Alfred Hitchcock- The definitive auteur?

The auteur theory suggests the capacity for a director to place their own personal stamp on their work. Discuss this concept in relation to at least two films from one director.

The auteur theory is a concept in film that has been studied endlessly since its origins in France in the late 1950’s. While it has been a key point in determining the credibility of great film makers for over fifty years, its definition is still abstract at best. Although the theory is applied directly to film, its premise could be used alongside virtually any art form. For instance, like Picasso and Van-Gogh had tell-tale characteristics that immediately identified their work as their own, so too do film directors like Tim Burton, Quentin Tarrantino, and Alfred Hitchcock. In 1962, American film critic Andrew Sarris attempted to simplify the auteur theory, stating that a great director with an established body of work will have distinct traits in their films, covering areas including their understanding and application of the technical elements, a distinct and identifiable personality within their films, and the interior meaning of the films [cited in Mast, G Marshall, C Braudy, L 1992 p.585-558]. With these points in mind, it is hard to not be in complete agreement with the fact that Alfred Hitchcock is one director who embodies the auteur theory.  Known worldwide as The Master of Suspense, this title alone gives Hitchcock credibility to be considered the definitive auteur; however his methods of delivering suspense are merely the tip of the iceberg in regards to his distinguishable style.  Having had his films studied and analysed by critics, film students, and movie-goers for half a century, it has become apparent that Hitchcock has an endless list of recurring themes, motifs, and character qualities. While the list of similarities may seem endless, this essay will focus on a just a few aspects that Hitchcock revisited on numerous occasions.

Throughout his years as a film maker, Hitchcock shocked the world with his unique talent at building and delivering suspense, giving enough information to make the audience anxious, yet keeping an equal amount of information hidden. In Psycho (1960), the audience knew of every viscous murder, however Norman Bates’ secret was left in the dark until the final act. In Vertigo (1958), the staging of Madeline’s suicide was revealed far earlier to the audience than when Scottie discovered the truth, creating a state of un-ease for the audience as they waited for Scottie to eventually uncover Judy’s secret. In an interview with Oriana Fallaci, Hitchcock explained his method of creating suspense by way of example- he suggested that if her tape recorder were to be rigged with a bomb, unbeknownst to both themselves and the hypothetical audience, the shock and horror after the explosion would be short lived. Had the audience known of the bomb, however, they would be anxious, restless, and feel uneasy waiting for it to be discovered [as cited in Gottlieb, 2003, p. 61]. It is this fashion of choosing which information to divulge to the audience, whilst keeping the characters in the dark, that is a Hitchcock signature- We knew in Psycho that Marion Crane was dead as soon as she hit the bathroom floor, but Detective Arbogast and her sister Lila were on a hunt to find her alive. We knew that Madeline and Judy was in fact the same person as soon as Scottie left Judy’s apartment for the first time, but he was clueless for quite some time after their first encounter.

In the same way that Hitchcock rationed information to the audience to generate suspense, he employed a similar method in the structure and treatment of his female leads. Speaking with Arthur Knight in 1973, he described how he preferred to take a more indirect approach to presenting female beauty and sexuality on-screen. Hitchcock told Knight

I've never wanted to have the obvious blonde, the one who has her sex hanging around her neck like jewellery, the big-bosomed girl. Neither the Marilyn Monroe type nor the Jean Harlow type was for me, because the statement was there too openly- look, sexy blonde! You’ve said it right away. I prefer to have the audience discover it. One shouldn't know at first whether she’s sexy or not. She probably looks cool maybe frigid [as cited in Gottlieb, 2003, p. 176].

Fifty years later, there is more variety in the qualities and personalities of actresses, but in that point in time however, it was no wonder The French saw a uniqueness in Hitchcock, as he essentially helped in pioneering a dominant model for women on screen. While Hitchcock was developing his own female archetype, the typical female lead in Hollywood still followed suit of the stereotype of the helpless and often ditzy woman, who served a purpose akin to aesthetically appealing stage props. His treatment of Kim Novak in Vertigo as a manipulator of James Stewart, and Janet Leigh’s defiance in Psycho, broke the mold of the typical female characterisation- juxtaposed with female characters of other films of the time, this approach to shaping the personalities of women onscreen could easily be argued as a Hitchcock signature.

