When you go to see a Hitchcock film, you’d know it was one of his, because his way of filmmaking is one of the most memorable. His films were mostly psychological thrillers that were combined with mystery, suspense and sometimes romance such as Psycho and Vertigo. If you were to see a Spielberg movie you would recognise them because he usually makes fantasy or science fiction films like E.T. and Jaws and special effect movies like Minority Report.
In the ending of Psycho you see Marion’s sister, one of the characters in the dark basement and as soon as she turns on the light you hear running footsteps and the slashing knife music. The woman screams and you see Norman dressed as his mother. Then Hitchcock cuts to the dead mother, this kept audiences on the edge of their seats because Hitchcock made the scene quick by cutting to different shots. This was hard for audiences to take in; this made the ending of the movie shocking and suspenseful.
In the last scenes of Vertigo, Scottie one of the main characters drags Madeline up the tower stairs while eerie music plays in the background, then Scottie starts to unravel the murder mystery of Elster’s wife, Scottie then starts to forgives Madeline, they then start to kiss, Madeline then sees a dark figure Hitchcock then cuts to Scottie then to the figure again, then you hear a scream, that Madeline had thrown herself off the tower, the dark figure then comes into focus which turns out to be a nun, Scottie leans over the tower to see the dead body of Madeline. This shocked and horrified audiences, as they weren’t expecting Madeline to kill herself after she had started to kiss and make up with Scottie.
Audiences know the films are going to be spine tingling because Hitchcock uses lighting where you cant see characters faces, for example in Vertigo Madeline sees a dark figure where Hitchcock had used back lighting, this created mystery and fear to what the figure was.
Hitchcock does create genre and narrative through his films, because audiences were scared and jumped out of their seats, every time something shocking had occurred and when audiences were home alone the got scared at any creek or bang they would hear were his films played on their minds, also his films would make headlines because they were so intriguing and were he did things that none of the other filmmakers had ever done before, like the naked lady in the shower and when the detective was falling down the stairs in Psycho.
