Alfred Hitchcock and Allan Poe are two of the most celebrated writers of all times. Their books and movies have received immense praise throughout the centuries. Those in the industry of movie production and directorship, who are trying to give an understanding to the audience of the different cultures that have been adopted by the Americans, can get great inspiration from Hitchcock and Poe. Their different approaches to the happening of the world around them, yet so similar in very many ways, have seen them put in lots of hard work in the investigation of the diverse emotional and behavior representations that usually shape different characters seen in most of their movies.
There has always been a vast and complex relationship between cinema and art, their relationship being most problematic, at best (Sloan 32). However, during the last decade or so, it has become clear that the innate relationship between cinema and the visual arts is paramount for the creation of good-quality movies and literary works. Fear, dread, shock, as well as suspense, are the basic foundations on which most of Allan Poe’s stories and films are created. In the same light, most of the films, essays, and other writings are done by Hitchcock are based on the creation of suspense, mystery, and surprise. There are certain commonalities between the artistic and symbolic representations of both writers/directors, especially in their representation of the madness and paranoia that exists in the world when people are placed in isolation and the reality of the nature of human beings in their reactions towards culture and society (Sloan 37). Though most audiences and movie critics would consider Hitchcock’s character and plot development techniques in the creation of Vertigo and Rear Window as being influenced by therapeutic cultures or a revision of the Victorian character, it is clear that his characterization and plot development is strongly influenced by Poe’s techniques of suspense creation, indicating that his film making techniques are both borrowed and original.
In the words of world-renowned writer James Somebody, there is a big difference between the creation of mystery and suspense. Though most people cannot directly define suspense, they are well aware of its presence when they see it on film. Divergent from popular belief, the Hitchcockian methodology of creating suspense and mystery bears no relationship to fear. Rather, it is the creation of a state of mind in which the audience is always waiting for something to happen. Vital to this is the seamless differentiation that exists between the creation of suspense and surprise (Perry 224). Put simply in the words of the great director, Hitchcock, if there is a scene with two characters conversing in a café, and a car explosion suddenly goes off from a nearby street, then the audience experiences surprise as this was not expected. Conversely, if the audience were, beforehand, let in on the saboteur placing the car bomb inside the car, is told that the bomb will go off at exactly twelve o’clock, sees the car being parked near the café, and can see the clock as it ticks away, then the mundane conversation between the two characters in the scene becomes of intense suspense, with the audience holding its collective breath, waiting for the explosion. In this case, there is the creation of about ten to fifteen minutes of suspenseful drama, as opposed to only two seconds of surprise. In this regard, it is, therefore, necessary for Hitchcock to fully inform his audience of some impending catastrophe, imminently gluing them to the screen for the final break.
On this basis, the Hitchcockian thriller has been defined as a story in which the proposed audience is always waiting for something momentous to happen. The job of the protagonist is to avert the explosion of the speeding bus or the ship from sinking (Perry 228). As this happens, the audience goes through a vicarious thrill of identifying with the protagonist as well as the danger that is faced, becoming part of the chase and part of the adventure.
In Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, a rational first-person narrator is used to inform the audience of some impending catastrophe, explaining the strange visual effects of the house and its three characters (Perry 234). From the beginning, it is clear that something about the house is wrong, from its dark and supernaturally evil ambiance to its occupants who seem to be concealing some deep, dark secret. It is clear that there is some dark, common fear that is driving the occupants of the house insane. The use of the narrator here serves to identify with the audience as a man with common sense, critical to the very thoughts of the superstitious Usher. However, he himself realizes the very powers driving these people insane and tries to escape the reality of this phenomenon by ignorantly focusing on some other aspect of the story. As the story goes on, it is clear that something momentous is going to happen, the fear of the unknown being used to drive this growing suspense (Sloan 35).
Vertigo, one of Hitchcock’s most personal films, is a mysterious text of delirium, obsession, and perversion, incorporating the director’s interest in Poe’s representation of suspense as well as the fictional anecdotes of the uncanny. It is a film that transcends the director’s suspense genre, becoming reconfigured into a mysterious tale of the fantastic. The film is hugely indebted to Poe’s use of mystery, fear, themes, and setting in helping the director in on the impending unraveling of some momentous incident (Millington, 139).
Ironically, most people think that re-reading a story or watching a movie again- while remembering its plot, frightening effect, suspense, and fascination- would kill the effect that the first reading had, making the second reading stale and unexciting from the reluctance of surrendering to it again. However, suspense can never grow stale as every time, its mastery is marveled and admired with brilliance, and the audience always discovers something new from each encounter. The mystery of influence that Poe has had on Hitchcock, and other directors and writers, cannot be refuted. Both geniuses of their own time, each craftily uses fear, narration, theme, and background information in the creation of suspense, winding the audience into such a tight knot that they cannot wait for the ‘incident’ to happen.
Works cited
Millington, Richard H. “Hitchcock and American Character: The Comedy of Self-Construction in North by Northwest.” In Hitchcock’s America, ed. Jonathan Freedman and Richard Millington, 135–54. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Perry, Dennis R. “Hitchcock and Poe: the legacy of delight and terror”. New York, NY: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Sloan, Jane E. “Alfred Hitchcock: a filmography and bibliography”. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.