How does Hitchock's use of cinematic techniques help create the evil character of Bruno in the film 'Srangers Train'?

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ENGLISH GCSE COURSEWORK MAY 2002

ANDREW HINDE 10C

HOW DOES HITCHOCK’S USE OF CINEMATIC TECHNIQUES HELP CREATE THE EVIL CHARACTER OF BRUNO IN THE FILM ‘STRANGERS ON A TRAIN’?

Bruno, when first seen in ‘Strangers on a Train’ behaves as if he is a normal person, however, as the film progresses his character changes and at the end of the film he is seen as if he were a mental patient who has been ‘let loose’ without any control.

Throughout the film the camera angles are cleverly used to make him appear as evil.  This clever technique is made possible by the camera angle being used to concentrate on hard sharp images, which gives the person watching the film a feeling of evil.  If the film director wanted to give a feeling of a character being warm and approachable he would have used softer camera angles that would have made people watching the film like him.

Another technique used by Hitchcock to make Bruno look evil is the use of music.  Different types of music make film watchers see people in different ways.  For example happy characters usually have ‘jolly’ music play when they are on the screen, and evil characters have ‘dark moody’ music play which makes people think evil about them.

In this film Hitchcock uses camera angles and music to help create the evil character of Bruno both as techniques on their own and also at the same time.  For example at the end of the film in the fighting scene Hitchcock uses ‘hard’ camera angles and moody music to make the people watching the film think evil about Bruno.  For me this is done very well and makes me think evil about Bruno.

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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 ...

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