Alfred Hitchcock Lifeboat Essay Questions

1. The film I chose from the list of Alfred Hitchcock films is titled “Lifeboat” and it was released on January 11th, 1944. They’re quite a few principle characters in this film, such as a women named Constance Porter who is a journalist and was filming the battle between a Allied ship and a U-boat. Another character is a man named John Kovac who is black gang oiler, then their is CJ Rittenhouse Jr. a wealthy man, also their is a man named Gus Schmidt who changed his last name to Smith due to the shame he has for his name, Gus’ leg was greatly damaged during the battle. their is also Alice MacKenzie who is a nurse and tried to treat Gus’ leg also on the boat is Joe Spencer who’s is a black man and Willi who is a German who survived the sinking of the German U-boat.
2.
The conflict of the film is the survivors of the battle between an Allied ship and a U-boat try to survive on a make shift lifeboat and get along long enough to make it to Bermuda or find a ship that belongs to the Allied. An example of this is the survivors having to rationalize the food and water long enough to last until they are found or make it to Bermuda.

3. The cause of the conflict was caused by the battle between an Allied ship and a U-boat both of which sank one another and caused several people from the ships to be stranded in the middle of the ocean and forced to coexist on a lifeboat together long enough to be saved. The conflict began at the beginning of the film due to the battle between the ships started around the beginning credits.

4. Most of the characters in the film are protagonist and in the sense that they are willing to do whatever it takes to survive such as rationalize their food and water amongst each including the antagonist Willi the German
Nazi.

5. The characteristics that are used to make the antagonist, Willi, the German Nazi is that he is sneaky and hides things from the rest of the lifeboat survivors, an example of this is Willi concealing a compass from everyone and leading the boat to a German ship also hiding a flask filled with water from the rest of the crew he also hid the fact that he could speak English the whole time not just German as he had implied to Constance at the beginning of the film.

6. The Climax of the story happens when Gus catches Willi drinking water from his hidden flask and Willi pushes Gus overboard causing him to drown, once the others notice that Gus is gone they question Willi and discover the flask and throw him overboard in anger.

7. A couple things I would change in the film to in my opinion make it better would be to showcase the actual battle between the ships at the beginning of the film and show the survivors on the ship and tell more their relationships to each other. I would also take out some of the characters they included that I believe served no real purpose aside from probably some shock value such as the British girl and her drowning baby.

8. One of the important differences between this film and current films is simplicity of the plot its going from point A to point B not taking multiple sometimes confusing twists a’la Inception. Another difference is the how African Americans were treated then and now in the film Lifeboat the only black person is Joe Spencer and it is implied that he use to be a thief and at the beginning of them film when he first appears in the water saving the the British girl and her baby the people already on the lifeboat refer to him as charcoal in current films I don’t believe a guy who is basically a hero is talked down like that in modern day films