Hitchcock and Spielberg: A Tale of Two Directors

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Alfred Hitchcock was a master of suspense, timing and irony. Spielberg is a master story teller with an eye for the dramatic and an understanding of cinematography. Hitchcock mastered image while Spielberg mastered scene. Hitchcock worked out perfect timing while Spielberg created lyrical transitions. Hitchcock investigated the underside of man while Spielberg looked inside. These two directors show equal talent separated mostly by time, technology and genre.

Alfred Hitchcock stuck mostly to one genre: suspense or horror, often called thrillers, because that is what they do to the audience. Over the many years of his career, Alfred Hitchcock carried on a dialogue with his audience about human nature, crime and justice. No other director has ever been so intimately connected with his or her audience. Hitchcock always appeared in his films, if not as director or story teller, as a cameo somewhere in the film. Timing was everything. Hitchcock never had to show up close blood and gore in any real manner. He was a master of suggestion. In Psycho, we never actually see the bloody body of the victim in the shower. We only see the knife come through the shower curtain and blood run down the drain. He often showed the results of violence, but seldom actually showed it in progress. He just staged extremely disturbing suggestive tableaus (Ken Mogg, 2008). Spielberg had much more technology at his disposal, so special effects were how he conveyed the very same type of information. In Jurassic park, we never actually see up close blood and gore either, but we are somewhat distracted by the huge animals and we see things like the rear half of the jeep after Rex munches on the fat guy.

One wonders what special effects Hitchcock might have used if he had them. He was always pushing the envelope. He used electronic sounds tracks in The Birds and the screeching strings in Psycho was totally new to film. He also used classical music to set the mood as did Spielberg. Jaws was probably the closest thing to Hitchcock that Spielberg ever did. He gave the shark a signature in the sound track that warned the audience and set up what Hitchcock called that anticipation which was better than the actual act. One particular scene in Jaws reminds us of Hitchcock by its subtlety. At the beginning when the first victim is killed, we never see anything. We only hear her as she is eaten by the shark, and the musical sound track is morose but powerful. It is a chilling scene.

Often Alfred Hitchcock tackled very difficult settings, such as The Lifeboat, which was shot entirely inside a small boat or Rear Window which shows only what the actor, Carey Grant, could see from his window. He used inventive camera techniques, even inventing a spinning zoom that is named after him. Both these directors could tell a story and involve the audience with subtle cues. One memorable scene in The Birds was simply some birds sitting on a wire, looking knowingly at the camera with rather evil looks. Spielberg shows us the gradual loss of control as the main character of Close Encounters of the Third Kind builds the replica of the mountain in his living room. Spielberg achieve one of his most memorable moments in the “feel-good” ET as we watch the silhouette of the ET and the boy on the bicycle against the full moon and the music grow to heroic proportions.

Conclusion

While these two directors were widely separated in time and by technology and genres they chose to explore, that had in common a vision which enabled them to tell the story with much fewer words, because they used visual and sound effects to lead the audience to the proper or desired conclusions. I wonder what it would be like if they could have collaborated. Hitchcock created masterful tableaus that communicated as instantly as a slap and as deeply as a poem. Spielberg created powerful panoramas of action, sound and visual effects that took use soaring into the worlds he created. It seems that all of Alfred Hitchcock’s films were rather dark while most of Steven Spielberg’s are uplifting. So I guess if the made ET together the little guy would grow sharp teeth and eat the family before he left.

References

IMDb on line, 2008, Spielberg, Steven, Filmography.
Mogg, Ken, 2008, Alfred Hitchcock – Master of Paradox, b. 1899, London, England
d. 1980, Los Angeles, USA.
ImDb on line, 2008, Hitchcock, Alfred, Media of Hitchcock. Web.

Click Here To Order Now!

Hitchcock and Spielberg: A Tale of Two Directors

Do you need this or any other assignment done for you from scratch?

We have qualified writers to help you.

We assure you a quality paper that is 100% free from plagiarism and AI.

You can choose either format of your choice ( Apa, Mla, Havard, Chicago, or any other)