Alfred Hitchcock

"The Master of Suspense" many have called him. Albert Hitchcock manages to captivate and move audiences everywhere with his films, pulling them in with his creative style. From watching three of his films in class I've noticed a couple patterns of his individual style as a director.

The first theme I've noticed that he managed to maintain throughout all three films was the consistency of the first person view. He was able to make the audience feel as though they were in the shoes of the main character. This stuck out most to me in Rear Window. We are literally put in the position of L. B. Jefferies (played by James Stewart), looking out quite nosily through his neighbors windows and straight into their private lives while being confined to a single room.

Another theme I've noticed was during The Thirty-nine Steps, we had the pleasure of following around Richard Hannay (played by Robert Donat) and his very close encounters with his pursuers. Hitchcock is found of putting his heroes into situations where they are wrongly accused of some sort of crime. Richard Hannay is the last person to be around a woman the night of her death and is wanted not only by the law but a group of spies trying to keep the secrets that were supposed to lie rest with the woman's death.

The last theme I've noticed is how Hitchcock has made films based around searching for the truth, making stories thickly whipped with mystery. A great example would be with Vertigo, where our main man John "Scottie" Ferguson (played by James Stewart) was supposed to be investigating the odd behavior of his friends wife, when suddenly he is whisked into a deep mystery shrouded by a mysteriously timed death.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

One of Miyazaki's older productions from 1984, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind holds with it a strong imagination and an uplifting story. From what I've seen from this & previous Miyazaki films, his creative choice in the simplistic settings along side with the complex and well thought out monsters makes this film almost awe inspiring.

The film begins in a peaceful and humble valley village surround by desert. The time is when man struggles to survive in a world slowly being over taken by the "Sea of decay" a poisonous force created by nature to cure the earth of the filth left behind by the wars of humanity. After an unexpected plane crash, the valley of the wind is invaded by a larger and stronger country. In the midst of the fighting over the fate of the world, Nausicaä discovers the one thing that can calm the fighting is passive resistance.

This movie has superb, even though it's in older animation it can still be appreciated. Using this movie as a model, you can look at his more recent films and notice how his style hasn't changed only the animation is assisted more with computers than before. From the other movies I've seen produced from him, this one is very creative in it's characters, settings, and landscape. You could tell he put serious effort in making this story unique from any other. What I mean by this is there are few items we can look at and identify and even those are obscured, such as the planes, guns, fungus, and airplanes. A classic, without question.