It wasn't just the intellectual and emotional qualities of his actresses that began to form a pattern though- the appearance of these women bear striking similarities, which in essence casts the physical presence of the actresses under the motif umbrella. Just as James Stewart tried to recreate the image of a woman he had lost in Vertigo, Hitchcock began a pattern in his career of creating what was later to be dubbed “the Hitchcock Blonde”. According to Vertigo’s screenwriter, Samuel Taylor,

He did try to make over women into the actresses he liked to work with. He would have liked to have worked all his life with Grace Kelly. And actresses that he used were in his mind like that [Kirby, 1999].

This desire to control the appearance of his female leads may have merely been a part of Hitchcock’s dominance and wish to control every aspect of his films, or as Taylor suggests, it may have been a desire to resurrect and recreate a previous working relationship- regardless of the motivation behind these actions, the result is just another notch in the belt of familiarity and recurrences in his films.

While the treatment and presentation of his female leads holds some merit in interior meaning, the majority of Hitchcock’s portrayal of these women was evident on a surface level, which is perhaps why the Hitchcock blonde is bought up so often when he is discussed as an auteur. His use of staircases in his films on the other hand, while appearing almost as frequently as his token blonde, carry meaning on a deeper level. In The Penguin dictionary of symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant state that

The stairway is the symbol of the acquisition of learning and of the ascent of knowledge and transfiguration (p. 923)

It is with this very definition that Hitchcock’s tools for building and delivering suspense can be seen; When Detective Arbogast was climbing the stairs to Mrs Bates’ bedroom in Psycho, it was his sudden demise that awaited him at the top; and not too long after his death was Lila’s descent down the staircase into the cellar, which triggered the climatic plot twist and defeat of Norman Bates. Only two years earlier in Vertigo, the stairwell in the Mission San Juan Bautista bell tower was the setting for the pivotal moment of Madeline’s apparent suicide, Scottie’s triumph over his acrophobia in the third act, and of course the famous “vertigo zoom”, where the camera physically moves forward whilst the zoom is pulled wider, creating a disorienting feeling for the viewer.

To the masses who subscribe to the Freudian theories, Hitchcock’s use of the stairwell could be analysed alongside sexual overtones. In a study of Hitchcock’s recurring themes and motifs, writer Michael Walker applies these ideas in relation to Scottie’s inability to triumph over his acrophobia in the stairwell, drawing a parallel between this act and a suggestion of his sexual incompetence with Madeline- all the while the incident took place under Gavin Elster’s preconceived plan, painting him as the puppet master manipulating Scottie [Walker, 2005, p. 367].

With all of these recurring themes and motifs taken into consideration, along with the endless list of other thematic and visual motifs in Hitchcock films, it can still never be solidified that Alfred Hitchcock is the definitive auteur- or even an auteur at all- as the definition itself is built on vague grounds, even after Sarris’ simplification of the theory. What is undeniably conclusive however, is that Hitchcock was famed for his methods of building and delivering suspense- and whether he did it using stairs, intelligent and independent blonde women, or through the rationing of information, you can be sure that each method would occur in more than just one film.

Reference & bibliography

Hitchcock, A (Director) Coleman, H (producer) (1958) Vertigo [Film]. United States of America: Paramount Pictures.

Hitchcock, A (Director/producer) (1960). Psycho [Film] United States of America: Paramount Pictures. 

Walker, M. (2005). Hitchcock's Motifs. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. 

Gottliebb, S. (Ed.). (2003). Alfred Hitchcock Interviews. Mississippi, United States of America: University Press of Mississippi. 

Mast, Gerald, Marshall Cohen, Leo Braudy (Eds.). (1992) “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”. Film Theory and Criticism. 4th Edition. Oxford University Press, New York.

Kirby, T. (Director/producer) (2006). Reputations: Alfred Hitchcock [Television documentary] Great Britain: BBC.

Gheerbrant, A Chevalier, J (1996). The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. London, Great Britain: Penguin, London.