Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 movie Foreign Correspondent is a spy thriller with several unexpected twists and turns. Despite these exciting curveballs, the story follows a somewhat similar structure to that described in Robert McKee’s Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. As McKee asserts, “A story is a design in five parts: The Inciting Incident, the first major part of the telling, is the primary cause for all that follows, putting into motion the other four elements- Progressive Complications, Crisis, Climax, Resolution.” Hitchcock employs all five of these story elements in Foreign Correspondent, and their use contributes to making it a complete and exciting film. Set in pre-World War II Europe, it does not …show more content…
Trying to unravel an international spy ring while escaping their attempts on his life seems hard enough, but perhaps the greatest complication for Haverstock is when he falls for a woman named Carol, who happens to be the daughter of Stephen Fisher. Carol and Huntley’s relationship is solidified when she helps him escape men who have come to his hotel room to get rid of him before he can spread what he knows. After they escape, Huntley admits his desire to marry Carol, and she reciprocates. Haverstock’s love for Carol would not be problematic in itself, but when new discoveries implicate her father as a member of the plot to kidnap Van Meer, Huntley is torn between his duty to uncover the truth and his wish to avoid hurting Carol in the process. This is the final conflict which sets the scene for the unexpected climax that …show more content…
Haverstock and Scott ffolliott, another reporter, are able to rescue Van Meer and expose Stephen Fisher’s role in the kidnapping. While attempting to escape to the U.S., Fisher comes clean to his daughter about his involvement, hoping to absolve himself of blame in her eyes. At the same time, Haverstock and ffolliott make plans to have Fisher arrested when their plane lands, and Haverstock attempts to find a way to reconcile with Carol despite being responsible for her father’s upcoming arrest. This third element of the story, Haverstock’s personal Crisis, would feel like the climax if not for what comes next. Haverstock’s relationship with Carol seems like the last loose end to be resolved in the story, but before Huntley can repair his relationship with Carol, their aircraft is shot out of the sky by a German ship. The climax is now no longer a struggle for Huntley to win Carol back, but a struggle to survive. In this way, Hitchcock has placed Haverstock’s personal crisis within the ultimate climax and forced his decision into a bigger context. This is similar to what McKee describes when he says the protagonist, “[D]raws on the dregs of his willpower, chooses an action he believes will achieve his desire, but as always, his world won’t cooperate. Reality splits and he must
I will talk about how auteur theory can be applied to the study of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and vertigo.
The reader’s first introduction to Butcher is crucial in the author’s construction of his character. Immediately, the characterisation of Butcher as a villain is apparent as “With no warning, his hand shot out and grabbed Jamie’s throat, the grip instant and vice-like…”. This characterisation of Butcher (what he says and does) effects the way the reader responds to him and the corruption and violence that he represents. Jamie has done nothing to provoke Butcher, yet is treated with hostility from the very first interaction between the two characters, as proved by the “vice-like” nature of the grip. Another thing that uncovers the traits of a character is what they say. Butcher uses threatening language throughout a new kind of dreaming, such as when he says “One wrong move, son, and your brains are all over that wall” before handcuffing and injuring Jamie. In conclusion, the actions and dialogue of Butcher is a technique of characterisation that Eaton uses to position readers to respond to his antagonistic character and the theme of corruption with distaste, simultaneously advancing the reader’s empathy for
Literary devices will be a primary source used to compare and contrast the narrative and stylistic choices made in the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, and the film 2081 directed by Chandler Tuttle. In the film the director is able to express visuals, sounds, and physical characters, to establish a firm idea of how the characters within the story act and feel based on their surroundings and what is happening around them. However, an Author in a short story is reliant on his words alone to paint the picture for the reader to understand the movement of the plot and its impact on the atmosphere. The literary devices used in creating and shaping pieces of literature will heavily impact the point of view of the
Throughout the term I have begun experiencing movies in a different way. The class has taken ideas of cinematography, theory, and film history and practically applied it to physically watching movies. By breaking down scenes and movies as a whole, the way I look at films in general has developed. A reflection on two of the films from this term, Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942) and North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959) will carry the bulk of the essay. Though, I will also be discussing how this class changed the way I saw a movie just a few weeks ago. Casablanca’s script and acting are of particular caliber, and North by Northwest unfortunately does not deliver with the dialogue and casting of lead actor Cary Grant. Though, overall, they both
1. Throughout the story suspense is aroused and maintained excellently. This is achieved by the character the author creates. Mr. Martin is characterized as a neat and cautious man, who never took a smoke or a drink in his life. Our suspense is aroused when the author states that it has been “a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows”. This arouses our suspense because we are told Mr. Martin is planning to murder this woman. The suspense is maintained with Mr. Martin’s thoughts. We as an audience are given his thoughts through the use of the 3rd person omniscient point of view. His thoughts are mostly on the issue on his dislike of Mrs. Barrows. Because of this, he
The scene that I will be discussing for this paper is called “He’s a spy” from the movie Young Guns. In this scene, Billy and his gang are confronted by Murphy’s men. With the mise-en-scene, this helps the viewer identify that the time period being portrayed here is the late 1870’s or the early 1880’s. The mise-en-scene being used for this movie is important in telling the story from a different era as in today’s world, no one dresses this way anymore. Also to include from this scene is the lighting. I will attempt to give an explicit description of the use of the lighting and the sun and how the cinematographer designed for the use of it. Furthermore, I will also discuss the people that are directly involved with the making of Young Guns, the director, the production designer and the art director and their roles and responsibilities.
