"MacGuffin (MacGuffin)", as a means of expression used in movies and novels, although not created by Hitchcock, it is in his hands that it has been carried forward. What is McGeffen? Hitchcock gave an example—on the train, one passenger asked another passenger what was in this strangely shaped bag. The passenger replied: "Mugffin." "What is McGuffin?" "It was used to catch lions in the Scottish Highlands." "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands." "Then there is no McGuffin." In short , McGeffen is the character in the movie desperately chasing and searching, but the audience can not care about things.
In Xi Pang's works, McGeffen is used extensively. For example, the "Mathematics Formula" and "Spy Organization" in "Thirty-Nine Steps", "Spy Keplin" in "North by Northwest", "Rebecca" in "Butterfly Dream", "Beauty Plan" The "uranium element" in and so on. And "Imperial Soul" is no exception, Hitchcock set the character "David" to be McGuffin. As a soy sauce character who received a lunch box when he first appeared on the scene, "The Missing David" is the most important factor in the suspense of the film. Without his murder at the beginning of the film, there would be no story to follow.
Of course, for the audience, it is clear where the "Missing David" is. According to Xi Pang's view of suspense, he will not conceal information from the audience. Because the tension in the drama is precisely due to the information gap, if the amount of information the audience has is greater than the amount of information that the characters in the play have, it will cause them to guess when watching the film, and then become nervous. He once had a famous "time bomb theory". The time bomb itself is not terrible, and letting the audience know that there is a time bomb under the table will make them wonder when it will explode. This will create suspense. If the "Megffin" in "Imperial Soul" is the "missing David", then "how the murderer concealed the truth" and "will David be discovered" became the "time bomb" in this film .
In this work that uses the "God perspective" that Hitchcock is good at, he subtracted all the parts as much as possible. First of all, all the scenes are confined to a high-rise apartment, including a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room, and the two murderers never left this apartment from start to finish. Secondly, there are only nine characters in total, including the deceased David, the two murderers Brandon and Philip, the housekeeper Mrs. Wilson, the publisher Rupert Cardell, David's father Mr. Kentley, and David's aunt. Mrs. Atwater, David's fiancee Janet, and Janet's ex-boyfriend Kenneth.
The relationship between the characters and the plot is also quite simple. David, Kenneth, Brandon, and Philip were classmates at Harvard. Brandon and Philip borrowed a few reasons to hold a small gathering and gathered the rest. Mrs. Wilson was responsible for preparing meals. Because David’s mother was unable to come due to a cold, his aunt participated in the event, and the publisher Rupert was also invited (more importantly, because he was the dormitory for the four of them when they were studying at Harvard). The reason will be discussed later). Before the party started, Brandon and Philip strangled David to death with a rope in the apartment and hid him in a large wooden box. As the party went on, everyone else was puzzled by David's absence. Until the crowd dispersed, Rupert, who had long suspected Dou, went back and finally exposed the murder of the two.
Because the scenes and characters are relatively single, the advancement of the story requires a lot of dialogue, which is related to criminal acts and has nothing to do with it. But because of the "information gap" mentioned above, the audience will keep their attention high while waiting for the "time bomb", so those irrelevant dialogues will also make people watch with gusto, such as David , Janet and Kenneth’s love triangle, and Mrs. Atwater’s interpretation of the constellations, etc.
"Imperial Soul" is Xi Pang's first color film, and it is also his first time as an independent producer, which allows him to make two experimental attempts in the film. One is to build a semicircular city background that is three times the size of the interior scene. The background also includes buildings such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. As time goes by, the city in the background must also change. Therefore, Hitchcock needs to constantly change the brightness of the lights, direct the movement of the clouds, and the smoke in the chimney, changing as many as eight times in the entire shooting process. Up to now, these things are not a problem, and they can be handled by the computer CG. But back then, it was a craft, and the technical difficulties are unimaginable today.
The other is the very famous first "(False) Mirror to the End" in history. This relies on Hitchcock's very detailed and demanding preliminary preparations, such as storyboards, and his strong scene management ability. Of course, in that era, a roll of film was only ten minutes long, so long shots could only use the hidden editing technique of stopping and shooting again, that is, when a shot was about to end, it was aimed at the back of the actor, and the shot was pushed closer and cut into a black screen. , And then change to a new film and then zoom out the lens to form the illusion of continuous shots. In order to take long shots, workers lie everywhere on the ground, always ready to pounce on a piece of furniture, pull them out of the camera's moving route, and put them back after the machine passes by. And if the actor says the wrong lines or the furniture is not in place, he will have to rework even in the last few seconds. Each shot needs to be taken several times to complete.
In addition to this murder and suspense, what is more interesting is the concept that the two murderers uphold. Especially the main criminal Brandon (Philip is obviously a blind follower). From the description of the story, we can see that there is no deep hatred between him and the dead David. He called a meeting, killed David before the meeting, put David's body in a box, covered the box with a tablecloth to serve as a dining table, and at the same time expressed the joy of killing intentionally or unintentionally in his words. See, his starting point for killing David is entirely to realize the murder privilege he pretends to be a superior person, and to satisfy himself with "perfect murder" as an art.
The roots of his thoughts originated from the exchanges with the dormitory Rupert when he was studying at Harvard. At that time, Rupert would often say things like "murder is an art" and "murder is the privilege of the superior" in his chat. Unexpectedly, those who said it didn't want to listen to it, Brandon felt the same and wanted to take action. At this gathering, Brandon, Rupert, and David's father Kentley also had a discussion on this topic. In the discussion, Brandon expounded his views at a glance. He felt that the morality of right and wrong only applies to ordinary people or the inferior, and the superior is not only superior in IQ and culture, There is also the privilege of transcending traditional moral concepts. In his eyes, inferior people are rubbish and idiots, hoping to hang them all. Poor, although Mr. Kentley refuted the other party's "who decides the rank of people, you are despising humanity and insulting the civilized world", but he doesn't know that his son has become a victim of this absurd theory, lying in the box in front of him. inside.
Finally, when Rupert learned about Brandon’s murder, he was deeply shocked and regretted by the influence he had given Brandon, and severely reprimanded him: "Tonight you asked me to speak for myself I am ashamed of all the words about the superior and the inferior, but I also want to thank you, because you let me know that each of us is an independent individual, has the power to live, work, and think, and is burdened by society. Responsibility. Do you have any right to dare to say that you belong to the upper class, and what right to decide the inferior to die, do you think you are God?” Throughout human history, Brandon’s values are great in any era. There is a market, and so-called superior people are always insulting their lives, or wantonly trampling on their rights and dignity. "Level" this kind of thing, as long as there is one day human existence, it will never disappear.
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