Why I love Alfred Hitchcock

Unless you've had you're head up your ass for your entire life, you've heard the name Alfred Hitchcock. You may not know who he is, but I'm sure you've heard the name. For those of you that spend too much time paying attention to uselessness such as The Situation and any other blob of vomit that might be on MTV, Alfred Hitchcock, more or less, invented the thriller. Some might even say his movies spawned many modern day horror films. If it wasn't for Hitch we wouldn't have MANY iconic films that so many have grown to love over the years.



I have to mention a few of the reasons why Hitch is the man. Most of the movies that are my favorites are his big "hits". The one's most have heard of such as Psycho (above), Rear Window (left), The Birds and Vertigo (below). He's done so much greatness over the years it's hard to narrow his work down to a few but these are his masterpieces. Many artist only have one masterpiece. Hitch, in my opinion, has at least 4.


Hitch did his thing and he did it very well. Many filmmakers over the years have tried to duplicate his style from M. Night Shyamalan to Ivan Reitman to Wes Craven. His influence is everywhere. He was a trendsetter and a ground breaker who loved the challenges of film making. Take his film, "Rope", which appears to be one, long continuous shot the ENTIRE movie but is actually a very small number of takes ranging from 4 &1/2 to 10 minutes each. In today's CGI-filled, high excitement, adventure type of film making this is unheard of.  Hitch was also the first filmmaker to do the Dolly zoom, where you move the camera physically backwards while zooming in with the lens. It's a classic shot done in Vertigo and many consider the "Vertigo effect". This shot is EVERYWHERE and is still overused to this day. It's rarely done properly but Hitch did it first and with significant meaning. He was also the first director to feature a brassiere on film as well as hearing a toilet flush on screen. Things we laugh at today but were heavily censored in Hitch's day.


Hitchcock was also famous for his small, brief cameos in many of his films. A thing many self indulgent filmmakers still do to this day, some even try acting. An interesting way of doing a "cameo".

Hitch was known for his extensive preproduction process that detailed every single thing he would need to make the film come to life according to his vision. Most of the time he didn't even look in the camera to see what was shot. It was so well planned out he didn't need to. His rumored dislike of actors is also well known but he has cast some of the great actors and actresses ever and gotten many career best performances out of them, such as James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Tippi Hedren. He was nominated for 6 Oscars but never won. Rebecca received an award for Best Picture however the Producer received the award not Hitchcock.


If you haven't seen a Hitchcock film, do so. You won't be disappointed. He style of pacing, suspense building and the ability to cause fear without any type of gore is legendary and duplicated by no one.