The main character, Charlie must navigate through it even while feeling motionless and scared. He tells his story to the reader from his perspective. The reader sees life from exactly the way he sees the events and understands those events through a teenage boy’s eyes. The crisis is introduced when the town outcast Jasper Jones asked Charlie, a bookish young nobody of a boy for help. The reader sees Charlie’s internal conflicts of wanting to go with Jasper, feeling terrified, excited yet so wanting to be accepted by him Charlie does in fact sneak out in the middle of the night with his new friend. Jasper takes Charlie to the scene of the crime where Jasper’s girlfriend is hanging from a tree. The manner that Silvey describes Charlie’s reaction to the hanged girls is true to human nature, “I’m screaming, but they are muffled screams. I can’t breathe in. I feel like I’m underwater. Deaf and drowning.” This description foreshadows the solution to hide the body and Jasper and Charlie throw Laura Wishart into the lake. Unknown to either is Laura Wishart’s sister, Eliza. She witnessed the suicide of her sister and wrote the word “sorry” on the stump of the tree before she leaves. Charlie and Jasper find this word, assume that the killer wrote it there, and immediately jump to the
Hollywood cinema is primarily subjected to telling stories. The inclination of Hollywood narratives comes not just from good chronicles but from good story telling. The following essay will discuss Hollywood’s commercial aesthetic as applied to storytelling, expand on the characteristics of the “principles of classical film narration” and evaluate alternative modes of narration and other deviations from the classical mode.
Whenever books are adapted for film, changes inevitably have to be made. The medium of film offers several advantages and disadvantages over the book: it is not as adept at exploring the inner workings of people - it cannot explore their minds so easily; however, the added visual and audio capabilities of film open whole new areas of the imagination which, in the hands of a competent writer-director, can more than compensate.
Utilizing powerful foreshadowing, Connell emphasizes a feeling of uneasiness and suspicion within the reader. During the hunt, General Zaroff is on the trail of the unknowing
The first half of this course focused on Alfred Hitchcock and how his techniques are now recognized as iconic. From class discussions and film screenings, it is clear that Hitchcock pays every attention to detail when he crafts a scene. Many Hitchcock films we have seen this semester highlight how he builds suspense through cinematic elements such as shadow, dialogue, and composition. While many of his suspenseful scenes stir feelings of intensity and uncertainty, Alfred Hitchcock builds a more romantic suspense in his 1955 film To Catch a Thief in the fireworks scene (1:06:35-1:11:00).
The Alfred Hitchcock film; Vertigo is a narrative film that is a perfect example of a Hollywood Classical Film. I will be examining the following characteristics of the film Vertigo: 1)individual characters who act as casual agents, the main characters in Vertigo, 2)desire to reach to goals, 3)conflicts, 4)appointments, 5)deadlines, 6)James Stewart’s focus shifts and 7)Kim Novak’s characters drives the action in the film. Most of the film is viewed in the 3rd person, except for the reaction shots (point of view shot) which are seen through the eyes of the main character.(1st person) The film has a strong closure and uses continuity editing(180 degree rule). The stylistic (technical) film form of Vertigo makes the film much more
Understanding movies comes from describing and analyzing the cinematic, theatrical, and literary elements that combine to create meaning. These steps create a basic understanding of the artistic and technical elements found in moviemaking. In addition, the major characteristics of different film genres and classic movies will be analyzed. The purpose of this paper is analyzing the Academy Award winning film Chicago. This paper will describe the six steps that a person should think about when watching a movie. These steps include, (1) analysis of the narrative: story, plot and meaning; (2) theatrical elements, (3) cinematography, (4) editing, (5) sound and the (6) complete package.
In Vertigo, Hitchcock begins with building credibility and composure in Scottie’s character. The film starts off with a chasing scene in
Today, there are a lot of movies shot in the spy genre. The special effects amaze with its inimitability and with each film are becoming brighter and more exciting. In this paper I want to analyze one of the most impressive and most of the first films about spies "Casino Royale" filmed by Martin Campbell and compare it with the eponymous book written by Ian Fleming, which soon served as the plot for the film. In such way it will be seen how the spy genre have been changed for decades. “Casino Royale” is one of the first Fleming’s novels and it was released with the absence of big success in 1953.