Directions of Alfred Hitchcock

Mian Ammar [Sec F]

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on August 19, 1899. He was a Britishborn motion pictures film director, screenplay writer and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. Hitchcock, destined to make sublime film thrillers, was born in London at the end of the Victorian era. He was the youngest child of an East End family whose father ran a poulterers and greengrocers business and whose mother came of Irish stock. The family was Catholic. Hitchcock loved his mother dearly and took after her in her quiet constancy Hitchcock attended St. Ignatius College, London, and the University of London, where he studied engineering. He grew up an independent youth given to attending films and plays on his own. In 1920, Hitchcock began to work in the motion-picture industry. Initially, he started by designing title cards for the Famous Players-Lasky Company. Within a few years he had become a scenario writer and an assistant director, and he directed his first film The Pleasure Garden of 1925. Hitchcock is considered as an accidental director because the director of The Pleasure Garden fell ill in between the direction of movie so the main lead-actor and Hitchcock completed the movie. In 1926, The Lodger was released which is considered as the first real Hitchcock movie because its the first movie which has Hitchcockian element for which Hitchcock is famous worldwide. The Lodger was the story of a family who mistakenly suspect their roomer to be Jack the Ripper. But, unfortunately The Lodger wasnt appreciated by Box Office at that time. Even then, Hitchcock continued making the thriller genre movies which become his identification factor. Blackmail of 1929 was the first officially successful British talking picture directed by Hitchcock. In the 1930s, Hitchcock directed classic suspense films such as The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934, The Thirty-nine Steps in 1935, Sabotage in 1936, and The Lady Vanishes in 1938. And, finally in 1939, he left England for Hollywood, where his first film, Rebecca in 1940 was released which also won an Academy Award for best picture. After entering in the Hollywood motion-picture system, Hitchcock started making a film each year. And, he follows this routine for next three decades approximately. The movies directed by Hitchcock as well as praised on Box Office during the 1940s were Suspicion in 1941, Shadow of a Doubt in 1943, Lifeboat in 1944, Spellbound 1945, and Rope in 1948. And, 1948 was also the year when Hitchcock decided to test his fate in the filed of production. In next decade, he went on to make a series of big-budget suspense genre movies starring some of the leading actors and actresses from Hollywood. These movies include Strangers on a Train in 1951, Dial M for Murder in 1954, Rear Window in 1954, To Catch a Thief in 1954, The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1955; which was a remake of the film of 1934, Vertigo 1958, and North by Northwest in 1959. In the 1960s

Hitchcock turned to making thrillers with new and original emphases, among them Psycho in 1960, The Birds in 1963, and Marnie in 1964. Torn Curtain of 1966 and Topaz of 1969 were conventional espionage stories. While in his last films, Frenzy of 1972 and Family Plot of 1976, he returned to his original themes. From the 1940s on Hitchcock usually made a fleeting, wordless appearance in a bit part in each of his films. He made several cameos Hitchcock usually focuses on either murder or espionage, with deception, mistaken identities, and chase sequences complicating and enlivening the plot. Wry touches of humor and occasional intrusions of the macabre complete this mixture of cinematic elements. Three main themes predominate in Hitchcock's films. The most common is that of the innocent man who is mistakenly suspected or accused of a crime and who must then track down the real perpetrator in order to clear himself. The second theme is that of the guilty woman who enmeshes a male protagonist and ends up either destroying him or being saved by him. The third theme is that of the frequently psychopathic murderer whose identity is established during the working out of the plot. And, this was the theme on which Hitchcock made most of his movie. One more interesting thing about Hitchcock is that in his career of 57 years, he never won a single award as a best director. He just got a Lifetime Achievement Award. April 29, 1980 was the day when Alfred Hitchcock passed away and left the world of cinema to feel his absence.