A few comments from the journals ( The 39 Steps) :

1. A few comments from the journals (The 39 Steps): “Hannay is instinctively chivalrous toward Pamela. He hangs her stockings by the fireplace to dry and offers her a Kleenex when she sneezes. . . . Hannay shifts from being someone who needs to confess and ask for help to one who helps adapts to whatever his situation demands.” The reactions of Annabella when she enters Hannay’s apartment “work as a kind of double revealing process because we not only see her fear but also his reaction to her strangeness.” “The end provides us with the same feeling [of identifying with Hannay] by the use of the camera. When Mr. Memory is telling his secret, everyone is crowded around him. With this use of the camera we feel as if we were another person kneeling beside him. . . . This feeling . . . Is reinforced when the camera focuses on the hands of the new couple not from a high or low angle but dead on. We are eye-level with their intimacy.” “During the kiss with the cool blonde to hide from the police on the train, Hitchcock cuts from the woman’s reaction to her tense, stiff arms and hands to show her objection and discomfort. The close-up of her hands tells us as much about her objection as her facial reaction.” “A great pan of the inside of the music hall shows a wide array of patrons. There are a lot of quick editing moments when Mr. Memory takes the stage that really grant the scene a rather chaotic feel. The stylized change in lighting in the apartment foreshadows the sinister nature of what is to come.” “The car being stuck on the bridge mirrors the train scene; both times Hannay escapes certain doom.” “We watch Pamela in near silence as it dawns on her that Hannay is innocent.”

2. A few other shots from the film that catch the eye. What might be the larger purpose? Some useful terms from the examples: negative space; open-frame forms (and the opposite: closed-frame forms); canted (or oblique or tilted or Dutch) angle; soft focus

3. Some visual examples from Sabotage Some useful terms: closed-frame visual forms; chiaroscuro (high-contrast light & dark); motif; blocking (or hostile) foreground element Extra-credit question. Did you notice the mistake that Donald Spoto makes in discussing Sabotage? He must have rewritten his chapter without reviewing the film. Explain in a sentence or two the mistake on the back of your journal page.

4. The first part of Ted Haimes’ 1999 documentary Dial H for Hitchcock covered these points: the introductory “pure cinema” montage general comments from other filmmakers about Hitchcock the concept of Hitchcock as genius and showman the concept of Hitchcock’s characters stepping into “private traps” biographical summary: Hitchcock’s early years, marriage to Alma Reville, birth of daughter the importance of The Lodger and Blackmail

5. A second documentary about Hitchcock also appeared in 1999. This one was by nonfiction filmmaker Michael Epstein, and it seems to have been suggested by the idea behind Leonard J. Leff’s book. (Leff appears in the documentary.) The film is called Hitchcock, Selznick, and the End of Hollywood. It covers the seven-year collaboration of the director and producer and the way Hollywood was changing. It is a good way of learning about the way movies were made in Hitchcock’s era (and how he may have benefited from restraint). Here is what the first portion covers (and what you need to know): the rigid Hollywood studio (i.e., assembly line) system background on Selznick (his father, his ambition, his wife, his needs) background on Hitchcock (his “evening confession,” his jail trauma, Berlin and UFA, the “shy guy,” his directing technique, expressionistic sound in Blackmail) the unimportance of directors in 1930s Hollywood; Selznick’s tyranny over directors (and everybody else); Gone with the Wind the unimportance of filmmaking in 1930s England; Hitchcock’s first American film (Rebecca) and the clash of working method with Selznick (i.e., Hitchcock’s “jigsaw cutting”)