![]() ![]() In a movie like Psycho, the truth lies at the top of the stairs. Were we moving somewhere forbidden? Somewhere sensual? Was going up the stairs terrifying? Arousing? Enticing? No matter the story, Hitchcock always considered how staircases transporting the character would also transport the story. ![]() I think his focus on how they affected character and mood is key here. So what set Hitchcock apart from other people depicting staircases?Īs the video description says, "Hitchcock made the staircase a recurring motif in his complex grammar of suspense-a device by which potential energy could be, metaphorically and literally, loaded into narrative, a zone of unsteady or vertiginous passage from one space to another, always on the verge of becoming a site of violence." Guess what? The last shot of Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot (1976), features a character sitting down on a staircase, looking into the camera, and winking. One of the things the video silently points out is that the first shot of Hitchcock's first film, The Pleasure Garden (1925), is of a line of women streaming down a spiral staircase. ![]() If you didn't think stairs were thematic and emblematic of this auteur's work, I think you stand corrected. How Hitchcock's Use of Stairs Was Different Than Any Other Directorįirst off, let's talk about how the stair shots in that video are from 39 different Hitchcock movies. Watch this stair supercut from Max Tohline, and let's talk after. They transported you into danger, offered escape, capitalized on phobias, and signified impending doom. When you think about it, stairs became an incredible and integral part of the stories he told. One of the things he shot differently than almost anyone else is stairs. For a director famous for putting average people in above-average scenarios, maybe this shouldn't be surprising. One of the many things I admire about Hitchcock is how he could take an ordinary object and turn it into the extraordinary. He was a larger-than-life personality whose career was red hot for almost three decades, but it burnt so bright it was an absolute travesty the way it faded in his final years. So few directors have his swagger, his mystique. There's just something about Alfred Hitchcock. ![]()
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