Hardly being the first choice to title this film, director Alfred Hitchcock and writer Ernest Lehman (who would go on to script West Side Story and The Sound of Music) went through several title changes during planning, some being known as The Man in Lincoln’s Nose, Breathless, and In a Northwesterly Direction… Without a truly satisfactory title for the film, the title stayed North by Northwest. The idea came from a state of writer's block the pair had for creating a film titled, The Wreck of the Mary Deare for MGM, they decided to completely scrap that idea and start a new one, revolving around the conventional plot device-mistaken identity. North by Northwest takes you on a thrilling mainstream 2 hour adventure through the story of Roger Thornhill, a businessman working in advertising. Shortly into the film, he gets mistaken for a CIA agent named George Kaplan, kidnapped and almost killed by an enemy agent named Phillip Vandamm. Thornhill is forced on a cross-country chase from Vandamm and his henchmen, along the way meeting the blonde lover, running from a crop duster, and sliding down Mount Rushmore to find Kaplan and prove his innocence. In an interview, Hitchcock says, “I’ve also gone with the average man, the ordinary individual going through extraordinary experiences… The movie I made, like - North by NorthWest. Carry Grant, he’s an ordinary businessman, gets mistaken for a spy and goes through the most bizarre experiences, but enables the audience to relate more closely to the individual.” Known as the master of suspense, Hitchcock takes seemingly normal and reasonable scenarios, adding outrageous ideas, to elevate the suspense. Including his iconic camera zooms, deliberated soundtrack and delicate elements throughout the film to allow the audience to relate to the average man [Thornhill] despite the erratic events. At times you forget the initial plot of the film, you get so tied down to what’s happening as every scene becomes a fleeting moment into the next ambiguous moment. Screenwriter, Ernest Lehamn said in an interview with…. “One day, Hitch said to me, ‘I’ve always wanted to do a scene in the middle of nowhere—where there’s absolutely nothing. You’re out in the open, and there’s nothing all around you. The camera can turn around 360 degrees, and there’s nothing there but this one man standing all alone—because the villains, who are out to kill him, have lured him out to this lonely spot.’ Then Hitch continued, ‘Suddenly, a tornado comes along and…’ ‘But Hitch,’ I interrupted, ‘how do the villains create a tornado?’ and he had no idea. So I wondered, ‘What if a plane comes out of the sky?’ And he liked it immediately, and he said, ‘Yes, it’s a crop duster. We can plant some crops nearby.’ So we planted a fake cornfield in Bakersfield and did the scene that way. And, like you said, it became a very famous sequence. As a matter of fact, that’s how I knew that Cary Grant had died. Every channel on TV was showing that shot of Cary running away from the plane. It’s strange, isn’t it, that such a distinguished career should be remembered mostly for that one shot?” During the scene Hitchcock uses 4 shots to box the character in with an invisible wall to enhance the fact that Thornhill won't be able to escape the crop duster. The plan for this scene in particular was thoroughly storyboarded and planned out. As stated from the video, the narrator describes that the point of the scene is to confuse the audience members on where the threat is coming from. In order to do so, Hitchock uses various points of view shots to allow the audience to step into his shoes. It appears normal when the crop duster immediately appears in the far background because the setting is a field. With layers of multiple cars passing, the random man- every moment thinking that this may be the enemy agents-it concludes to a more humorous edge. The suspense slowly builds as the audience waits. Fellow filmmaker Francois Truffat noted, “ Hitchcock went against the traditional editing style… Instead of increasing the tempo of the shots during the action, Hitchcock uses pretty much equal shot duration for everything at this point in the scene.” Through a major Hollywood studio, such as MGM, Hitchcock expanded his creation from actual locations like; Mount Rushmore, pre-planted corn field, to studio built replicas. North by Northwest was designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible while encompassing all the best elements of Hitchcock’s cinematic ideas, transforming an adventurous, thrilling but unpredictably humorous script into an overall enjoyable movie. Sources: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/north-by-northwest-quite-possibly-the-most-entertaining-hitchcock-ever/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrcYekU9GVw https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rushmore-north-northwest/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lltazliRp58 Lone Star [1996]Independent films are often designed to make the viewer think about certain subjects/ issues. Usually featuring challenging storylines that are more realistic and less escapist than in studio films. Independent films are produced through small production companies and funded either through private investors or art agencies. The genre and style vary much more within independent films. In John Sayle’s case, Castle Rock entertainment (a company in Los Angeles, California), financed and produced his film, Lone Star, in 1996. In an interview with Megan Ratner, Sayles explained, “They automatically sell to a cable company for a couple of million, so that limits their risk. They'll decide how to distribute it depending on who they're affiliated with. Basically, you can't fart in this country without working for Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner. I've worked with them both but never met either of them.” Basically, the film process whether independent or mainstream is paid through different ways but ultimately either process allows the artist to create they’re art- within a budget of course. Sayles was given a $4.5 million budget while Hitchcock had a $4.3 million budget on his film, North by Northwest, produced by MGM Studios. Lone Star is set in a small Texas border town in Frontera. The film is shaped around two characters and the rivalry/secrets hidden in the town. Charlie Wade (the bullying, violent, racist sheriff, who seemed to have problems with everyone) and Buddy Deeds (his successor). Sam Deeds (protagonist) is the son of Buddy Deeds returns back to Frontera where he reconnects with an old lover and is set to investigate a 30 year old murder when a human skull, police badge, and masonic ring are found in the Texan desert. Through the complex layers of character interaction the viewer learns that