Dramatic Tension in Hitchcock’s Films—Taking North by Northwest as an Example

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201215.413How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Dramatic tension, narrative structure, filming techniques, suspense

Abstract

North by Northwest was directed by Hitchcock in 1959, which represented Hitchcock’s filming style. This paper attempts to analyze how Hitchcock constructed dramatic tension and the uniqueness of dramatic tension in his films. In addition, this paper aims to discover ways that film workers today can learn from Hitchcock and make progress in their films. By interpreting the narrative structure, filming techniques and suspense in North by Northwest, this paper concludes that Hitchcock utilized three innovative means which are the unexpected transition in character’s personality/identity, the crucial use of MacGuffin and suspense, and the restriction in plots caused by optical POV to enhance the dramatic tension. Therefore, film makers can learn the three approaches from Hitchcock.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Junming Jiang
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/17
TI  - Dramatic Tension in Hitchcock’s Films—Taking North by Northwest as an Example
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 160
EP  - 164
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201215.413
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201215.413
ID  - Jiang2020
ER  -