "But in fact, even though he had never boarded a plane, he was eventually attacked by a plane that recognized him. It can be seen that the jokes cannot be made casually. In the end, the jokes about "O" were found to be true. Generally speaking, "O" is indeed true. It is a meaningless existence. Therefore, Thornhill’s self-identity is very fragile. His life is quite illusory. No one believes in his nine-death experience after being kidnapped, and people always say that he is Kaplan. , His faith immediately began to waver. When calling his mother at the police station, he consciously said forcefully: "Mom, I am your son Thornhill. "This shows that his heart is full of anxiety. He asked himself: "Am I really Thornhill?" "But when the woman he saw for the first time called his name affectionately, he responded loudly: "Don't call me Roger!
He was being chased every day, but he never knew where he was going next. So the professor’s female secretary would say to herself: "Bye bye Mr. Thornhill... No matter where you are..." Eve rescued Thornhill from the hiding place, while jokingly said: "Come out, no matter where you are... …" He is a person with no foundation. What we see is the way he travels by various means of transportation. We have never seen his residence. The situation of Thornhill being constantly pursued is perfectly presented in a bird's-eye view of the UN headquarters. Thornhill, who ran away with the charge of homicide, was nothing more than a moving point, or a stain, in the extreme long shot of a vertical overlook known as the "God's Perspective". So far, (as Kaplan) pursued and killed by the disorderly forces, he was finally driven to a ruin by the orderly forces (as Thornhill). Advertisers who are full of confidence in everything are now a bug desperately fleeing. This image continues on the train that met Eve and the famous cornfield. Thornhill came to see Kaplan. The New Yorker, who had only appeared in a closed space, was suddenly thrown onto the desolate grassland without traces of humans and civilization. The last bus that was connected to the society gradually moved away, black and white cars came from different directions, and then gradually disappeared into the distance, and the trucks disappeared after being raised in dust. Even in a critical moment, Thornhill, who pays special attention to appearance (Vedan and Leonard were also attracted by his elegant dress when they first met Thornhill for the first time) was unbearable to be covered in dust. Unlike the first shot, the middle shot is from a bird's-eye view, so most of his background is the ground. The horizon seemed to press against Thornhill. The countryman who was waiting for the bus said something unintentionally. He said, "Weird...why did the plane work, you can't see what medicine is sprayed on the crops?" As soon as the countryman left, the pesticide sprayer began to approach Thornhill. . This time with the sky as the background, it felt like a fully exposed target, like a field mouse being chased by an eagle. Afterwards, he hid in the cornfield, and as soon as the plane sprayed pesticide, he rushed out of the cornfield, and he was completely reduced to pests. This plane, like the flock of birds in the movie "Flock of Birds," does not look like a mere mechanical or offensive weapon. It is mysterious and transcendent, simple and bright, like a god. Regarding the fragment that became a legend, Truffaut once said: “In fact, there is no need to take a shot of an airplane. It looks undecent and meaningless. But when approached in this way, the movie becomes abstract like music. Art media." In other words, this scene can be understood as an independent storyline separate from the feature film. In daily Ominous signs in life can trigger fear, showing the unpredictability and irrationality of life. While pointing out this point, François Truffaut described Hitchcock’s core issue as "unreasonable fantasy". In this regard, Hitchcock admitted that he "explored unreasonable with religious enthusiasm." way of doing. This film is also known as Hitchcock's best interpretation of the McGoffin* concept. In this work, the secrets of the U.S. government hidden in the statue of the Talas warrior push the emptiness and irrationality of life to the top. All the characters on the stage are fighting to fight for this, but no one knows what exactly it is and how important it is. It was acquired in the form of an auction, with the appearance of a work of art (the way Vidan stroked Eve's neck in the auction room was obviously a gesture of an art lover admiring the beautiful bust). But during the chase on Mount Rushmore, it fell to the ground and shattered, exposing the hidden objects. Film is the material for making movies. If it is the film that combines all the elements in one, then this is unreasonable extreme. The center of "North by Northwest" is empty, and there is another "nothing" in addition to that, which is the most important paradox in "North by Northwest". That "meaningless" Thornhill was mistaken for another person by others. The problem is that the so-called other person does not exist in this world at all, so he becomes meaningless again. In other words, he is "meaningless meaning" because he is a fictitious bait. For Weidan, he is the object that must be removed, and for the professor, he is the object that must exist. Because Weidan firmly believes that Kaplan exists, he would never expect a double agent to be in front of him. From the beginning, Kaplan was a puppet that disturbed the sight of Eve, set up to protect Eve from people's sight. Kaplan is "the existence of nothingness" or "empty meaning". He is also the paradox of movement. In order to get rid of this existence, the "handgun without bullets" still needs to be used, that is, empty bullets are needed. , No one knows. It was acquired in the form of an auction, with the appearance of a work of art (the way Vidan stroked Eve's neck in the auction room was obviously a gesture of an art lover admiring the beautiful bust). But during the chase on Mount Rushmore, it fell to the ground and shattered, exposing the hidden objects. Film is the material for making movies. If it is the film that combines all the elements in one, then this is unreasonable extreme. The center of "North by Northwest" is empty, and there is another "nothing" in addition to that, which is the most important paradox in "North by Northwest". That "meaningless" Thornhill