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The crime thriller Strangers On A Train directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951 was one amongst dozens of suspenseful films produced in his career. Famously nicknamed the ‘Master of Suspense’, Hitchcock used memorable personalities, clever plot twists, and a vast collection of film techniques to create an entertaining but equally intense experience even for audiences today. With a large portfolio of noteworthy films including Rear Window, 1954, Vertigo, 1958, Psycho, 1960, and The Birds, 1963, Hitchcock’s style of film directing and producing has been one famously recognised and appreciated.

 

Born in London, England, near the end of the 19th century, Alfred Hitchcock was raised a strict catholic and had a “lonely and sheltered” childhood. As punishment for behaving badly, Hitchcock described that his parents would force him to stand still for hours or to ask the police to lock him up for ten minutes and that these harsh treatments were reflected in some of his films. Hitchcock was a talented artist and started working as an advertisement designer and article author. His works were inspired by themes involving false accusations, conflicted emotions and twist endings. However, within a few years, he began working for a film industry designing title cards for silent films and eventually was given the job of an assistant director. He moved to Hollywood with his family in 1939, and was able to direct more than 50 feature films in his entire career and cameo in a few of them too. “I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.”

 

With Hitchcock’s particular style of filmmaking, there was lots of confusion and debate over whether his genre was mystery or suspense or if both meant the same thing. In response to these arguments, Hitchcock said in an interview: “You see, mystery is an intellectual process like in a whodunit, but suspense is essentially an emotional process.” This means that for a mystery film, you must be missing the information and have to think things through while watching and discovering new things. However, with a suspense film, you are being given the information but the film is attempting to create an emotion in the audience instead of giving you separate pieces of information at a time. Though he has experience in creating a film in the mystery genre, Hitchcock said in an interview that in a mystery, “you’re about a third of the way through the film before you realise what its all about.  And to me, that’s completely wasted footage because there’s no emotion to it.”

 

Hitchcock’s use of lighting and shadows in Strangers On A Train is very meaningful and cleverly masked. To add to the character development and understanding of Bruno and Guy, Hitchcock uses light very early on in the film, to help demonstrate the characters of Guy and Bruno. The window of the train compartment in the first scene, casts lines of shadows onto Bruno’s face, similar to those of jail cell bars. Because of this, we can infer early on that Bruno’s character isn’t to be trusted and that Guy is the “good guy” in the film. We see, as the film progresses, that this is true of each character. With the juxtaposition of good and evil between Guy and Bruno being such a dominant element of the plot, it makes sense that lighting would be used to help the audience see this contrast in a visual way. In the scene where Guy is going into Bruno’s fathers house, darkness and shadows are used to create a feeling of unawareness and unease of what is a potential threat in the house.

 

Besides being a master when it comes to directing the lighting and darkness in his films, Hitchcock was also extremely talented in using diegetic sound. Using the sound in the world of the narrative, Hitchcock touches on the technique of misdirection and deception. For example, when Bruno is following Miriam in the Tunnel of Love, we see that Bruno is getting quite close to Miriam and then we hear a loud piercing scream. This is then followed by a short silence and then the continuation of Miriam’s laughter. This technique of tricking the audience as if it was Bruno that caused Miriam’s scream adds to the intensity and puts the audience on edge. In the same scene, there is faint background score of carnival music and laughter from a distance. This gives the scene a mysterious and dark atmosphere because of its inappropriateness. Our expectations of a murder scene usually involve a soundtrack of a scary, low-pitched theme, not cheery carnival music and because of this violation of our expectations; it creates a more disturbing feeling.

 

Unlike other films he has made, in Strangers On A Train, Hitchcock uses non-diegetic sounds as well as diegetic sound to heighten the intensity and dangerous atmosphere of a scene. For example, when Guy is going into Bruno’s father’s house, the audience hears elongated high-pitched notes that assist in stretching out the tension and suspense. Once Guy has reached the room where supposedly Bruno’s father should be, the sound has reduced to an extremely sustained high-pitched string note and suddenly stops when the light is switched on. The very high frequency of the note creates an unsettled and disturbing mood but the tension is released once the light is switched on and we see Bruno in the room. Another use of non-diegetic sound employed in the film is when Guy is desperately trying to finish his tennis sets to reach Bruno before he frames Guy. When the shot shows Guy hurriedly playing his tennis matches, the music is quick and bouncy, however when we see Bruno reaching down the drain for the cigarette lighter, the music is low-pitched, slower and sustained. This use of music helps to build up the excitement and tension for the audience.

 

One of the most admired techniques Hitchcock was famous for was his incredible talent of using different shots and angles to enhance the environment of the film. For example, a high angle from a street lamp or a telegraph pole is used multiple times when observing Bruno alone. This could symbolise a security camera watching Bruno and his movements as if he were a criminal and was being tailed by a cop. Because of this, the audience is given the sense that Bruno has some criminal qualities and is up to no good when we see an angle like this. One of the most notable ones in Strangers On A Train was the shot of watching Miriam’s strangling through her fallen eyeglasses on the ground. This shot was cleverly used to complement the concealment and secrecy of the story plot and it gives the audience the sense of having no control over what is happening - almost as if the glasses’ lens is a wall separating the audience from the scene.

 

In conclusion, the use of lighting and shadowing, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, and a varied palette of shots and angles assist in the creation of a suspenseful and intense sensation for audiences of many ages. Hitchcock’s works continue to be appreciated and enjoyed even today, which says a lot about his skills in filmmaking.

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