Alfred Hitchcock at the BFI

From August to October this summer, The British Film Institute in London presented a major celebration by showing a complete Hitchcock retrospective featuring all his movies. For me it was the first time i recall sitting down and taking a full interest in, and i'm proud to say, my first ever Hitchcock film, BFI enhanced colour and added sound to his movies for the modern audience to watch. He was one of the greatest and well known director auteurs ever, and really shocked the world with his noun title 'The Master of Suspense'.

Hitchcock's masterpieces has been forever one of the most talked about pieces of work across the globe. Alfred's phenomenal amount of great work still remains as relevant as ever, with his 1958 psychological horror, Vertigo this year it actually replaced Citizen Kane as the best film of all time and reached top spot in sight and sounds greatest films poll.

Watching a Hitchcock movie on a cinema screen is a rare occasion and for my mum to get as excited as she did when i told her i booked 2 tickets, means it had to be good. And it was, I was blown away. I'd never seen Vertigo, not many people had seen it in a proper cinema like today's quality, and even fewer have seen it in colour. I want to talk about the film and the relationship between Hitchcock and Vertigo,  and how he was so critically acclaimed all over the globe.

In the theatre at BFI, we had a very proud speaker who came in, introduced himself and gave a quick briefing on the film before it started without giving too much away. He was delighted to announce he was apart of this celebration and i took down a couple of notes from the discussion the audience had with him.

Vertigo, one of the most well known of Alfred's films, was always known as one of Hitchcock's more personal films. He has a strong link with the film and his personal life, particularly with the perfect woman. How she had to be the perfect blonde, dark eyes, a well dressed classy lady. Alfred had an obsession with that woman and the story not ending well. Dave Thompson criticises Hitchcock because he had too many fears and only portrayed these in his movies and not in real life. He was known for this and is even quoted to saying 'I make films to get rid of myself and my fears'. Maybe 60/70 years ago people say things a little differently but i feel i can relate to my own art and to my expressions. It's not necessarily a problem solver but if expressing art, and art direction is a form of overcoming fears then surely that is only healthy?

Hitchcock needed to be loved, and the perfect woman matched the description of Kim Novak, who went on to play the part of Madeleine. Jimmy Stewart, a famous actor at the time played the main character, Jon 'Scottie' Ferguson, was a tall good looking guy, but his character in person meant that he fitted the bill of Scottie perfectly, a gentleman that was slightly awkward. He made Madeleine look  naive in the film when everybody else could see how uncomfortable she felt but she was completely oblivious and almost made me feel i was going insane just by watching his actions. This is where i really discovered how Hitchcock compiled the music, camera shots, art direction and acting that everybody was talking about before the film had started. It was quite ironic how Kim was playing along side the character who had this great obsession, which matched her ambition and obsession of making it in Hollywood, which she eventually went on to do so successfully.

There were comparison between Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy said he was playing the part of Jon, rather than Hitchcock being possessed by the narrative. And that Jimmy was echoing Hitchcock's fears of vertigo. This late romantic can be seen in performances, within performances. With Madeleine acting around Jon, then falling for him but still having to act and pretend she doesn't know him. But then trying to be herself whilst Jon can't be himself and acts as another person. If Vertigo is a personal film to Hitchcock, it makes you wonder what do all these borderline personality means?

I was extremely overwhelmed and impressed with the DOP. Absolutely blown away by the quality of the filming. Cameras those days didn't have zoom lenses so the camera moved towards the subjects
bit of animation and graphics at the beginning and at points during the movie. However i did find out that the dolly zoom was popularised after this film, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation to convoys Scottie's acrophobia. Since then, the new name given to this effect is now called the 'Vertigo' effect.