was mistaken for another person by others. The problem is that the so-called other person does not exist in this world at all, so he becomes meaningless again. In other words, he is "meaningless meaning" because he is a fictitious bait. For Weidan, he is the object that must be removed, and for the professor, he is the object that must exist. Because Weidan firmly believes that Kaplan exists, he would never expect a double agent to be in front of him. From the beginning, Kaplan was a puppet that disturbed the sight of Eve, set up to protect Eve from people's sight. Kaplan is "the existence of nothingness" or "empty meaning". He is also the paradox of movement. In order to get rid of this existence, the "handgun without bullets" still needs to be used, that is, empty bullets are needed. , No one knows. It was acquired in the form of an auction, with the appearance of a work of art (the way Vidan stroked Eve's neck in the auction room was obviously a gesture of an art lover admiring the beautiful bust). But during the chase on Mount Rushmore, it fell to the ground and shattered, exposing the hidden objects. Film is the material for making movies. If it is the film that combines all the elements in one, then this is unreasonable extreme. The center of "North by Northwest" is empty, and there is another "nothing" in addition to that, which is the most important paradox in "North by Northwest". That "meaningless" Thornhill was mistaken for another person by others. The problem is that the so-called other person does not exist in this world at all, so he becomes meaningless again. In other words, he is "meaningless meaning" because he is a fictitious bait. For Weidan, he is the object that must be removed, and for the professor, he is the object that must exist. Because Weidan firmly believes that Kaplan exists, he would never expect a double agent to be in front of him. From the beginning, Kaplan was a puppet that disturbed the sight of Eve, set up to protect Eve from people's sight. Kaplan is "the existence of nothingness" or "empty meaning". He is also the paradox of movement. In order to get rid of this existence, the "handgun without bullets" still needs to be used, that is, empty bullets are needed.
＊McGoffin pointed out that some plots in the movie are very important at the beginning, but when the plot develops, the characters' loyalty or love and hatred become the focus of the audience. Some of the previous plots gradually become less important, sometimes It doesn't even matter at all. There is a second paradox. If you think of this film as a story of Thornhill restoring relationships with others and finding true love and responsibility, then the method is a problem. After Thornhill learned that Eve was in danger, he accepted the professor's commission. The professor told him not to argue that he was not Kaplan, and became the real Kaplan, pretending to be killed by Eve. Kaplan, who was hit by an empty bullet, died, and Thornhill, as someone else, filled the fictional space he wanted to get rid of. In order to save the beloved woman, he risked his life to act on the scene, and this was not so much Thornhill's sacrifice, as it was Kaplan's death. In a sense, this is the death of the fictional character Kaplan, as well as the death of the "meaningless" surviving character Thornhill, and Thornhill is reborn through death in this way. He forgave the use of his own Eve, thus practicing true love. So when he accepted the professor's proposal, the light of the plane flying by was reflected on his face. After Kaplan was killed, the reunion in the woods followed. Hitchcock said that because of the long time, this part was almost cut off. What's more, there is no dramatic reversal in this part. At most, Thornhill, who has already understood the identity of Eve, has shown the will to go to the future for true love. This shot fully demonstrated Hitchcock's editing skills. Thornhill came to the woods by car. In this long shot, Hitchcock edited the panorama of Thornhill. When he stood behind the car, the camera moved backwards, and the first Eve appeared in the shot. In the shot captured by the wide-angle lens, two people appeared at both ends of the telephoto lens. Thornhill walked towards Eve first, and Hitchcock’s panoramic shots followed the people to the side. This time it was a panoramic editing of Eve. She also walked towards Thornhill, and the camera moved with it. At this time, contrary to the previous one, Thornhill entered the camera. The purpose of the scene of men and women embracing each other is to explore how two independent personalities merge into one. Whenever, the key is to get close to each other, Hitchcock tries to get the audience involved. Thornhill and Eve are facing a death crisis on the cliff on Mount Rushmore with the huge heads of four American presidents carved. Like the National Diet Building in "The Train Strangers" and the Statue of Liberty in "The Vandals", this majestic monument symbolizes politicians, government, democracy, etc. However, these expressionless presidents did not seem to be able to help the heroes and heroines out of their predicament. Instead, they helped. Busy. Just as the National Assembly Building, which was previously printed on the CIA plaque, did not take responsibility for Thornhill’s safety, and just as the United Nations Headquarters turned into a stage for murder and frame-up, defenders of law and order expressed concern about Thornhill’s life. Nothing helped. It is said that Hitchcock, who treated the whole play as a kind of irony, tried to stuff Thornhill into Lincoln's nostrils, artificially causing a sneeze. Lincoln should be sneezing. Why should Thornhill sneeze? Because Lincoln is nothing more than a morally politician. From the scene of dragging people dangerously on the cliffs (Tanghill finally caught Eve who was about to fall into the abyss), jump to the scene of dragging people in the train sleeper-two people just Going to bed, what will be the next shot? "There are no so-called symbolic shots in "North by Northwest". By the way! There is still one, which is the last shot. After the love scene between Gary Grant and Eva Mary Center, there is a shot of the train entering the tunnel. , This shot symbolizes the male genitalia. However, this can’t be said nonsense.” (Alfred Hitchcock said in an interview with The Screenplay.)
From "Park Chan Wook's Montage"
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