Alfred Hitchcock and His Contribution to World Cinematography

Alfred Hitchcock and his Contribution to World Cinematography

Master of suspense, lunatic, wry director, genius these are the names that he was named and all these names refer to Alfred Hitchcock. He was one of the most popular and recognizable directors of the past century, and the person that managed to gain respect among different kinds of viewers. Alfred Hitchcock is widely considered to be cult British filmmaker, the master of suspense, who discovered new techniques in filming and whose contribution to world cinematography is valuable.

Films made by Alfred Hitchcock are widely considered as cult because of their plots and themes. It is significant that ideas for his films Alfred Hitchcock took from his own childhood, personal problems and phobias. Future director was growing up as a lonely and abandoned child with almost no friends, because of his weight issues and complicated character. Furthermore, Alfred Hitchcock used to suffer from conflicts with his father and lack of support from his mother. Even later in his films idea of being harshly treated is dominant. Alfred Hitchcock has great fear of police because once his father constrained him to go to the police and ask for punishment for spilled milk. Six-year old Alfred spent in police almost seven hours, and because of this the idea of being wrongly accused is present in some of his works. Lonely childhood and presence of different complexes resulted in gloomy and tense ideas for Hitchcock's films.

Alfred Hitchcock was called "the master of suspense" because he gave new life to this term as a cinematographic method. Being a director he preferred to use suspense rather than surprise, what made all his fifty films widely known and popular. In surprise director assaults viewer with frightening things, when in suspense he tells or shows things to the audience that the characters in the film do not know and then artfully builds tension around what will happen when the characters finally learn the truth. Actually, the word "information" is equal to Hitchcock's understanding of suspense. His films were made for audience and especially to make viewer interested, entertained and athirst for more. With the help of actor's manner, gestures and deeds Hitchcock gave to the audience feeling of being involved into character's inner world, and then suspense was more effective and shown better.

It is well-known fact that Alfred Hitchcock created such term and cinematographic method as MacGuffin and that he used it widely in his films in order to create suspense. Great numbers of his films revolve around this device - a detail which drives the plot and motivates the actions of characters within the story, but whose specific identity and nature is unimportant to the viewer of the film. One of the elements that distinguish MacGuffin is that it is not quite important what actually detail is, anything that