North By Northwest Film Analysis
North by Northwest Hitchcock's Shining Moment
To the average viewer, each of Hitchcock's films are individually suspenseful, nerve-wrecking, and enticing. The 20th century director managed this by having a formulated and scientific approach to creating his movies. In North by Northwest, these elements all come together to create the epitome of Hitchcock.
A popular and reoccurring theme in Hitchcock's movies is the case of "the wrong man," or mistaken identity and being wrongfully accused of a crime. In North by Northwest, this is the driving element of the plot. Roger Thornhill, played by the 1960's dreamboat Carry Grant, is brought into a dark and confusing world of crime when he is mistaken for George Kaplin and kidnapped. This slip-up ends up with him framed for drunk driving, and Thornhill is driven to prove himself innocent. His motivation eventually shifts from explaining a silly legal matter to exposing a map of government spies and betrayals (it is notable that this film takes place and was shot during the Cold War). Unfortunately, Thornhill must skip town after again being framed this time for a murder of a U.N. ambassador and start his way on a 3000 mile race from …show more content…
New York to George Washington's giant stone face on Mt. Rushmore.
Another Hitch trademark of the film is what the director dubbed "the MacGuffin." The MacGuffin is an item that means nothing to the audience, but is the obsession or contributor to motivation for the characters in the film.
The MacGuffin is merely a plot device a means to create elaborate and suspenseful story. North by Northwest has several MacGuffins, each complicating and furthering the plot. The identity of George Kaplin becomes the initial MacGuffin, as it unites the main character with his antagonists and motivates him to follow them. Another MacGuffin is revealed later in the movie, once Thorndale becomes an honorary government agent; he must find a statue containing microfilm with government secrets on it before the villains can smuggle it out of the
states. Another Hitchcock signature in this film is his misogyny. It seems that Hitch likes to see women be tortured in his films from Psycho's infamous shower murder to Rebecca's wife-killing. Hitchcock often shows a treachery with women, best defined in North by Northwest. Thornhill's love interest, Eve Kendell, is a woman of much deception. She is originally introduced as a nice lady on a train helping Thornhill dodge from the cops. It is then revealed that she is actually the girl friend of Vandamm, the villain of the film, and is seemingly helping him track down Thornhill. But the two men are double-crossed again when it is exposed that she really is an agent for the U.S. government, helping to spy on Vandamm while also hiding Kaplan's identity from Thornhill.
Music is undoubtedly a great necessity for any successful suspense film, and Hitchcock's scores the archetype for this. Hitchcock experimented with another method of manipulating soundtrack complete silence. In the airplane scene in North by Northwest, no music plays. All the viewer can here is the sound of the plane's engine as it swoops down like a falcon after Thornhill. This silence creates an unmatched tension as all focus goes onto the fight between man and machine.
Hitchcock also is interested in exaiming and often perverting mother-son relationships, but in North by Northwest, he shows it's all in good heart. Much like in Psycho, Thornhill is a mama's boy. But unlike the twisted nature of Norman Bates, Thornhill's is all in good fun serving to show his dependency in a comic light. Hitchcock's obsession with displaying mothers as deified to often mentally twisted individuals goes along with his misogyny, glorifying the position of a womb and care-giver while at the same time corrupting it.
North by Northwest is Hitchcock's most successful and accessible film, due to the perfection of his suspense film science, and its effectiveness in manipulating the audience into staying on the edge of their seats. It epitomizes his career and genius as a director.
To the average viewer, each of Hitchcock's films are individually suspenseful, nerve-wrecking, and enticing. The 20th century director managed this by having a formulated and scientific approach to creating his movies. In North by Northwest, these elements all come together to create the epitome of Hitchcock.
A popular and reoccurring theme in Hitchcock's movies is the case of "the wrong man," or mistaken identity and being wrongfully accused of a crime. In North by Northwest, this is the driving element of the plot. Roger Thornhill, played by the 1960's dreamboat Carry Grant, is brought into a dark and confusing world of crime when he is mistaken for George Kaplin and kidnapped. This slip-up ends up with him framed for drunk driving, and Thornhill is driven to prove himself innocent. His motivation eventually shifts from explaining a silly legal matter to exposing a map of government spies and betrayals (it is notable that this film takes place and was shot during the Cold War). Unfortunately, Thornhill must skip town after again being framed this time for a murder of a U.N. ambassador and start his way on a 3000 mile race from …show more content…
New York to George Washington's giant stone face on Mt. Rushmore.
Another Hitch trademark of the film is what the director dubbed "the MacGuffin." The MacGuffin is an item that means nothing to the audience, but is the obsession or contributor to motivation for the characters in the film.
The MacGuffin is merely a plot device a means to create elaborate and suspenseful story. North by Northwest has several MacGuffins, each complicating and furthering the plot. The identity of George Kaplin becomes the initial MacGuffin, as it unites the main character with his antagonists and motivates him to follow them. Another MacGuffin is revealed later in the movie, once Thorndale becomes an honorary government agent; he must find a statue containing microfilm with government secrets on it before the villains can smuggle it out of the
states. Another Hitchcock signature in this film is his misogyny. It seems that Hitch likes to see women be tortured in his films from Psycho's infamous shower murder to Rebecca's wife-killing. Hitchcock often shows a treachery with women, best defined in North by Northwest. Thornhill's love interest, Eve Kendell, is a woman of much deception. She is originally introduced as a nice lady on a train helping Thornhill dodge from the cops. It is then revealed that she is actually the girl friend of Vandamm, the villain of the film, and is seemingly helping him track down Thornhill. But the two men are double-crossed again when it is exposed that she really is an agent for the U.S. government, helping to spy on Vandamm while also hiding Kaplan's identity from Thornhill.
Music is undoubtedly a great necessity for any successful suspense film, and Hitchcock's scores the archetype for this. Hitchcock experimented with another method of manipulating soundtrack complete silence. In the airplane scene in North by Northwest, no music plays. All the viewer can here is the sound of the plane's engine as it swoops down like a falcon after Thornhill. This silence creates an unmatched tension as all focus goes onto the fight between man and machine.
Hitchcock also is interested in exaiming and often perverting mother-son relationships, but in North by Northwest, he shows it's all in good heart. Much like in Psycho, Thornhill is a mama's boy. But unlike the twisted nature of Norman Bates, Thornhill's is all in good fun serving to show his dependency in a comic light. Hitchcock's obsession with displaying mothers as deified to often mentally twisted individuals goes along with his misogyny, glorifying the position of a womb and care-giver while at the same time corrupting it.
North by Northwest is Hitchcock's most successful and accessible film, due to the perfection of his suspense film science, and its effectiveness in manipulating the audience into staying on the edge of their seats. It epitomizes his career and genius as a director.