The way that Bruno dresses also makes us think evil about him, and the film director dresses Bruno like this on purpose because he wants us to think evil about him. For example Bruno is shown to be a flashy dresser throughout the film, and this makes people think that he has a selfish nasty personality. When Bruno gets out of a taxi at the start of the film we get a good look at his shoes that are black and white and look expensive. These are not the kind of shoes nice people wear so we get a picture of him being evil. Later in the film we get a look at his dressing gown which looks like it is made of expensive silk with a designer pattern on it. Just like the shoes normal people don’t wear this kind of thing so we are made to think of Bruno as evil through the use of Hitchcock’s cinematic techniques.
From the start of the film Bruno is an unknown normal person, and Hitchcock slowly changes our view of him through the film until we finally think of him as being evil. The technique Hitchcock uses here is to slowly build this picture bit by bit throughout the film. This makes us feel that Bruno is more evil because it gradually looks this way, and that makes it more sinister. One way that Hitchcock builds this change in the way we see Bruno as being evil is to make him appear from behind other people when he comes on screen. This makes us think that he has something to hide, and we think that this is because he has an evil side to him. This feeling that he has an evil side is made real because Bruno exchanges his murder ideas with Guy early on in the film, and this gets worse as the film progresses.
Bruno has a hatred for his father, and this is again built up throughout the film. By building up this side to Bruno throughout the film Hitchcock uses another cinematic technique. If we were told straight away that he hated his father we wouldn’t have a feeling of building up the suspense. Because the suspense is built up over a period of time there is more of an effect on our senses and that makes Bruno look more evil. An example in the film of how Bruno’s hatred for his father is built up is when he looks at the painting in his house and laughs in a horrible evil way. When he stops laughing he says to his mother ‘look mother it’s father’. The painting is a twisted picture of a person with hands painted on top of his head. Hitchcock makes us think that Bruno thinks about his father in this way, and this makes us think that Bruno is evil. This is good use of symbolism by Hitchcock.
Bruno was always aware of what could happen to him if he was caught, and this is another example of how the film director wanted us to think that Bruno was evil. Even though he knew what could happen to him he still murdered Guy Haine’s wife Miriam. The fact that he knew what could happen is shown when Bruno goes to a formal dinner party held by Guy. Bruno questions a judge about his job and asks him if he ever felt guilty when he sentenced someone to the death penalty.
At this party he also questions two old ladies about murder, especially how they would commit murder. He also asks them if they would ever commit a murder and why they would ever do it. When the two old ladies answer his questions Bruno explains how he would murder someone. Bruno says he would strangle someone to murder them, and he begins to strangle one of the old women to show how he would do it. When strangling the old lady to show how he would do it Hitchcock makes Bruno see an image of Miriam Haines in the distance. When he sees this image Bruno tries harder to strangle the old lady. This use of imagery makes Bruno appear very evil to the viewer as it is associated with a criminal act – murder and it is another example of a cinematic technique to help create the evil character of Bruno.
Another technique used by Hitchcock is deception. Bruno uses deception throughout the film to try and appear to be something he is not. This makes us think more evil about Bruno because we feel that we can’t trust him. For example Hitchcock uses deception at the fairground when Miriam travels through the tunnel of love with two other men. Hitchcock uses deception to make it look like Miriam is being murdered in the tunnel by the shadow effect created by the two men moving about.
Hitchcock’s use of cinematic techniques creates the evil character of Bruno in a very good way. There are lots of examples of disguise and deception that create a feeling of no trust, camera angles are hard not soft which emphasise the dark side of Bruno’s nature and music is varied to emphasise the different types of characters in the film, in Bruno’s case the music is sinister and moody.