Buddy Deeds (described as "a cool breeze") had supposedly driven Charlie Wade out one night in 1957 and managed to ...or did he? In Lone Star, Sayles approach is entirely in service to the narrative and character development with subplots on racism, national pride, censorship, generation gaps, politics, social revisionism. Known for his use of complex layers of story development centered around topics considered taboo for mainstream media, Sayles established the web of characters through a memory-esque recollective sequence of what really happened the night Charlie Wade vanished, forty years ago. Instead of flashy or whimsical transitions and editing, Sayles purpose was character driven. In an interview with Megan Ratner, he says,“I used theatrical transitions so that there would be this feeling [that] there wasn't a big seam between the past and the present. Orson Welles did things like that every once in a while. Basically, you get a background for your tight shot from 1996, you pan away, and when you pan back to where the guy telling the story was, it's somebody completely different, and it's 1957. There's not a cut or a dissolve. I wanted to reinforce the feeling that what's going on now is totally connected to the past. It's almost not like a memory - you don't hear the harp playing. It's there.” Lone Star is most known for the realistic use of sequence shots in which scenes can change within a single shot. The following scene is shown shifting in back and forth through time in the same location which is a much more subtle directing style for a crime thriller. These simple cuts and editing decisions allow there more room for Sayles to use narrative and character development to introduce the many complex subplots as well as keeping the story on track. In Where to begin with John Sayles, Matthew Thrift writes, “Sayles’ narratives are often sprawlingly intricate, featuring large casts of characters populated from a recurring stock company of actors. The extensive research that goes into every one of his films results in a keenly understood sense of place and a focus on working people, often marginalised or oppressed – usually by the inherent violence of capitalism – across multiple strata of a given community.” The biggest difference that I have concluded from research of directors like Sayles versus Hitchcock regarding the mainstream and independent production of media is that there is a more of a focus with realistic human qualities of deep set social injustices that many people can relate to but is not represented in Hollywood style films, as talked about in the following video. Sources:
https://filmmakermagazine.com/archives/issues/summer1996/sayles.php#.WZsen-mQyUk https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-john-sayles
9 Comments
Haya Fahim
4/4/2021 07:51:04 am
I enjoyed reading your blog as it is explained very well. Hitchcock does a great job of camera movement and editing throughout the film. I thought the plane scene was very interesting and intense as we didn't know what was going to happen to Roger. Lone Star was edited perfectly and we see that in the transitioning scenes of the past and present. There is not a cut or dissolve, it is a smooth transition.
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Gino Mate
4/4/2021 10:49:57 am
Hey Eve! I completely agree with you. The scene in North By Northwest involving the crop duster scene could of been so simple, but the directors elevated it so much. From running into a drain ditch, dodging and weaving the crop duster, hiding in crops, to even attempting to flag down vehicles. The scene only involved a crop duster, Roger Thornhill, and a open field that led to nowhere. Yet, somehow, they made the scene one of the most interesting and dramatic scenes out of the entire film.
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Ngoc Ngo
4/4/2021 07:57:16 pm
your blog is amazing. you explained everything in such detail. i really like the behind the scene story you provided. it was a good read. thank you
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Danielle Kay
4/4/2021 08:02:32 pm
You perfectly described these films and the cinematic art form that they have. I agree with you that at certain parts within the film North by Northwest, the plot was forgotten because of how the scenes led to one another. I also think that there is a more realistic aspect that allow the audience to relate.
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Simra Ahmed
4/4/2021 09:05:10 pm
I agree how the certain camera angles adds movement and suspense and that’s how I got into this movie.
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Aidan Geoffroy
4/4/2021 09:20:32 pm
I really enjoyed reading your blog for the week. I liked how you mentioned that small fact about North By Northwest's title and how they changed it many times before using this one because I had no idea. I also liked reading when you mentioned Sayles approach to developing character development through subplots because there were a lot of different subplots in Lone Star.
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Brian
4/5/2021 08:30:04 am
4.3 million went a lot further in 1959 than 4.5 million in 1996! It's an interesting point of comparison that these films essentially had similar budgets, and yet NbN is the height of mainstream blockbuster filmmaking for its time, and LS is clearly a low budget indie. Times change.
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Ryan Lefever
5/15/2021 07:52:51 pm
I completely agree with your point in North by Northwest that sometimes the scenes did not connect. During my first watch I needed to go back and rewatch a scene because I felt like I was missing something or there was a gap between scenes. Then again, I thought this was the directors subtle artistic approach to keep us on our toes. Additionally, I agree with you that the actual footages of places like Mount Rushmore gave a more adventurous vibe for the audience because of those realistic aspects of the film.
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Brian Leigh
5/19/2021 10:41:37 am
I really liked you highlighted the multiple storylines with this film in your post. It needed something additional because of the slow pace of the film. Having multiple racial, political, and family plots made this film better because of needing to focus throughout the film so you don't miss any details from each storyline. It was a really intelligent independent film. Good post.
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Film As Art:
From a college film course. Note: I haven't had time to write but I've seen many new movies since taking the class and hope to find spare time to continue writing reviews based on my interests rather than parameters of a class. THANK YOU! |