North By North West

North By North West

         For research into the thriller genre I watched the film North by North West. This film is about a New York advertising executive who is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive. This film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Ernest Lehman. The stars of this film were Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason.

         

         The first thing that I done about this film was that I decided to watch and analyse the trailer. I decided that the trailer works well as it excites the audience who would want to go up and see this film. For example it does this by showing some of the parts of the movie which would keep the audience on the edge of their seat, for example the clip of when that Cary Grant is attempting to save Eva Marie Saint from falling to her death off the top of mount Rushmore. Another example of why that this trailer is effective is because it tells the audience that "It is a deadly game of tag... and Cary Grant is it" which sort of tells the audience what the story is about and because of the fact that the narrator tells a part of the story would want to make the audience want to go and see the film. Moreover another reason that why the trailer is effective is because that it tells the audience "Every staggering sight and sound is real" which would want to make the audience to go and see the film because of these sights and sounds.

                                     

                                                   North by North West trailer:

             

         

         It is said that "Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing frequent action". This film is a perfect example of this as it constantly keeps the audience on the edge of their seat, and also for its time this film is a perfect example of a Thriller. 

         This can be seen many times through this film for example the scene where Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) has been sent to meet up with the alleged Mr George Kaplan as it first of all starts off with Cary Grant travelling to a bus stop alone. First of all the suspense is built up by Hitchcock as he makes two cars drive past Cary Grant making the audience think that Kaplan is in one of them. Then a third car turns up delivering a man, who Cary Grant walks to and ask the man a few questions, and then the man reveals that he is just waiting for the bus and leaves.

                                     sidewalk scene north by northwest:

        

         Straight after this scene there is one of the most iconic scenes in filming history, the crop duster scene where Cary Grant is attacked by a crop duster with guns on it, this is a good example of  this film being a thriller as this is a scene that constantly keeps the audience on the edge of their seat. This is used as the plane keeps swooping down attempting to shoot him and then eventually the plane crashes into a petrol tank and explodes. In this scene Hitchcock believed the stress on the visual makes cinema accessible in different languages meaning that no matter who you are or where you are from you would be able to understand what is happening with this movie at this point in time.

                                               Crop dusting scene:

                                 

         “resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains.” this is true as the baddie played as James Mason tends to be better equipped with weapons and people such as his bodyguards.

              

         This film uses all different devices such as suspense, cliff hangers (quite literally in this film) and red herrings. Suspense is used in this film as half the time you do not know what is going to happen next for example in the film there are scenes such as the auction scene where you do not know what is going to happen to Cary Grant, are the bad guys going to take him and kill him or are the police going to save him? A Cliff hanger is used at the end of this film where Cary \grant saves Eva Marie Saint from falling down mount Rushmore. The Red Herring of the film is Eva Marie Saint who you don't expect to be a good person at the end as it seems she is working for the villain of this movie (James Mason).

          “A thriller is a villain driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles the hero must overcome.” This is true as in this film the villain and his henchmen are always trying to get to Cary Grant and always try to kill him, the villains always get chances to kill him but however they never prevail and the protagonist survives throughout the whole film.

         The MacGuffin  is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". Or in simpler terms something that some people in the movie (in this case the spies) care about but the audience does not. The MacGuffin is something that tends to be something important to the movie but the audience do not care, they tend to be something that you do not even notice in this movie until the end when you find out what they actually are.  Hitchcock defined a MacGuffin as the object around which the plot revolves, but, as to what that object specifically is, he declared, "the audience don't care".

       

         Hitchcock said thrillers allow the audience, "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like” Hitchcock succeeded in doing this in this movie as throughout the whole film there are moments of what it would be like if that thing happened to you but as the audience know that it is not real then they would enjoy this movie as they wouldn't actually have to put their life on the line like the people of this movie.

Hitchcock discusses North By Northwest.

           

North by Northwest Movie Poster