North By Northwest Analysis

North by Northwest Analysis

Plot of the story:

North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, when an innocent New York advertising executive is pursued across the United States by a group of foreign spies of a mysterious organization who want to stop his interference in their plans to smuggle out a microfilm containing government secrets.

 

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writer:

Ernest Lehman

Stars:

Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason

Poster:

The advertising poster of North by Northwest and the trailer will appeal to the audience as it features key scenes in the movie without revealing the outcome (e.g. when Eva Marie Saint shoots Cary Grant), the name of a famous director and a star actor is presented and the action sequences entice the audience to see what will happen to the intrepid heroes next.

Hitchcock Trivia:

- In all his films Hitchcock planned every scene visually in advance. Before he began shooting, he learned the entire dialogue for that scene and rarely needs to look at a script. Hitchcock described it as ‘a conductor conducting an orchestra without a score.’

- When directing, Hitchcock never looked at the camera – he always imagined he was looking at a cinema screen.

- Mt Rushmore is a symbol of order – Hitchcock throws in disorder.

- Hitchcock said that audiences often need relief from suspense in a thriller film – a change of pace so to speak just to build up the suspense once again, possibly a laugh.

- Hitchcock stressed the visual importance of a film in a cinema. He preffered the subjective viewpoint. One of his characteristic trademarks is a close up on a face then what the character is looking at then a close up again as the character reacts to what has been seen, it almost transfers the emotions of the characters onto the audience. Hitchcock said he wants to transfer the menace that appears on screen into the mind of the audience.

 

In what ways was North by North West an archetypical thriller?

Thrillers are often characterised as fast paced and contain frequent action. This is shown in North By Northwest in …

Additionally, techniques such as suspence, ‘red-herrings’ and cliffangers are used within the genre. This is illustrated by …

A thriller is often described as a ‘villain driven plot’ which interprets into the villain is the root of the obsticles that the hero has to overcome. This is shown in North By Northwest due to the fact that the spies unwittingly throw an innocent man into a spy war in which he has to somehow escape from.

A McGuffin is a plot component that drives the plot of the story. The purpose of a McGuffin is that the characters in the story are willing to sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the McGuffin actually is (in this case, a microfilm containing government secrets). In fact, the specific nature of the McGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. Often, by the end of the film, the McGuffin is often forgotten. It declines in importance as the movie progresses. Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, or it may simply be something entirely unexplained. It may come back into play at the climax of the story, but sometimes the McGuffin is actually forgotten by the end of the film.

Hitchcock has described the aspect of watching a thriller to be “putting their toe in the water of fear to see what it’s like.” This means that he allows the audience to experience the thrills and drama and adventure of experiences that they will undoubtedly never experience for themselves. Hitchcock has succeeded this in this film because