Master in suspense

This answers question 12

Through me talking about the dolly zoom and the point of view shot which is used to build suspense and tension to the scene, I wanted to understand and actually see whether Alfred Hitchcock should be named ‘the master of suspence’. Through reading the book Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut I found a quote of interest to me.

“We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably becuase they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions this innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longong to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There’s a bomb under you and it’s about to explode!”

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second case we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion in that whenever possible the public must be informed. (Francois Truffaut (1967) ‘Hitchcock’  Simon & Schuster page.52)

I personally found it hard to find detailed and relevant information on why Hitchcock could be known as the master of suspense on the internet but I watched the famous shower scene in Psycho where the audience see a figure approaching the shower before the actress Lila in the shower does. The audience feels vulnerable or that character and understands before she does that if she does not stop the shower then something could happen. Below is the famous shower scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlC3j9Ha5TI – accessed 10th november 2009

The suspense is drawn through the shadow of the man approaching shower. To get a personal understand into whether society classes Alfred Hitchcock as ‘the master of suspense’. The idea of suspense is related in the‘Tower scene’ in Vertigo through John’s point-of-view and we guessing that Madeline is going to try and kill herself.

I interviewed my friend Jerome Noel who attends drama school and gave me an insight of his opinion of Alfred Hitchcock being the master of suspense which the 2 minute interview is shown below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB9okaBu7po – accessed and produced 10th November 2009

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