Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock: Master Of Suspense

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” – Alfred Hitchcock.Suspense is a technique used by film directors to bring excitement to both short and feature films; leaving the audience feeling helpless yet engaged. Alfred Hitchcock, a world-renowned English director, has long been considered the ‘Master of Suspense’(Unknown, n.d.). Hitchcock spent most of his 60-year career refining suspense techniques within his films. Narrative elements such as audience knowledge, secluded location, isolated character and fake scare, are also supported by technical codes and conventions such as camera shots, lighting, camera movement and pace of editing. Hitchcock believed the real terror is the suspense leading to the climax, not the

The film begins with a parallel editing sequence, which cuts between the main character (Nicolas Leoni) running from the camera and splashing in a pool clearly in distress. The film then fades out to the same character lounging beside the pool in the sun. While relaxing and drinking alcohol, the main character spots a dark figure watching him from the fields beside the house. With no real understanding of whether he is hallucinating or not he retreats inside the house; where he proceeds to the bathroom and washes his face. While standing there, he begins to stare into the mirror blankly. This stillness is broken by a very quick cut of him smiling towards the mirror, giving us the impression that the character is mentally unstable. As he continues to stare into the mirror, we are given a very quick cut of a hand grabbing a salient item, scissors. This opening sequence sets up the use of the film technique ‘audience knowledge’. Audience knowledge occurs when the audience is given more information than the characters within a