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British director Alfred Hitchcock is a famous film artist in the world's film history, and he is also recognized as a "suspense master" all over the world.
Hitchcock produced more than fifty films in his directorial career, spanning the era of silent and sound films. As soon as he arrived in Hollywood, his first film "Butterfly Dream" made him a blockbuster and became famous, winning the 13th Oscar for Best Picture and Best Cinematography for Black and White Films.
In the following two decades, Hitchcock successively shot "Reaper of Souls", "Rear Window", "Vertigo", "Psycho" and other classic works.
Today, the four words "Hitchcock" are not just a name, but a synonym for his unique style: " MacGuffin ", suspense settings , blondes, framed people, voyeur shots, etc.
One day, a producer named Michael Balcon asked Hitchcock if he would like to direct a movie himself? So Hitchcock adapted a novel by Santis and made his debut "Pleasure Garden". Strictly speaking, "Happy Garden" is not an excellent movie, and the story is very bizarre and childish.
But through this shooting experience, Hitchcock learned a lot of shooting techniques and skills in Germany, and launched the first true "Hitchcock-style film" two years later.
That's "The Tenant "
One night, a tenant checked into a house rented out by the landlady. The tenant looked suspicious in terms of clothing and behavior. The landlady thus suspects that the tenant is a terrifying serial killer.
There was a killer called "The Avengers", who haunted every Tuesday night to kill blondes. The landlady has a daughter, Daisy, whose boyfriend is a policeman. With the arrival of the tenant, the three fall into a love triangle.
As we all know, Hitchcock likes to set time bomb-like "suspense" in his films, by creating suspense to keep the audience's attention and promote the development of the plot .
At this time, the suspense of "whether the tenant is a killer" has been buried.
In The Tenant, Hitchcock employs a two-line narrative of murder and love, where the two lines intertwine and advance each other.
The cops go to Daisy's house every day and get close by giving gifts. But he was very rude, often playing a kind of "handcuff game" with Daisy, and occasionally hurting Daisy. In contrast, the tenant, despite his erratic behavior, is polite and suave and will buy Daisy the clothes she wants. The two were like two extremes of the scale, and Daisy was also slowly pouring towards the tenant.
When the love between Daisy and the tenant began to germinate, the "Avengers" became more and more violent, and the citizens became more and more panic. In order to ensure the safety of her daughter, the landlady resolutely did not allow the two to be together.
The jealous policeman also began to search the tenant's room. He found a gun in the tenant's luggage and a map full of "Avengers" activities.
The previous "time bomb" finally exploded, but then Hitchcock made another reversal .
The tenant explained that the first victim was his sister, and for revenge, he was also investigating the murderer.
Faced with this explanation, the police did not believe it, and handcuffed the tenant to take him back to the police station. But Daisy, who fell in love, believed the tenant and helped him escape.
The two fled to the bar, where the handcuffs on the tenant's hands were recognized by those around them. The pent-up anger in the crowd erupted, and the tenant became the target of all the criticism. The sheriff was then notified that the real "Avengers" had been captured.
Here, the final mystery is really revealed
The Tenant is a romance in a thriller shell, and it's also quite grudging in many of its plots.
But on closer inspection, the film already has a prototype of the future Hitchcock style in some respects.
Hitchcock considered silent film to be the purest form of film , and in "Conversations between Hitchcock and Truffaut", he once said frankly: " When writing a film script, it is essential to distinguish between dialogue and Truffaut. The visual component, whenever possible, is more about visuals than dialogue . Whatever the final choice for plot development, consideration must be given to what will most certainly hold the audience to watch the film. "
Hitchcock has always been good at leading the emotions of the audience
As a silent film, The Tenant's greatest strength lies in rendering the atmosphere of suspense. The lack of auditory experience makes the audience pay more attention to the movie screen.
The most shocking lens in the whole film is a glass lens.
After the tenant was settled in the room, he began to pace and wander, moving back and forth so that the chandeliers flickered with them. The audience follows the perspective of the landlady, staring at the dangling lights on the ceiling. Suddenly the ceiling became transparent, as if to see the fear and anxiety of the tenants.
Freud also said in "Pansexualism", "Voyeurism can satisfy everyone's inner needs". Hitchcock also believed that voyeurism is the instinct of everyone's psychology, which can be used to strip human nature.
To shoot this shot, Hitchcock really installed a very thick glass floor. Such scenes rarely appear in his later works, but the use of light and shadow effects to express the psychological activities of characters has become an indispensable "Hitchcock factor".
There is also such a scene in "The Tenant": the landlady, who witnessed the tenant going out late at night, sits on the bed, the light from the outside shines on the landlady's face, and the shadow of the window is also projected on the wall. The distorted shadows of the windows project the anxieties and fears of the characters.
The setting of the character image of "Tenant" also follows Hitchcock's favorite " framed person ". But unlike other films, in "The Tenant," Hitchcock deliberately brought the tenant's image closer to the killer.
Even if the audience is in God's perspective, they don't know that the tenant is innocent from the start. The purpose of this is to increase the horror of the film without the sound.
In order to achieve effect, Hitchcock specially arranged the appearance of the tenant fifteen minutes later. Even the live music became a bit harsh when the tenant showed up at the landlord's door.
Emerging from the fog in a coat, covering her cheeks with a scarf, unable to look directly at a portrait of a blonde, and sneaking out in the middle of the night...
Even if these behaviors are put into the current life, people will feel very suspicious.
Jumping out of the screen, in fact, when writing the script, the setting of the tenant is the murderer. However, due to the "star system" at that time, the negative image will have a negative impact on the image of the star. "The Tenant" actor Ivor Novello was a British drama star at the time. In order not to destroy his image, Hitchcock specially changed the ending of the script.
As mentioned earlier, Hitchcock used the shooting techniques and techniques he learned in Germany in The Tenant. But beyond that, Hitchcock was exposed to German Expressionism .
German Expressionism originated in Germany in the 1920s and was first used to express the panic and fear brought to Germany by the First World War . Focus on opposing realism and naturalism, emphasizing the importance of catharsis . Representative works include "Dr. Caligari's Cabin", "Metropolis"
Later, it was incorporated into many films in the 1920s and 1930s , enhancing the atmosphere and artistic conception of the film through the control of lighting and scenery.
It was also from The Tenant that Hitchcock slowly began to build his own unique style and audio-visual language.
With its unique visual effects, "Greek Cinema" will not be buried in the sand waves of film history. To this day, it is still an important inspiration for many filmmakers.
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