3. Alfred Hitchcock

The Master of Suspense. Usually regarded as the best director in history. Well to me at least. It's quite a tragedy that even though that
may be, he never once won an Academy Award to call his own. His story is actually quite entertaining, shown with several adaptations illustrating his life. While on the set of a movie in the thirties the director of the movie Always Tell Your Wife, which was in production in 1922, had walked out and couldn't finish the production, so one of the producers looked at Hitchcock and asked if he would like to take over. His legacy started then and there.

In mainstream media he is known simply as the man who directed the famous movie Psycho, but Hitchcock was so much more. By creating Psycho he proved horror movies could be made by highly regarded auteurs of cinema, and with every movie he made he tried to push the bar with something new and exciting. With his movie Rope, he announced that it was filmed all in one take. Now in this day and age we know better, a roll of 35mm film wouldn't have been long enough and if one watches the movie over carefully, you should be able to see the cuts. Regardless, watch the movie. It's fantastic.

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the many first directors I was introduced to as a child. The first movie I viewed of his was indeed Psycho. Exemplary in its editing and pacing the movie still stands on it's own merit of being a genius piece of art. As was many of his films. It gave me a sense of tension and anxiety I hadn't felt with many movies before. It was new for me, it was exciting! Watching the movie years later my feelings never change about it.

He was known for his mastery of suspense and with that title I was always intrigued in viewing his catalog and I was simply astonished when I started delving into the thematically rich stories he told. One of my favorite techniques he's used is the "shadow on the wall" to create suspense in Suspicion. While it might seem a cliche now, I imagine it was a more effective technique back then.

Alfred Hitchcock seemed to have the mentality of not giving the audience the relief of suspense until the very last moment. I always find new elements of his films that he used to further add to his stories and just when I think I have something of his I'll discover something new. There is always something new to appreciate of him which I always try to integrate into my own work occasionally. He was a true source of inspiration for many directors such as Steven Spielberg in Jaws and I am no exception.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents:

-Always Tell Your Wife (1923)

-The Pleasure Garden (1925)

-The Mountain Eagle (1926)

-The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)

-Downhill (1927)

-Easy Virtue (1928)

-The Ring (1927)

-The Farmer's Wife (1928)

-Champagne (1928)

-The Manxman (1929)

-Blackmail (1929)

-Juno and the Paycock (1930)

-Murder! (1930)

-The Skin Game (1931)

-Rich and Strange (1931)

-Number Seventeen (1932)

-Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

-The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

-The 39 Steps (1935)

-Secret Agent (1936)

-Sabotage (1936)

-Young and Innocent (1937)

-The Lady Vanishes (1938)

-Jamaica Inn (1939)

-Rebecca (1940)

-Foreign Correspondent (1940)

-Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

-Suspicion (1941)

-Saboteur (1942)

-Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

-Lifeboat (1944)

-Spellbound (1945)

-Notorious (1946)

-The Paradine Case (1947)

-Rope (1948)

-Under Capricorn (1949)

-Stage Fright (1950)

-Strangers on a Train (1951)

-I Confess (1953)

-Dial M for Murder (1954)

-Rear Window (1954)

-To Catch a Thief (1955)

-The Trouble with Harry (1955)

-The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

-The Wrong Man (1956)

-Vertigo (1958)

-North by Northwest (1959)

-Psycho (1960)

-The Birds (1963)

-Marnie (1964)

-Torn Curtain (1966)

-Topaz (1969)

-Frenzy (1972)

-Family Plot (1976)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm#director