Investigation Blog Post 7

Introduction: For this weeks blog post I wanted to look at Alfred Hitchcock and his impact on the film industry. I really like Hitchcock's work, the first film I watched of his was Psycho in film class. My favorite movie of his I've watches is probably The Lady Vanishes (1938). I've always loved mysteries and so I really enjoyed figuring out the mystery o the lady that vanished with the main characters. I later watched the remake from 2013, but nothing can compare to the original one. Alfred Hitchcock has a very unique style of movies and its hard to replicate it. He has created a lot of films that are still watched and people still take inspiration from them today. Psycho was an still is his most influential film and his legacy still lives on even know. In 2012 a documentary was released on Alfred Hitchcock. His influence the creation for a lot of famous films/films series today and tv series. He's really everywhere in films with the technics and films he inspired people to make.

Inspiration: Here's more information: The Influence and Legacy of Alfred Hitchcock and Alfred Hitchcock.

• The Lodger, Hitchcock's silent film from 1927, about the hunt for a Jack the Ripper-style serial killer on the foggy streets of London, is now regarded as the first characteristically 'Hitchcock' film. It was heavily influenced by the tropes of German expressionism, in films such as Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. This is the film that both he and students of the cinema would come to regard as his first “real” work and one that very much drew on his youthful surroundings.

• Hitchcock also influenced the cinematic lexicon, popularizing the term 'MacGuffin' in The 39 Steps. Loosely speaking, a MacGuffin is the object (or device, or concept) around which the plot revolves, driving the narrative forward and being of crucial importance to the protagonists, although the audience themselves may have little or no investment in it.

• Hitchcock also popularized the use of the 'dolly zoom' in his thriller Vertigo. In Vertigo, Hitchcock used the effect to look down the tower shaft to emphasize both its height and vertical disorientation. This has been used films like Jaws and E.T.

• His first Hollywood film was an adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's psychological thriller Rebecca, which went on to win the Oscar® for Best Picture. The film retains all of its awesome power and horror nearly eighty years on, and remains one of the cinema's seminal examples of the gothic genre.

• For the release of Psycho Hitchcock famously insisted that cinemas refuse to let in any latecomers, a controversial move at the time, but one that helped turn Psycho into an early blockbuster phenomenon, with lines of people queuing up to find out about the mysterious story. Psycho's influence can also be seen in its use of music (its legendary soundtrack is instantly evocative to people, whether or not they've seen the film), the killing off of innocents, as well as introducing a villain in Norman Bates that audiences couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for.

• Surveillance is one of the preoccupying concerns of the modern era, particularly in the wake of events surrounding Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Hitchcock was onto this theme earlier than most, and his classic, claustrophobic thriller Rear Window is a brilliant study of voyeurism and morality, that now reminds us of modern social media and reality television.

• Hitchcock was also one of the first directors to ever experiment with 3D in his films, in mystery thriller Dial M For Murder. However, audiences in the 1950s had little interest in the new technology and it quickly faded away.

Experimentation and Brainstorming: When you remake a classic film that a lot of people love, you're bound to have doubt and worries that people don't like it as much as the original. I watched the remake of The Lady Vanishes and I like it, but it wasn’t by Hitchcock. I also started to watch the remake of his film Rebecca on Netflix, I’ve never seen the original, so I don’t know how good the remake is. What I’ve gathered from reviews I’ve read though, it’s not as good. He just has this really amazing way of telling stories in film and the suspense and creative ways he does things make his films amazing. For the birds there’s really no sound track and the way that they have the swarms of birds was created practically with real birds and digital effects. If anything I would take inspiration from his films. Like the dolly zoom I could use in a film of mine and that could be my way of using one of Hitchcock’s techniques in my film. If I were to recreate a film of his or take inspiration from his film, I would take certain elements and use them to create my own twist. Sometimes films don’t need to be remade, but sometimes it is fun to recreate films to be more modern and add more to the plot. 

Reflection: For this blog post it was really fun to look at Alfred Hitchcock and his films. He was and still is one of the most influential filmmakers ever. He created many different trends in film and inspired many popular films and tv shows. His films impacted a lot of people and inspired many amazing film makers to use his techniques. His films will always be classic and inspiring. His films, especially Physco, entranced audiences around the world and still do. His creation of using objects in films that will carry the plot of movies is really creative and also not something everyone sees that much. His whole film career created a lot of creativity and inspired a lot of people. Alfred Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors, he created films using a lot of creativity out into each film.