Explore the role played by performance in Hitchcock's films.

Explore the role played by performance in Hitchcock's films.

Introduction

Alfred Hitchcock is greatly recognized as an impulsive filmmaker who drives himself under his own work production by orchestra, authorial surrogates and conscious artifice. Every filmmaker of the time knows that Alfred Hitchcock is the best directors of that period. He is famous for his artistic suspense movies that succeeded widely in the sound and silent eras. His movies range from romantic comedies to suspense horror. He has an art to depict complex stories and smoothing the plot with his tactics. The fimlography of Hitchcock is striking and most of the performances went best. There is no doubt that many of the Hollywood great legends like Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, James Stewart and Grace Kelly wanted to work with Hitchcock on many occasions. The paper is intended to talk about the role played by performance in Hitchcock's films, which defines all key performances of Hitchcock's movies in his career.

Discussion

Hitchcock does not like the exaggeration of actors and he simply does not bear non-systematic approaches. He always believed that all actors must only focus on their performances and depend work on character and script to the screenwriters and directors. In an interview, the approach of actor is only fine in the theatre as he gets the free space for moving. But he was very strict is cutting the face and make it more disciplined. While making the lifeboat, Walter Slezak who played the role of German character said that Hitchcock was completely aware about the acting mechanics than anyone in the film industry.

Various critics have found that apart from his popularity as a man who does not like actors; many actors, who played role in his movies, gave brilliant performances. These performances also played great role in the success of movie. Dolly Haas, a fine actress who was also a friend of Hitchcock, worked for him in the movie “I Confess”. She personally stated that Hitchcock considered actors as animated props. Hitchcock said to Truffaut that actors are like the props and the part of movie setting (Allen, 2007). According to him, the key requisite for an actor is the capability of doing nothing, which does not sound good or easy. He must want to utilize and integrate it in the picture by the camera and director. Hitchcock allowed the camera to hold the complete focus for giving dramatic highlights. In the ending part of 1950s, French New Wave critics such as François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol were the first who considered the movies of Hitchcock as an artistic piece. He was the first director, to whom they enforced their Auteur theory that stress the authority of the director in the process of movie making. The vision and innovations of Hitchcock have determined numerous filmmakers, actors and producers. His determination started a trend for movie directors for controlling the artistic expressions of their motives without replying to film ...